How It Is Read Free

tendency to add). Beckett makes
     local adjustments to rhythm in order to preserve the overall identity of the work
     – its repetitive principle, the brevity of its sense units – allowing the rhythm to
     be naturalised within the new environment of English. The overall effect of specific
     changes, either on the prose rhythms or on our perception of the fictional world,
     is almost negligible. Comment c’est and How It Is are in fact very close.
    Likewise, the British and American editions of How It Is, which appeared in quick succession in April 1964 (Calder and Boyars, Grove Press)
     differ in only a dozen or so places. The variants are minor and fall into two categories.
     In some cases, Beckett appears to accommodate differences in British and American
     usage by replacing an existing phrase with a synonym more likely to be familiar to
     an American reader (compare ‘what are the hands at’ and ‘what are the hands up to’).
     In these cases, the present edition favours the Calder and Boyars text. In a very
     few instances, Beckett appears to have continued revising the Grove text, introducing
     a phrase (never deleting) where there was none in Calder and Boyars. Again, such additions
     serve to clarify content, and they modify only slightly the local rhythm of the fragment.
     In these cases, this edition favours the Grove Press reading.
    Notes
    1 Samuel Beckett, Comment c’est, How It Is and L’image: A Critical-Genetic Edition, ed. Édouard Magessa O’Reilly (London: Routledge, 2001, p. 301).
    2 James Knowlson, Damned to Fame, The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996).
    3 Comment c’est, How It Is and L’image ( op. cit., p. 314).
    4 A development explored in S.E. Gontarski, The Intent of Undoing in Samuel Beckett’s Dramatic Texts (Bloomington, Indiana U.P., 1985).
    5 Comment c’est, How It Is and L’image ( op. cit., p. 234).
    6 Comment c’est, How It Is and L’image ( op. cit., pp. 251-261).
    7 Three translated excerpts of work-in-progress appeared in print, prior to the novel’s
     volume-publication in English: ‘From an Unabandoned Work’ ( Evergreen Review, September 1960), ‘From How It Is’ (Paris Review, Summer-Fall 1962) and ‘Conclusion of How It Is ’(Transatlantic Review, Summer 1963). These excerpts contain minor variants.

Table of Dates
    Where unspecified, translations from French to English or vice versa are by Beckett.
    1906
 
13 April
Samuel Beckett [Samuel Barclay Beckett] born in ‘Cooldrinagh’, a house in Foxrock,
     a village south of Dublin, on Good Friday, the second child of William Beckett and
     May Beckett, née Roe; he is preceded by a brother, Frank Edward, born 26 July 1902.
1911
 
 
Enters kindergarten at Ida and Pauline
Elsner’s private academy in Leopardstown.
1915
 
 
Attends larger Earlsfort House School in Dublin.
1920
 
 
Follows Frank to Portora Royal, a distinguished Protestant boarding school in Enniskillen,
     County Fermanagh (soon to become part of Northern Ireland).
1923
 
October
Enrols at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) to study for an Arts degree.
1926
 
August
First visit to France, a month-long cycling tour of the Loire Valley.
1927
 
April–August
Travels through Florence and Venice, visiting museums, galleries, and churches.
December
Receives B.A. in Modern Languages (French and Italian) and graduates first in the
     First Class.
1928
 
Jan.–June
Teaches French and English at Campbell College, Belfast.
September
First trip to Germany to visit seventeen-year-old Peggy Sinclair, a cousin on his
     father’s side, and her family in Kassel.
1 November
Arrives in Paris as an exchange lecteur at the École Normale Supérieure. Quickly becomes friends with his predecessor, Thomas
     McGreevy [after 1943, MacGreevy], who introduces Beckett to James Joyce and other
     influential anglophone writers and publishers.
December
Spends Christmas in Kassel (as also in 1929, 1930 and 1931).
1929
 
June
Publishes first critical essay