I Tried and I Failed Now Go Fail Again Got

Samuel Beckett: Fail Better and "Worstward Ho!"

Today we're featuring a Samuel Beckett quote that has gained immense popularity in recent years. You may not accept known that this quote comes from Irish writer Samuel Beckett, merely there's no doubt yous know the words.

Even if you aren't involved in tech, entrepreneurship, lifehacking, or other such digital-age ubiquities, you've probably heard the most famous part of this Samuel Beckett quote: "Fail better."

The "Fail Better" Quote by Samuel Beckett

The "fail better" quote was originally published in Samuel Beckett's short slice of prose entitled Worstward Ho!, his second-to-final work ever published. The full Samuel Beckett quote reads like this (and past "full," we really hateful the part that gets repeated):

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No thing. Endeavour again. Neglect again. Fail better."

By itself, y'all can probably sympathize why this phrase has become a mantra of sorts, peculiarly in the glamorized globe of overworked start-up founders hoping against pretty high odds to make it.

Fifty-fifty exterior of the business development niche, this quote does sound inspiring. Right?

We call up and then, also. That is…until you lot read the remainder of information technology.

Is the "Neglect Meliorate" Quote Really Inspirational?

Hither'south the continuation of that Samuel Beckett quote, the part that immediately follows the famously catchy bit (our emphasis added):

"Beginning the trunk. No. Beginning the identify. No. Beginning both. Now either. Now the other. Sick of the either try the other. Sick of it dorsum sick of the either. Then on. Somehow on. Till ill of both. Throw up and get. Where neither. Till sick of there. Throw upwardly and back. The body again. Where none. The place again. Where none. Attempt over again. Fail again. Ameliorate once more. Or improve worse. Fail worse once more. All the same worse again. Till sick for skillful. Throw up for practiced. Get for good. Where neither for good. Good and all."

As this markedly darker snippet of text demonstrates, Worstward Ho! seems to accept nothing to practise with positivity, motivation, or progress.

In fact, it seems that the just recompense Beckett's narrator can come up up with for the absurdity of being is to "fail better" the next time.

Not exactly inspiring, right?

The Meme-ification of the "Neglect Better" Samuel Beckett Quote

In Beckett's bleak worldview, life is already a grand failure (or a tragi-comedy, if you'd prefer) in which we are all, like the narrator ofWorstward Ho!, sitting in an inexplicable "dim void." The fact that this Samuel Beckett quote has been taken and then far from its original roots is pretty fascinating.

Mark O'Connell, a author forSlate, describes the ironic meme-ification of the "neglect meliorate" quote similar this:

"The entrepreneurial mode for failure with which this polished shard fits so snugly is not actually concerned, every bit Beckett was, with failure per se—with the necessary defeat of every human endeavor, of all efforts at advice, and of language itself—simply with failure as an essential stage in the individual'south progress toward lucrative cocky-fulfillment."

As O'Connell notes, Samuel Beckett was interested in failure, full stop. Not failure equally a necessary path toward riches, or fame, or (everyone'south favorite buzzword) "innovation." Simply failure.

The "Dim Void:" Beckett'sWorstward Ho!

Except for this one "fail better" quote, about every other snippet fromWestward Ho! reflects the real Samuel Beckett: brooding, morbid, and completely avant-garde.

Indeed, far from encouraging techie CEOs to achieve their greatest potential, Beckett'south primary obsession inWestward Ho! is "the void":

"Longing that all go. Dim go. Void become. Longing go. Vain longing that vain longing become."

In many ways, this text can be seen every bit an extended meditation on the inexplicable nature of beingness and not-being. Beckett's narrator seems to be trying to work out the paradox of emptiness and presence, of nascency and death.

Worstward Ho! vs. Westward Ho!

The championship ofWorstward Ho! is a riff on the 19th century novelDue west Ho! past the English novelist Charles Kingsley, offering a very contrasting view of life.

