After Beckett: The Influence of Samuel Beckett on the Fiction of J. G. Farrell

Abstract

The presence of Malcolm Lowry and Vladimir Nabokov in J. G. Farrell’s writing has been observed by many critics, and meticulously documented by Chris Ackerley in his essay “A Fox in the Dongeon: the Presence of Malcolm Lowry in the Early Fiction of J. G. Farrell.” Ackerley’s sagacious title also recognizes the echoes of Richard Hughes that reverberate through Farrell’s fiction.1 Ackerley notes also that ‘the ghost of Samuel Beckett may be felt throughout Farrell’s early work, but less as a conscious identity than as a brooding implicit presence.” 2 Yet the influence of Beckett on Farrell’s work remains ill defined.