Beckett, Lacan and the Gaze

"Brown reminds us of how the art dealer Duveen covered with thick varnish the paintings displayed in his shop, because his clients liked to see their image reflected in the works. Beckett does exactly the contrary: he removes the varnish from all images of the human condition, yet makes us see ourselves reflected in his dark mirror. Brown has repeated the feat of writing with verve and intelligence about this process whereby Beckett rinses and cleanses our vision, showing cogently that Beckett’s nihilistic turpentine is the best remedy facing our moribund society of the spectacle."—Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
"Informed by a judicious and lucid engagement with the work of Jacques Lacan, Brown offers a compelling analysis of Beckett’s relentless investigation of the act of seeing—and, above all, of not seeing."—Shane Weller, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Kent
"Llewellyn Brown’s Beckett, Lacan and the Gaze is a comprehensive, not to say encyclopaedic treatment of a motif that is central to both writers’ work. […] This is psychoanalytic criticism of the highest order. Brown’s admirably erudite work also performs the invaluable service of bringing into conversation French and English language critics of Beckett’s work that are all too often ignorant of one another’s traditions."—David Lloyd, Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Riverside