Molloy

Samuel Beckett was my favorite author in high school (shortly before Nabokov became my favorite author in college).  With his spare voice and his infectious literary constructs, Beckett dared to raise the edge of the heavy stone called 'world war'.  Staring straight into the underbelly of the rock -- the alienation, the worms, the pain and uncertainty -- Beckett exposed glimpses of redeeming light.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, Samuel Beckett was best known for his plays:  Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape, Endgame, and others.  Beckett's novels, however, figured prominently in his route to the Nobel, including the strange tale of Molloy.  A crippled man who makes his way around an unnamed countryside on a dilapidated bicycle, Molloy natters and rambles without making a great deal of sense.  Molloy's primary concerns are his mother -- the destination of all his wanderings -- and his determination to connect with his reader through his "pages" (presumably, the novel we are reading).

Midway through the novel, the befuddled Molloy disappears, and we are introduced to a detective, Malone, whose mission is to capture Molloy and somehow bring Molloy to justice.  As he searches for Molloy, Malone begins to acquire some of Molloy's traits:  lameness, a failed sense of purpose, a broken bicycle...

Molloy is oddly funny, other-worldly, fatalistic, ironic, and, above all, eloquent.