“...for the first time in my life... I had to contend with a feeling which gradually assumed, to my dismay, the dread name of love…”
First Love is a short story by Samuel Beckett, In it a man, who now spends his time ‘taking the air’ in graveyards, recounts an episode in his life, when having been expelled from his family home upon the death of his father, he met a woman, one evening, on a bench. From this meeting, his developing and tormenting infatuation leads him to moving into her home, where their unexpected union results in dire consequences.
The monologue brims with Beckett’s distinct black humor and balances spite, humanity and pathos. Regarded as one of the best short stories ever written, First Love is a perfect blend of tragedy and comedy. As Beckett said “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness”. A love story, like only Beckett could conceive
Image by:Egon Schiele
