Waiting for Godot

A play in which two men wait by a tree for a man named Godot they think will better their fortune. And talk.



That's it, really, as far as plot goes.


Except, of course, that Vladimir and Estragon--our protagonists--are implied to be waiting for him every day. They're not sure if they're at the right place, they're not sure if they've got the time right, they're not even sure who Godot is. But they wait, nevertheless.


Incredibly funny, and with long bouts of conversation and nonsense. However, read deeper and there's clearly something else going on here. This is a story of fate, of optimism versus pessimism, of the endless tedium of it all, about challenging the way we perceive the world, about mixing things up on occasion, all depending on how you read it. We know nothing about these characters outside of the two days we spend with them, and they're wide open for interpretation, especially because the author--Samuel Beckett--won't let on anything besides the fact that Godot is not a metaphor for God and the play for faith. (He later remarked that he regretted naming the titular character as such.)


So yeah, sure, this could be about a man and his Alzheimer's-riddled friend sitting by a tree talking about how disgusting carrots are and whether or not Jesus saved a repentant thief before his crucifixion. But I--and anyone who's reviewed this thing--think there's something deeper here. This play is like a treasure chest--the outside's cool to look at, but opening it up is the great part.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet's uncle brings in two of Hamlet's closest friends to find out why Hamlet is now insane. These two guys are in two scenes, sent to England to deliver Hamlet and and have him killed, and the next we hear of them--mere moments before the end--is that there was a slight mix-up and that Hamlet's friends were killed instead.

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But who are these guys? Are they really just a couple of interchangeable companions for Hamlet to ramble to for a couple of scenes? Or is there something more to them, something deeper?

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This play answers both questions with a resounding "yes." Guildenstern is contemplative, philosophical, and curious as to life's inner workings; his friend Rosencrantz is quite satisfied to leave things be. However, playwright Tom Stoppard doesn't delve any deeper into the characters than their personalities. Shakespeare left their pasts ambiguous outside of the duo being childhood friends of Hamlet's, but Stoppard makes even that ambiguous--"Ros" and "Guil" lack even the most basic memories of their past, where they're going or why they're there. They merely know that they are spying on Hamlet on behalf of his uncle, and even that basic fact is thrown into doubt.

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Filled with subtle wit and a stunning use of language which is almost, but not quite (thank God) Shakespearean, Ros & Guil Are Dead is a brilliantly chilling take on the nature of the past and human memory as well as dwelling on fate and other philosophical issues. Not recommended for someone without basic knowlege of the plot of Hamlet.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series

An incredible work of satire, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series is a hysterical commentary on government, religion, philosophy, and modern technology. But even if you don't pick up on it, the story is engaging, with interesting characters and setups and a wit sharp enough to put its author, Douglas Adams, in a class of his own.

Our story begins with Arthur Dent. He is a 5'8" ape descendant who enjoys nothing more than a bit of peace and quiet and a good cup of tea. He wakes up one morning, horribly hung over, to discover the reason he was drunk the previous night--the town council failed to inform him that his house is about to be demolished to make way for a bypass that morning. In an act of protest, Arthur lays in front of the bulldozers to block their path.

But that's the least of his problems.

Ford Prefect, Arthur's closest friend for ten years, receives word that the Earth itself is about to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace expressway. How does he find this out? Well, it turns out Ford is actually an alien from the planet Betelgeuse (which explains his name) and a researcher for a wholly remarkable book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This little intergalactic radio-receptor thing he has told him that a Vogon constructor fleet is coming and...are you confused? Not as confused as Arthur is. But it doesn't matter, they've only got twenty minutes, and so Ford grabs Arthur and quickly hitches a ride of the face of the planet. What follows is a freewheeling trip through time and space, with Ford serving as the Virgil to Arthur's Dante and the Guide answering any further questions. Along the way, they meet Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed, vaguely-hippie-like President of the Galaxy, and his girlfriend Trillian; Marvin, a cynical, depressed android; a mind that got a devorce from his body; a group of radicals bent on destroying the Universe; a man who tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; Thor, the Norse God of Thunder; and the stupid, bureaucratic Vogons amongst other peoples, computers and species.

Most satirical or even slightly "intelligent" works sacrifice characterization and plot to whatever morals or ideas the author is preaching. Hitchhiker's does no such thing. The characters are vibrant and three-dimensional (well, the important ones are anyway) and what vaguely constitutes a plot is only occasionally disturbed by some important piece of information courtesy of The Guide--and those tend to be the funnier bits.

More importantly, though, is that the book doesn't preach. If you catch the messages woven in, then great--the book is working on a higher level. But if, for example, the bit about how an internal climate control system inadvertently killed the people in the building using it by arrogantly refusing to open the windows doesn't deliver the intended message about the supposed infallibility of modern technology, it doesn't stop you from laughing at the bit. In fact, if you don't know the messages are there it's nearly impossible to catch on the first read, and therefore appeals both to intellectuals (that is, the few that enjoy humor) and those looking for a light read.

As for the difficultly level--the five books combined are about the length of one-and-a-half Harry Potter books, and the language is pretty low-key with the bigger words being easy to figure out in context. Oh, and continuity is a big thing. These books don't make sense out of order. They are:

1. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
3. Life, the Universe, and Everything
4. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
5. Mostly Harmless

All five and a bonus short story ("Young Zaphod Plays it Safe") are available as one big volume entitled The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, pictured above. The books started out as a radio series, so if you're fine with a big chunk of material having been moved around you can listen to those if reading's not your thing. Under no condition should you see the movie.