While the phrase "W Ho!" is associated with expansion, growth, and great optimism for the hereafter, Beckett'due south title reminds us that, ultimately, we are all journeying "worstward" towards the grave…

…and perchance dorsum again. It's not quite clear, simply some people run into the theory of reincarnation in this work, only as "metempsychosis" is a major theme in Joyce'sUlysses.

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Unreliability of Linguistic communication

Another important theme inWorstward Ho! (once more, something skipped over in the famous Samuel Beckett quote) is the narrator'due south lack of faith in language. Later in the piece, Beckett writes the following:

"With leastening words say least all-time worse. For want of worser worse. Unlessenable least best worse."

This phrase succinctly encapsulates Beckett'south later minimalist aesthetics. Y'all tin also see the unreliability of language equally "word" almost slips into "worse" in this quote.

What DoesWorstward Ho!Even Mean?

A few literary critics have tried to allocateWorstward Ho! as a novella, but it'due south quite difficult to make out a clear plot in this text. Readers who support the theory thatWorstward Ho! is a novella point out that this text is mainly about an old human being, an one-time woman, and a child visiting a graveyard. Information technology's left up to u.s.a., possibly, to fill up in the blanks surrounding these three figures.

Every bit with many of Beckett'south other works, there's a great deal of disagreement over whatWorstward Ho! really "means." The woman, human, and child might exist symbolic of stages in the human condition. Or they might not.

Every bit with whatsoever other piece of work of fiction, readers only get out of Beckett'due south text as much every bit they put into information technology.

Samuel Beckett: Then Much More Than "Fail Ameliorate"

A Nobel Prize-winning writer, Samuel Beckett'due south been called many things: Advanced. Dark. Intense. Depressive.

But inspiring? Not so much.

Samuel Beckett Portrait [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Eatables

In fact, Morris Dickstein at The New York Times Book Review says this of Beckett's life and work:

"He arrived early at an extremely dour view of life and a sense of the peculiarity of his ain detached and morbid temperament."

To understand more than about this famous Irish gaelic author—and see what's beyond his out-of-context "fail amend" quote—let's take a picayune deeper look at his life.

Friendship with Joyce and WWII

Samuel Beckett was born in 1906 in Dublin and was raised in a Protestant household.

After receiving his BA in Romance languages at Trinity College, Beckett moved to Paris where he became close friends with boyfriend Irish gaelic writer James Joyce. Beckett learned a great deal most writing from Joyce and helped the great writer with his final novelFinnegans Wake.

When Globe War 2 broke out, Beckett remained in France and worked with resistance fighters. For his efforts, Beckett was awarded the Croix de Guerre from the French government in 1945. Earlier the war, Beckett mainly wrote essays on literary criticism. The simply piece of work from this period students read today is Beckett's analysis of French writer Marcel Proust.

Avant-Garde Theater and Literary Evolution

Most literary historians agree that Beckett'due south first great novel wasWatt, which was published in 1953. Beckett then published a major trilogy of novels chosenMolloy,Malone Dies, andThe Unnamable.

But it wasn't until he produced his classic absurdist drama Waiting For Godotthat Beckett became a glory of Avant-Garde theatre.

Beckett spent the rest of his life mostly moving between the Marne Valley and Paris. He was a famously reclusive writer who rarely gave interviews, although he was generous with his time for serious artists that sought him out.

As he matured, Beckett tried to parse downwards his prose to the bare essentials. In fact, some of Beckett's after works (similar the 30-second play "Breath") had no words at all.

Beckett'south mode of prose went in the exact opposite of his mentor James Joyce. Whereas Joyce'southward works expanded over time, Beckett'southward afterwards texts had fewer and fewer words. A few of the slap-up works from his middle and late career include:

• Endgame
• Eh Joe
• Krapp's Concluding Tape

Manuscript of Embers, a one-deed radio play by Samuel Beckett, past Dmitrij Rodionov, via Wikimedia Commons

Nobel Prize in Literature and Later on Life

The Nobel Prize Committee awarded Beckett the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. Although he accustomed the honor, he didn't make a spoken communication and he generously gave away all of his prize coin.

