Haha, of course, who else but Samuel Beckett could make sense of the first four months of parenthood? Here's mom/blogger Stephany Aulenback talking about the boardbook she conceived [heh], Beckett for Babies:
Beckett's work is bleak yet comic, much like parenting; on the whole it attempts to sort out such knotty problems as "the absurdity of existence" and "the mystery of the self." These are, of course, precisely the problems that infants and toddlers (not to mention their parents) struggle with on a daily basis.The best [sic] line, "They give birth astride the grave," turns out to be rather difficult to illustrate, at least on the public-facing blog. Enjoy it while it lasts; I'm sure it won't be a long wait for Beckett's executors to come along and smother this boardbook baby in its crib.
Beckett for Babies by Stephany Aulenback [crookedhouse via maudnewton]
"Haha, of course, who else but Samuel Beckett could make sense of the first four months of parenthood?"
Here's the "sense" Samuel Beckett really makes: Don't breed babies. He and his wife of 40 years never did.
"NO," he replied, when I asked him [Beckett] if he had ever wanted children, "THAT'S ONE THING I'M PROUD OF."
What was it he [Beckett] said about the prospect of raising a child? "NEITHER I NOR MY WIFE CAN BEAR THE THOUGHT OF COMMITTING A CHILD TO DEATH."
[So he had his glum days now and then, but don't we all? I guess it's the tight rein that his estate keeps on his work that limits the online citations of these quotes to a single BBC site commenter. -ed.]