Not I

© Copyright Oscar Grillo 2010

"Not I" (No a mi) de Samuel Beckett.

"... Su reacción inicial al acontecimiento paralizador debe asumir que está siendo castigada por Dios, pero encuentra que no sufre; no siente ningún dolor, como en la vida no sintió ningún placer. No puede entender por qué podría estar siendo castigada, pero acepta que Dios no necesita “ninguna razón particular” para hacer lo que hace. Piensa que tiene algo para contar aunque no sepa que pero cree que si narra los acontecimientos de su vida encontrara esa cosa por la cual tiene que conseguir el perdón..."

"Not I" by Samuel Beckett.

"Not I" tells the story of a woman of about seventy who having been abandoned by her parents after a premature birth has lived a loveless, mechanical existence and who appears to have suffered an unspecified traumatic experience. The woman has been virtually mute since childhood apart from occasional outbursts, one of which comprises the text we hear. From the text it could be inferred that the woman had been raped but this is something Beckett was very clear about when asked: “How could you think of such a thing! No, no, not at all – it wasn’t that at all". It seems more likely that she has suffered some kind of collapse, possibly even her death while “wandering in a field … looking aimlessly for cowslips.”

The woman relates four incidents from her life: lying face down in the grass, standing in a supermarket, sitting on a “mound in Croker's Acre” (a real place in Ireland near Leopardstown racecourse) and “that time at court”, each being preceded by a repeat on the repressed first ‘scene’ which has been likened to an epiphany; whatever happened to her in that field in April was the trigger for her to start talking.
Her initial reaction to the paralysing event is to assume she is being punished by God but finds she is not suffering; she feels no pain, as in life she felt no pleasure. She cannot think why she might be being punished but accepts that God does not need a “particular reason” for what He does. She thinks she has something to tell though doesn’t know what but believes if she goes over the events of her life for long enough she will stumble upon that thing for which she needs to seek forgiveness. In addition to the continued buzzing in her skull there is now a light of varying intensity tormenting her; the two seem related.

(From Wikipedia).

Música:
The Thelonious Monk Quartet feat. John Coltrane
Crepuscule with Nellie (1958)
Blue Note CDP7.99786-2

The Thelonious Monk Quartet feat. John Coltrane: John Coltrane (ts) Thelonious Monk (p) Ahmed Abdul-Malik (b) Roy Haynes (d). Live, "Five Spot Café", New York, September 11, 1958