The Unnamable's First Voice?

Summary

In the first of the two clothbound ledgers which constitute the autograph manuscript of Samuel Beckett's L'lnnommable there are two additional leaves inserted and pasted in between the last ruled page (p. 152) and the flyleaf. These are of a thin acidic wove paper, now browned, 10¾” × 8¾", which may once have been conjugate but were not so when inserted, and which are distinctly different from the white ruled folio pages (13¾” × 8¾") of the ledger. In the catalogue of Beckett materials at the HRC, No Symbols Where None Intended, p. 60, they are briefly described: “Two 4to sheets of autograph text and corrections are tipped in at the end.” However, a closer reading indicates that the “autograph text,” though reworked into the published novel, must predate the material immediately around it and may well be the earliest existing part of the novel; at the very least, as a unique instance of a portion of the text not composed in direct sequence, the passage warrants some explanation.

The first recto of the insert has two short corrections, both relating directly to the text immediately opposite. The first, corresponding to F.111 of the published text reads:

Je sentais le carcan, les mouches, la sciure sous mes moignons, au moment d’en être informé. Mais est-ce une vie, ça, qui se dissipe dès qu’on passe à un autre sujet? Je ne vois pas pourquoi pas.