{"id":1955,"date":"2018-01-15T14:12:12","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T14:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reading.ac.uk\/the-forum\/?p=1955"},"modified":"2018-01-15T14:12:12","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T14:12:12","slug":"beckett-creative-fellowship-eimear-mcbride-blog-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2018\/01\/15\/beckett-creative-fellowship-eimear-mcbride-blog-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Beckett Creative Fellowship \u2013 Eimear McBride blog Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2018\/01\/EimearMcBride-Beckett-Fellow-story.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1956\" src=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/72\/2018\/01\/EimearMcBride-Beckett-Fellow-story-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It was pretty cold when I visited the archive in December and, in rebellion at the pummellings of pre-Christmas cheer, I ordered up some drafts of Beckett\u2019s final prose work \u2018Stirrings Still.\u2019 \u00a0I was intrigued by the description in Jim Knowlson\u2019s biography of the physical frailty evident in Beckett\u2019s handwriting as he worked on it in the last years of his life.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>While much romance is attached to the notion of \u2018living fast and dying young\u2019 I find the idea of the artist who has survived into old age embarking on what, they must suspect, will be their final work indescribably moving. That Beckett probably knew, with \u2018Stirrings Still\u2019, he would be setting down the burden of his lifelong struggle with the word, is almost unbearable. So then to witness how, even at this late\/last stage, he was still completely engaged in that struggle is extraordinary, inspiring. His penmanship has indeed become spidery and fragile but his insistence on his customary, methodically honed, perfection remains unforgiving. He moves back and forth between English and French until the correct language has become apparent and then follows draft upon meticulously corrected draft until he is satisfied. His final \u2018Oh all to end\u2019 manages to, at once, encapsulate the preoccupations of his entre literary life and provide a flawless a sign-off to it.<\/p>\n<p><em>Multi-award-winning author Eimeer McBride is\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reading.ac.uk\/news-and-events\/releases\/PR746482.aspx\">Reading\u2019s first Beckett Creative Fellow<\/a>, and has been given unique access to our internationally important\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reading.ac.uk\/special-collections\/collections\/sc-beckett.aspx\">Beckett Archive<\/a>\u00a0&#8211; the largest collection of publicly accessible Samuel Beckett materials in the world.\u00a0This is\u00a0her\u00a0latest monthly\u00a0journal entry about her\u00a0experiences of working with the materials.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was pretty cold when I visited the archive in December and, in rebellion at the pummellings of pre-Christmas cheer, I ordered up some drafts of Beckett\u2019s final prose work&#8230;<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"&#104;&#116;&#116;&#112;&#115;&#58;&#47;&#47;&#114;&#101;&#115;&#101;&#97;&#114;&#99;&#104;&#46;&#114;&#101;&#97;&#100;&#105;&#110;&#103;&#46;&#97;&#99;&#46;&#117;&#107;&#47;&#114;&#101;&#115;&#101;&#97;&#114;&#99;&#104;&#45;&#98;&#108;&#111;&#103;&#47;&#50;&#48;&#49;&#56;&#47;&#48;&#49;&#47;&#49;&#53;&#47;&#98;&#101;&#99;&#107;&#101;&#116;&#116;&#45;&#99;&#114;&#101;&#97;&#116;&#105;&#118;&#101;&#45;&#102;&#101;&#108;&#108;&#111;&#119;&#115;&#104;&#105;&#112;&#45;&#101;&#105;&#109;&#101;&#97;&#114;&#45;&#109;&#99;&#98;&#114;&#105;&#100;&#101;&#45;&#98;&#108;&#111;&#103;&#45;&#112;&#97;&#114;&#116;&#45;&#50;&#47;\">Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[106,108,302,796,910],"class_list":["post-1955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heritage-creativity","tag-beckett-archive","tag-beckett-research-centre","tag-eimear-mcbride","tag-samuel-beckett","tag-university-of-reading"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8.1 - 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