Written by an outstanding scholar and critic who was one of the first to recognize Beckett's genius, this classic study of the novelist and playwright Samuel Beckett has been praised for its refreshingly personal approach and its many new insights. A personal approach is blended skillfully with a persuasive dialectical discussion of the complex paradoxes in Beckett's writings--gentleman/tramp, intellect/emotion, Ireland/the World, eye/ear, artist/philosopher, man/woman. It also presents a lively, almost irreverent study of women in Beckett's work.