Montparnasse Cemetery
Beckett is with the red flowers
Besides my "Complete Works of Shakespeare," the only other play that I brought to Paris is "Waiting for Godot." While looking through a guidebook in my uncle's apartment I came across a blurb about the Montparnasse cemetery which said that Samuel Beckett, author of "Waiting for Godot," was buried there. So I grabbed the play and set off in search of his grave. Montparnasse is a neighborhood in Paris close to where I am staying. After walking for a little over a half hour I came to the cemetery. I had a hard time finding his grave because I assumed that it would be a very prominent one, dramatic, perhaps with a statue or two. I passed right over it twice before recognizing that it was a simple smooth granite grave standing not more than eight inches off the ground. I sat down and read my favorite part, "Lucky's Speach," which ends with a chilling "in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard tennis...the stones...so calm...Cunard...unfinished..." Haven't quite figured out what it all means but it gave me the creeps sitting in a cemetery by the grave of the man who wrote it.
