"To a biography of me, I say 'Yes'", finally Beckett said to James Knowlson who had been persisting to procure the Jameson Irish whiskey drinker's long-delayed consent to write his biography. Likewise, to your suggestion for a chat on things Beckettian by e-mail, I say, 'Yes' immediately, without delay, as Hamlet promises his father's ghost. The irony is that Hamlet was not 'apt' in fulfilling his commitment and crrrrrrrritics (Beckett's spelling of critics in WAITING FOR GODOT) usually associate Hamlet with delay. In July 2005 I went to Reading and met Knowlson and wife Elizabeth and they invited me to a chicken lunch at the Senior Common Room, College of Arts, University of Reading, and a few days later they invited me to a garden high tea at their home where Elizabeth prided herself on having been kissed by Beckett in his Paris flat. I did good readings in Reading at the Beckett Archive, Beckett International Foundation, University of Reading Library where Julian Garforth works as a Beckett Researcher. Among the things I read was Anne Attik's book HOW IT WAS where she, running out of adjectives in the English language to describe how Beckett was a good-hearted soul, she resorts to the Hebrew language to borrow the word tsaddik to desribe him. Tsaddik in Hebrew means the veracious the truthful, the rightuous and the sincere. The Arabic language, being a sister Semitic language of Hebrew, has the same word meaning the same as in Hebrew, with a slight spelling varaition, and my name Siddeek is this word in Arabic. What thickened the coincidence is that the name of the secretary at the Beckett Archive is Verity Andrews and Verity means the veracious, the truthful and the sincere, ie the English version of Hebrew tsaddik and the Arabic version of siddeek. After reading about Beckett being tsaddik in Attik's description, I rushed to Verity and told her that her name and my name and Beckett as described in Hebrew by Anne Attik are the same and one thing. Here endeth the first part of things Beckettian for the time being on my part


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You remember Keats' poem that runs: "When I have fears that I will cease to exist", etc... What's the poem about? I think fear of disaster goes back originally to Noah who lived under the fear that is symbolised by the deluge, hence he built a ship. I think the Noahian fear of imminent menace is part of the human psyche, collectively and indivisually. This fear of imminent menace is coupled with the sense of nearing to the end. "Nearly finished", says Christ on the cross, and when asked about the end (alsaa'a) Mohammed brought his index and thumb to the point they nearly touched and he said, "As near as this". No playwright portrays this hunch of fear of coming to the end like Harold Pinter does in whose plays there is always the menace of losing what one possesses. There is no guarantee that the woman who is in your bed tonight will stay as she is in the following morning. There is no guarantee that one will retain his health, money and social life as they are now. In Metamorphosis Franz Kafka depicts this theme when he makes his character Gregor Samsa transform from a human into a cockroach. On the other hand, when Adam and Eve were dismissed from Eden, they thought it was going to be a couple of hours, days no longer. It was Cain who after 70 years discovered it was going to be a long story so he ordered music and dance and festivity to while away the time till going back

Raymond Williams

Raymond Williams, Welshman, Communist and author of Drama from Ibsen to Eliot, enlarged and re-titled, Drama from Ibsen to Brecht was Professor of English Literature in Univesity of Cambridge in early 1950s when among his students was Omar Pound, son of Ezra Pound, poet, Fascist and provoker. Hussam AlKhatib, a Palestinian who lives in Ann Arbor for the benefits of democracy and works over here in Doha for the profits of petrodollars, was also a student of Williams'. He told me that one day Williams invited him and other students to his Cambridge rooms where when they first entered they saw Williams at the sink washing with his hands his blue collar blouse