Molloy (novel)

Molloy

1955 Grove Press edition
Author	Samuel Beckett
Translator	Patrick Bowles, in collaboration with the author
Country	France
Language	French
Series	'The Trilogy'
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Les Éditions de Minuit (French); Grove Press (English)
Publication date	French, 1951; English, 1955
Followed by	Malone Dies (Malone Meurt)

Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett written in French and first published by Paris-based Les Éditions de Minuit in 1951. The English translation, published in 1955, is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles.

On first appearance the book concerns two different characters, both of whom have interior monologues in the book. As the story moves along the two characters are distinguished by name only as their experiences and thoughts are similar. The novel is set in an indeterminate place, most often identified with the Ireland of Beckett's birth. It was written in Paris, along with the other two books (Malone Dies and The Unnamable) of 'The Trilogy', between 1946 and 1950. 'The Trilogy' is generally considered to be one of the most important literary works of the 20th century, and the most important non-dramatic work in Beckett's oeuvre.

The majority of the first chapter is made up of Molloy's inner musings interspersed with the action of the plot. It is split into two paragraphs. The first is less than two pages long; the second paragraph lasts for over eighty pages. In the first we are given a vague idea of the setting Molloy is writing in. We are told that he now lives in his mother's room, though how he arrived there or whether his mother died before or during his stay is apparently forgotten. There is also a man who arrives every Sunday to pick up what Molloy has written and bring back what he had taken last week returning them "marked with signs" though Molloy never cares to read them. He describes that his purpose while writing is to "speak of the things that are left, say [his] goodbyes, finish dying." In the second paragraph he describes a journey he had taken some time earlier, before he came there, to find his mother. He spends much of it on his bicycle, gets arrested for resting on it in a way that is considered lewd, but is unceremoniously released. From town to anonymous town and across anonymous countryside, he encounters a succession of bizarre characters: an elderly man with a stick; a policeman; a charity worker; a woman whose dog he kills running over it with a bike (her name is never completely determined: "a Mrs Loy... or Lousse, I forget, Christian name something like Sophie"), and one whom he falls in love with ("Ruth" or maybe "Edith"); He abandons his bicycle (which he will not call "bike"), walks in no certain direction, meeting "a young old man"; a charcoal-burner living in the woods, whom he attacks and savagely beats.