The winter of man's existence

“Why is it that even in old age, in the winter of a man’s existence -the winter of his discontent - a  man who no longer  aspires to anything but a little peace, is confronted, in spite of himself, with so much stupidity? I mean how  is it that an old man - as soon as he is forced to associate with a cohort he did everything to avoid up until now [….] - becomes a pet in front of which people start gabbing? In that respect he is not so different from a poodle, the old man entrusted with people’s unimportant views on things. He becomes a receptacle for  the dregs of language and thought, a victim of everyone’s nonsense.
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Maylis Besserie attributes these words to Samuel Beckett in her reconstruction of his last days, ‘Le tiers temps’, Editions Gallimard, Paris, 2020. A translation has been made by Cliona Ni Rordain who teaches  Irish Lit. and translation  studies at the Sorbonne.  The title is not simply  ‘The third age’, but - for commercial reasons? - ‘Yell , Sam, if you still can’’, 2022, Lilliput Press, Dublin.

The fraudulent mutilation of 'tiers temps' in translation is typical hypocrisy of the cohort. The poodle hasn't a chance. He's sick and only capable of being fodder for limp, self-serving fantasising. It amost convinces one that Beckett's main conviction is not that far-fetched--it would be better not to be born since that event takes place on the edge of the grave and preludes to a lot of suffering laced with nonsense.