Culture May 3, 2017

Like much of Beckett’s work, “Watt” is funny and bleak and also uncompromising in its indifference to such readerly comforts as plot and accessibility. The novel follows its title character as he goes to work as a domestic servant in the home of Mr. Knott. Combine “Watt” and “Knott” and you get “whatnot,” and for some readers, assuredly, “Watt” will never be more than that: two hundred and fifty pages of mannered prose, showy vocabulary (“ataraxy,” “conglutination,” “exiguity”), syllogisms, lists, and Gertrude Stein-like repetitions and variations.