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I'm commenting Samuel Beckett's Worstward Ho, paragraph by paragraph. Every other day I post a commentary on a new paragraph in my blog and then, after reviewing whatever readers's comments there may be on the blog's post, I update and upload it to this webpage.

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Paragraph 1

On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on.

The book starts in medias res. We can assume that the narrator has been speaking for a while, the first thing we read being an exhortation to go on.. It is unclear whether the exhortation comes from the narrator to himself (I'll say on, as in Greelaw's paraphrasis) or to some interlocutor. Indeed, say on is grammatically correct only when read as an imperative, but this is not terribly important: throughout Worstward Ho grammaticality will be abused whenever necessary.

The fact that right after this sentence he moves on to the passive voice (be said on) is maybe evidence that the narrator himself is worried about this ambiguity. Maybe he is suggesting something like this: it is unclear whether it is me or you who must say more but, in any event, more must be said.

This is already a first example of, so to say, necessary ungrammaticality. I dare say -although a native English speaker would come in handy here- that say on has a grammatically correct reading, analogous to go on, meaning keep on saying. I propose, thus, that this first ungrammaticality has been generated in the following way:

1st step: On. There must be more of something.

2nd step: Say on. It is saying the something there must be more of. This is already dubiously grammatical, but it is, at least, a natural saturation of the adverb on: something must on, well, it is say that must on.

3rd step: But who has to say more? Me, you? The narrator won't commit himself to any of these options, so he transforms say in be said. He does that, nevertheless, without paying attention to the role that say was playing in relation with on. Stricto sensu, be said cannot fulfill this grammatical role; but there is no grammatical way -at least no way that doesn't involve a long circumlocution- to say what the narrator wishes to say. So, unashamedly,

4th step: Be said on.

Proof of how difficult would be to say this in a economical yet grammatical way is Greenlaw's paraphrasis:

Say on is paraphrased by Greenlaw as I'll say on.

Be said on is paraphrased as Let on be said.

What in the first paraphrase was an adverb modifying the verb say (I'll say on), turns, in the second one, into that what is said (Let on be said). But this can't be right. It is not that the narrator exhorts (someone else, himself) to utter the word on; he exhorts to say on (on to be said). And if he has to violate syntax in order to do so, so be it.

The narrator, thus, advocates for speaking on, whatever way -somehow on- until there is no way to keep on speaking: till nohow on.

This is the first example of a monstruous construction (so to call it): somehow is perfect English and comes, obviously, from some how. The narrator advocates for speaking on while there is a way to do it; that is, logically, until there is no way to do it. He must seek for hows, one, another how until there are no hows left. We will have some how until we have no how. Somehow happens exactly till nohow.

In logical terms, there is some how if and only if it is not true that there is no how. An aside: we are inferring here ¬∀xAx from ∃xAx. This transition is unwarranted intuitionistically. We can, then, say that the narrator believes that the fact that there is some how (to say) or not is an objective fact.

Another aside: nohow still appears in the dictionary (I'm using the Concise Oxford Dictionary). Apparently, it is used informally, in American English, to reinforce a negative. Something like no way!. I believe that it is more natural to have it deriving from somehow through the process that I have just reconstructed than supposing that the narrators has independently chosen to use this americanism to speak about the necessity to go on. Even more when this is seen against the background of the processes of adverbial modification that are staged in ulterior paragraphs.

Now comes the second, beautiful example of ungrammaticality. We had be said on and now we read somehow on. This, in the way of understading syntax that, apparently, the narrator has (or so has the transition from say on to be said on made us think) must be understood as an ellipsis of be said somehow on. Therefore, till nohow on is an ellipsis of be said till nohow on and, indeed, another way to say this is said nohow on, which happens to be the last sentence in the paragraph. How simple. How cool.

It could be said (but this a very tentative hypothesis that must be validated as we go on), that the narrator ignores to a certain extent the grammatical functions of the expressions he uses and accepts, instead, the following principle:

(Substitution Principle): If two expressions A and B are intersubstitutable, two expressions F(A) and F(B) that only differ in that every token of A in the former is substituted by a token of B in the later are equally intersubstitutable

In this paragraph we have seen two examples of this:

  1. From say on to be said on. Substitution of say by be said.

  2. From somehow on to till nohow on. Substitution of somehow by till nohow.

This is more or less it. I don't foresee that all paragraphs will need an equally long commentary, but this had to, being the first. I summarise now the hypotheses that we have started to advance and which should be corroborated in subsequent commentaries:

  1. 1.The narrator obeys what I have dubbed the Substitution Principle [SP].

