The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedSamuel Beckett
Title QuotedMore Pricks Than Kicks
Date (Year/Month/Day)1968/01/20
Imprint[S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1934I
QuotationBeckett arrived in the midst of a flu epidemic and so it happened that last night, being holed in up here in the woods and unable to sleep, I finally hoisted my ruined frame out of bed, opened up the Mass wine and the Beckett underground Xerox special. Great midnight illumination. The book is every bit as good as [Joyce's] Dubliners and perhaps better. Anyhow I like it better. The writing is superb. "Dante and the Lobster" is a perfect piece of work, and shattering. Much to be said about all the loneliness stuff, solitude and society and so forth throughout the book. And merciful Mother Church ("Ding Dong"). The whole question of mercy, suffering. I mean, is the man such a cur if he demands that, after all, those who talk about mercy finally mean something by it? And if he declines to be convinced by their protestations in a dead language? (By which I don't mean Latin, either) "¦ Still flung face down with flu.
Quotation SourceThe Hidden Ground of Love: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns.; Selected and edited by William H. Shannon. / New York : Farrar Straus Giroux. 1985, p. 640
Letter toJune J. Yungblut
Notes 
Link to Merton's Copy  

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