Word: mercier
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...MERCIER AND GAMIER by SAMUEL BECKETT 123 pages. Grove Press...
...Mercier and Camier was finally published in France in 1970, and Beckett then translated it into English. In the light of all he has written since, this early novel seems positively pastoral. Two seedy stumblebums named Mercier and Camier, forerunners of Estragon and Vladimir in Godot, set out on a mysterious journey through vaguely Irish scenery. Mercier is "a big bony hank with a beard," and Camier has a "red face, scant hair, four chins, protruding paunch, bandy legs, beady pig eyes." Naturally their amblings attract attention. A policeman who sees them warns: "This is a sidewalk, not a circus...
...this novel. The universe here is the biggest of all big tops. Mercier and Camier are unwilling clowns in a performance they do not under stand. They are saddled with props - a reluctant umbrella, a sack, a raincoat and a bicycle - and trip helplessly into Alphonse-Gaston stage routines. They are the butt of exquisitely timed mal functions. Their umbrella refuses to open just as the rain, "acting on behalf of the universal malignity," comes down in buckets...
...instance, there is a similar book on Beckett that contains an elaborate chart of the "genealogy" of Beckett's work. The aim is to show how unified the whole oeuvre is in a movement towards its own final extinction. Molloy is a descendent of Watt, and a cousin to Mercier et Camier; Godot is grandfather to Lessness. Alvarez's book is written at a time and from a critical viewpoint that successfully demonstrate this Beckettian family of worlds in generation, and gives a sense of its underlying rhythms. For Beckett, the search for less--and finally for nothing...
...sculpture--a work of American sculptress Marie-Zoe Greene-Mercier '33--was stolen on May 12 from a car parked on Washington St. in Boston. The car belonged to Martha Alinda, a friend of the artist, who had driven the art work from New York for exhibition in the annual Radcliffe alumnae art show...