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By Patricia Kokori Reviewed by Katerina Delikonstantinidou<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n Yet another volume on Beckett, this one professing to respond to the apparently ever-relevant \u201caesthetic radicalism\u201d of the great Irish dramatist and to the demand for \u201cthe invention of new critical positions\u201d that this radicalism has created on the international scene generally and Greece specifically. In the Introduction, scholar Patricia Kokori lays out her intention to look at why Beckett\u2019s post-war dramas\u2014Waiting for Godot<\/em>, Endgame<\/em>, and Happy Days<\/em>\u2014\u201chave not lost their call to interrogate the subject\u2019s relations to self, other and the world\u201d (12); an ambition that the book, unfortunately, falls short of fulfilling because its objective is so broad that it compromises the endeavor as a whole.<\/p>\n Indeed, Kokori aspires to contextualize the entire international reception of Beckett while making up for the lack of scholarly attention to \u201cGreek production history and critical reception\u201d of his work, by examining, among other things, \u201chow the duality of the virtual and the actual in Beckett\u2019s plays has been perceived in the particular Greek cultural context.\u201d To do that, she situates Greek Beckett performances within the international performance history, and even seeks to show \u201chow relevant the plays are for audiences of nations with turbulent history\u201d (12-13).<\/p>\n Perhaps it is for the best that this last point is barely touched upon in the course of the study as it would only compound the confusion of intermingling readings and perspectives on various issues, from Theodor Adorno\u2019s position on the social\/political function of Beckett\u2019s \u201cprotest\u201d\u2014or \u201coppositional\u201d\u2014art (15), to liberal humanist, existentialist-inflected, phenomenological, and deconstructionist interpretative attempts on Beckett\u2019s works.<\/p>\n The volume is divided in two parts. Part One, \u201cChallenges and Allures of Beckett\u2019s Drama,\u201d deals with the development of Beckett\u2019s \u201caesthetic thinking,\u201d to use Kokori\u2019s phrasing (67), as it intersects with key points in the history of modernism, with major critical frameworks that have shaped the reception of Beckett\u2019s work, and with detailed discussions of the three play-texts. Part Two, \u201cPerformance Approaches to Beckett in Greece,\u201d traces chronologically the production history and critical reception of these three plays in two specific periods, 1960-1980 and 1980-2010. Suffice it to say here, Kokori\u2019s account of Greek reception, ultimately, plays a secondary role in the study.<\/p>\n Chapter One contextualizes the \u201cgenesis\u201d and evolution of the Beckettian \u201cpresentational art form\u201d (42) by means of a blend of biographical facts, early artistic views and interests, \u00a0intellectual influences (from the Pre-Socratic philosophers to modern philosophers, modernist icons such as Joyce, Bergson and Artaud, and psychoanalytic theory and practice), and suggestions as to Beckett\u2019s and his works\u2019 political inclinations. The latter point is taken up in more detail in the second chapter where Kokori discusses Adorno\u2019s \u201ccritique perspective\u201d of Beckett\u2019s negative aesthetic (14) and offers a brief overview of critical approaches to his \u201cradical poetics,\u201d which is also an account of how this contesting \u201cinterpretative pluralism\u201d functions in the Beckett construct.<\/p>\n The treatment of a number of issues, concepts and themes, recurrent in Beckett\u2019s work (and its reception), in these chapters, could perhaps be useful for \u201cstudents and general readers with little knowledge of Beckett\u201d (31)\u2014the book\u2019s designated target readership. But even these readers must read past\u2014and not trouble themselves with\u2014the quite puzzling usage of specific terms such as \u201cmaterial,\u201d \u201cconcrete\u201d and \u201cconcretisation,\u201d \u201cnegative,\u201d \u201cpositive\u201d and \u201cpositivist,\u201d in several different senses (and without relevant clarification), throughout the chapters. Furthermore, although Kokori obviously favors Adorno\u2019s approach to the political potential of Beckett\u2019s plays and dwells on it in many instances, she frequently reiterates the point of his work\u2019s constitutive political ambiguity; this ultimately obscures her own thesis and thus detracts from the cohesiveness of the book as a whole.<\/p>\n The last chapters address the different ways Greek directors and critics have responded to the challenges for what she calls \u201cinhabitual perception\u201d set by Beckett\u2019s plays. Here, as in many other instances throughout the book, readers are invited to employ their imaginative skills in dealing with Kokori\u2019s use of jargon in discussing these plays. The author attempts to assess the \u201ccritical vigour,\u201d \u201csubversive quality\u201d and \u201ccritique potential\u201d of Beckett\u2019s work in Greece mainly by way of Greek theatre criticism (indeed, Chapter Seven could be subtitled \u201cKostas Georgousopoulos\u2019 View on the Matter\u201d), especially insofar as post-modernist experimentation bears on treatments of the plays, an element which risks commodifying Beckett\u2019s work. Her final conclusion is that the \u201cfigures and situations\u201d of Beckett\u2019s theatre work are inherently resistant \u201cto preferred modes of viewing and genre narratives,\u201d a quality that \u201cprevent[s] their transformation into a consumer commodity\u201d (265). My own view is that this conclusion needs to be qualified significantly if it is to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n In the end, I would not recommend the book to undergraduate students\u2014I think it would be more confusing than helpful to them. But for readers with knowledge of Beckett who are interested in his work\u2019s international reception, it could be of some use in enabling comparisons between Beckett\u2019s own directorial and critical approaches, revised over the years by the artist himself, and what audiences actually receive.<\/p>\n And one final comment: the volume is in serious need of editorial correction throughout, something that is probably less the author\u2019s fault than that of the publishing house. Whoever\u2019s fault, it should be seen to as quickly as possible.<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>289 pp. Athens: Nefeli <\/strong><\/p>\n
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