Beckett passed abroad in 1989, merely a few months after his wife Suzanne Déchevaux-Dumesni. The two were buried in the French capital's famous Cimetière de Montparnasse.

Samuel Beckett Bridge, Dublin, by Surrell, via Wikimedia Commons

To laurels the great writer, Parisian officials (perhaps ironically) named the Allée Samuel Beckett near the infamous Catacombs in his honor. In 2007, Dublin also honored the influential writer with the Samuel Beckett Bridge over the River Liffey.

Mostly all of Beckett's works explore heavy themes:

• Expiry
• Retentivity
• Language's human relationship to reality

Although Beckett is frequently seen as a morbid writer, he often injects his ain unique sense of Irish humor into many of his plays and novels. Much like Joyce'due south work, many of Beckett'due south texts are full of references to some of his favorite authors in the Western literary canon, especially Dante Alighieri.

Connections Between Beckett and Dante

Beckett was a bully gentleman of Dante'due south poesy. Information technology's fifty-fifty possible that Beckett had the final lines ofParadiso in heed when he composed some sections ofWorstward Ho!

As Dante stands earlier God in the finale to his grand epic, he utters these unforgettable verses:

Here strength failed my high fantasy; but my
Desire and will were moved already—like
A wheel revolving uniformly—by
The Love that moves the lord's day and the other stars.

For Dante, every bit it seems for Beckett too, the highest happiness is to surrender all craving and, at least in Dante's vision, to allow God to work through us. Dissimilar Dante, however, Beckett is living later the horrors of World War II and after the Nietzschean "Expiry of God."

But like us, Beckett is in an historic period far removed from the faith of the Heart Ages that inspired the soaring cathedrals all beyond Europe. Indeed, instead of building the one thousand cathedrals, we are living amidst their rubble. With these immense suffering of World War II at the forefront of his mind, Beckett suggests that at that place'due south little to be hopeful for in the atomic age.

Interestingly, despite all of his pessimism about the human condition, in that location is still a faint want in Beckett'south work for union with the divine.

Tips for Further Report ofWorstward Ho!

Beckett'sWorstward Ho! is extremely rhythmic and relies on curt staccato sentences.

When you listen to thisprose-poem, it most sounds like an incantation and can have a hypnotic issue. If you do decide to listen to this text from a trained reader, so you lot will desire to hold a copy of the poem in your hand to keep track of Beckett'south wordplay.

A few words Beckett switches around in the piece include the pairs "know"/"no" and "two"/"too." Also, later in the text, Beckett uses the discussion "prey," which could be mistaken for "pray" if you're but listening to the poem.

There are many excellent readings ofWorstward Ho! online. You tin also discover Beckett's originalWorstward Ho! text aslope helpful glosses by Colin Greenlaw on this webpage.

"Fail Ameliorate": What Does It All Hateful?

Here at Books on the Wall, we love digging into quotes and all things quote related—from what piece of work the quote came from, what the author meant past it, how modernistic gild has interpreted it, and whether the supposed writer even wrote the quote in the first place.

When you start looking deeper into the many quotes that float around our commonage censor and the internet (and in this case, on tennis thespian Stan Wawrinka's tattooed arm), y'all'll see pretty quickly that in that location's always more to the story than the piffling bit of text that happened to become famous.

And by at present, you'll realize that this is definitely true of this particular Samuel Beckett quote.

And this all raises an interesting question: Does a quote's context matter?

If not for the misplaced fame of this Samuel Beckett quote, tons of people would never have even heard of this groundbreaking Irish writer. Plus, it could be argued that—despite its undisputed out-of-contextness—the "fail better" quote has truly inspired people, maybe even changed lives.

Then does information technology matter that its author would probably cringe to acquire how commercialized and, well, positive it's go? How much should an author's original intent color our view of his or her words?

In the cease, we actually don't know. It'due south certainly an interesting question to consider.

What do you retrieve? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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