  2. 2.Adverbial monstruosity is, also, an example of the use of SP at word-scale

And a list of things to which it's maybe worth to have a quick reference:

Substitutions:

Say by Be said.

Somehow by Till nohow.

Monstruous Constructions:

Nohow (comes from somehow)

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Paragraph 2

Say for be said. Missaid. From now say for be missaid.

[In the e-text there is a typo in the last sentence]

There you have it, an explicit endorsement of the Substitution Principle, at least for this very case. As I have already said, I believe SP regiments the narrator's language throughout the book, if in a tacit fashion.

In fact, apart from this explicit substitution, SP is used yet again to move from said to missaid. If we wished, we would be entitled to embed this new substitution in paragraph 1 and conclude Be missaid till nowhow on. I hope that the logic behind this peculiar syntax starts to show, even if at first sight it may appear simply whimsical.

By the way, SP itself flows naturally from the habit that the narrator has (we will see it repeated time and again) to correct himself: I'll say say instead of be said. No, wait, missaid. From now on I'll say say instead of be missaid. The narrator is never completely sure that he says what he wants to say, and there is always room for taking it back.

We assist in this paragraph to the beginning of the worstward journey: everything that will be said will be ill said, and we are about to see, in the following paragraph, why ill saying is going worstward.

Again -as in nohow- the narrator shows his predilection for including the modifiers in the very modified word. Thus, missaid instead of the more natural ill said or wrongly said, maybe because such constructions allow a more comfortable use of SP, word by word. Missaid appears in a number of dictionaries (not in mine) but it is not a common word in the least.

Substitutions:

Said by Missaid.

Monstruous Constructions:

Missaid (comes from said).

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Paragraph 3

Say for be said. Missaid. From now say for be missaid.

After having introduced the task in paragraphs 1 and 2 (what is there to be done? More has to be said, somehow, till there is no way, and every saying is ill-saying), the narrator starts effectively to fulfill it in this paragraph 3.

The first thing that is said is a body. Again, maybe more clearly that in the two preceding paragraphs, a meaningful ungrammaticality: obviously, a body is not one of the things that can be said. Without entering in the philosophical niceties, it will at least be clear that the things that can be said, paradigmatically, are those to which we refer in sentences such as Sam Beckett says that.... Whatever it is that the phrase that substitutes the suspensive points refers to, it will surely not be a body.

An aside: In philosophy of language it is common to call the things we say propositions. Well, not even those philosophers who think that a proposition may literally include some concrete entities among its constituents (philosophers, e.g., that believe that the very Sam Beckett is a part of what we say when we say Sam Beckett was a writer), not even them would agree that a body can be what is said. [Thanks to Blanca Gómez for helping me see this]

Evidently, with this ungrammatical construction the narrator is alluding to creation: saying a body will be, probably, to achieve something similar to the incarnated word that John's gospel talks about; a body is said where there is none so that there is one from then on. Yet another aside: Something that would be a fun (and somewhat idle) thing to do is discussing this use of say in the context of Austin's theory of speech acts in general and performative utterances in particular.

This creationist interpretation is, it seems to me, the most natural interpretation of the first sentence of the paragraph. The difficulties we would face were we to say the same in a grammatically correct way can be seen, again, by attending to Greenlaw's brilliant common English paraphrasis. There, the first sentence is parsed as I'll say there's a body (where there isn't one). In this reading, the narrator is expressing his intention to lie. There is no body, but he will say there is. That can't be right.

According to the rest of Greenlaw's paraphrasis of the paragraph, the narrator then informs us that he will say a truth: that there is no mind where, in fact, there is none. Thus, then, Greenlaw's interpretation of that at least as that at least is true. But it's equally plausible -and more natural, if I'm not wrong- to read the narrator as saying that he won't bother to create a mind and that, given that there is none, that at least won't be a problem. By all means, this is as arbitrary as any other way to complete what the narrator leaves unspoken, but it's at least consistent with the intuitively attractive option according to which we are being told about a process of creation.

Second and last of the creations in this paragraph: a place is said for the body to be in. It is curious that the narrator says the body first and then the place the body is in. Hasn't the narrator, or Beckett, noticed that if there is a body there is, at least, also the space it occupies? It is better not to become obsessed over these kind of questions. This is literature; it doesn't have to be metaphysically flawless, or a prodigy of consistency, or anything.

Odds and ends. In this paragraph the narrator corrects himself again: he first says that the place is for the body to move in and out; but rather not, no moving in and out. The body will stay still in its place.

Finally, the ambiguity of still: it may mean unmoving (it refers to the body, then) or yet (allowing the substitution of on in for still in). Or both.

Some things have started to exist. We will keep track of them too.

What there is:

A body.

A place.

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