''Mercier and Camier'' is a novel by

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

that was written in 1946, but remained unpublished until 1970. Appearing immediately before his celebrated "trilogy" of '' Molloy'', '' Malone Dies'' and '' The Unnamable'', ''Mercier et Camier'' was Beckett's first attempt at extended prose fiction in French. Beckett refused to publish it in its original French until 1970, and while an English translation by Beckett himself was published in 1974 (London: Calder and Boyars and New York:

Grove Press Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United S ...

), the author had made substantial alterations to and deletions from the original text while "reshaping" it from French to English. The novel features the "pseudocouple" Mercier and his friend, the private investigator Camier, in their repeated attempts to leave a city, a thinly disguised version of

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, only to abandon their journey and return. Frequent visits are paid to "Helen's Place," a tawdry house modeled on that of legendary Dublin madam Becky Cooper (much like Becky Cooper, Helen has a talking parrot). A much-changed

Watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

makes a cameo appearance, bringing his stick down on a pub table and yelling "Fuck life!" The story may reference the kidnap and murder of Noel Lemass in 1923 by Free State secret police from Oriel House. Lemass was kidnapped after lunching with his former boss and discussing returning to his job now that the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

was over. His boss saw him taken into Oriel House. Lemass disappeared; his decayed body was finally found in the Featherbeds in the Dublin Mountains.

References

External links

* Keith Ridgway on ''Mercier and Camier'
''The Guardian'' 19 July 2003
1946 novels Novels by Samuel Beckett Novels set in Dublin (city) 1970 novels {{1940s-novel-stub