In Competition 2814 you were invited to describe how a great writer stumbled upon an idea that he or she later put to good use.
Thanks to Messrs Allgar and Moore, Brians both, for suggesting that I challenge competitors to imagine the unlikely circumstances in which the seeds of great literary works were sown.
I enjoyed Chris O’Carroll’s tale of the genesis of that famous stage direction ‘Exit pursued by a bear’ and John O’Byrne’s account of Samuel Beckett waiting with his mother for a bus that never comes. Stephen Walsh finds the origins of Hemingway’s spare, muscular prose in the classroom.
The winners take £25 each. Lydia Shaxberd earns £30.
Exhausted from his play, young Beckett slumped under the solitary tree. The new French master approached.
‘I believe I must congratulate you on your last — ow you say? — oeuvre?’
‘Over, Sir.’
‘I do not understand zis game. You will, perhaps, to expliquer?’
‘An hour later, the French master was even more puzzled. ‘So eet lasts for a long time and very leetle happens. And at ze end, maybe no one wins. Absurd!’
The team captain exchanged caps with the next batsman who replaced him on the pitch. Beckett paused to applaud.
‘That’s only the first part, Sir. After that, both teams start again. On the next day.’
‘You mean, you play a game and nothing happens twice? In France we would not stand for that — jamais.’
Beckett looked up at the tree. ‘I think it will have leaves tomorrow,’ he said.
Lydia Shaxberd
Harold Pinter has a friend called Simon with a torch. He gets himself a torch as well, out of envy. They climb into the school playground at night and play sinister games in the dark, like jumping at shadows. ‘Wait a tick,’ says Simon, ‘let’s use the torches to send messages to each other.’
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