Beckett and Coetzee: The aesthetics of insularity

Abstract

The permutations of sentence elements in Beckett's Watt have the impersonality (almost) of mathematics. The variations of combinations of the same elements in certain sections of the book could have been performed by a computer. It is noteworthy that J.M. Coetzee indeed subjects Beckett’s work to computer analysis, as if he responds to aspects of it by mirroring in his approach to it the essence of its automatism/autism/insularity. Coetzee’s own insularity, though, takes its bearing primarily from the socio-political state; Beckett’s, if linked to this, primarily from the individual estranged by the contemporary world. But Beckett shares with Coetzee the informing thrift necessary for the establishment of an aesthetics of insularity.