Thinking of Beckett, past the common caricature of him as a meaningless dispenser of gloom, and wondering why he means so much to so many...
And, my tentative answer is this. As a connisseur of the abyss, Beckett offers us a strange solace. First, he confirms our very worst suspicions about life, the absurdity and 'nothingness that shows through everything,' then he offers us the bitter relief of cackling it all off, by saying:
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.
Stuck between two impossibilities—'without the courage to end it, or the strength to go on,' as Beckett puts it—he, ultimately, finds the 'prospect of death vivifying.'
So, basically, Beckett is all of us...in the extreme.
Below, are remarkable excerpts of Samuel Beckett, in conversation with French poet, Charles Juliet:
What is demanded of the artist is that, as an individual, he vanish from his work...
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Yes, you must be here, and also, millions of light-years away. All at the same time… The fall of a leaf and the fall of Satan: it’s all the same.
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Writing has led me to Silence
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[The mystics] I like… I like their… their illogicality… their burning illogicality – the flame… the flame… which consumes all our filthy logic.
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Ever Tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again.
Fail again. Fail better.
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You're on earth. There's no cure for that.