Watt is the what

Paul Auster on Watt, and laughter in Beckett‘s writing.

Turd and fart…” You are breathing again, and an instant later you find yourself laughing. Schoolboy humor surging up through the fake-scholarly discourse of the opening sentences, an utter surprise in the context of what came earlier, and then, before you can fully adjust, you understand that Beckett is talking about Ireland and the music of the English language when it comes out of the mouth of a working-class Irishman. “Turd and fart, he said, for third and fourth.” And indeed, it is a fair rendering of that music, you say to yourself, even as you go on laughing at Beckett’s prank.

(Via @seanjcostello.) See also, Auster’s Beckett lecture .