The Unnamable is a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett

Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...

. It is the third and final entry in Beckett's "Trilogy" of novels, which begins with Molloy

Molloy (novel)

Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett. The English translation is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles.-Plot introduction:On first appearance the book concerns two different characters, both of whom have interior monologues in the book. As the story moves along the two characters are distinguished by name...

followed by Malone Dies

Malone Dies

Malone Dies is a novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in 1951, in French, as Malone Meurt, and later translated into English by the author....

. It was originally published in French as L'Innommable and later adapted by the author into English. Grove Press published the English edition in 1958.

The Unnamable consists entirely of a disjointed monologue from the perspective of an unnamed (presumably unnamable) and immobile protagonist. There is no concrete plot or setting - and whether the other characters ("Mahood" [formerly "Basil"] and "Worm") actually exist or whether they are facets of the narrator himself is debatable. The protagonist also claims authorship of the main characters in the two previous novels of the Trilogy and Beckett's earlier novels Murphy

Murphy (novel)

Murphy, first published in 1938, is a novel as well as the third work of prose fiction by the Irish author and dramatist Samuel Beckett. The book was Beckett's second published prose work after the short-story collection More Pricks than Kicks and his unpublished first novel Dream of Fair to...

, Mercier and Camier

Mercier and Camier

Mercier and Camier is a novel by Samuel Beckett.Written immediately before his celebrated 'trilogy' of Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable, Mercier et Camier was Beckett's first attempt at extended prose fiction in French...

, and Watt

Watt (novel)

Watt was Samuel Beckett's second published novel in English, largely written on the run in the south of France during the Second World War and published by Maurice Girodias's Olympia Press in 1953...

. The novel is a mix of recollections and existential musings on the part of its narrator, many of which pertain specifically to the possibility that the narrator is constructed by the language he speaks. Other 'characters' (a stretch to call them distinctly different than the narrator) serve as the passive recipient of the dialogue and in many places (as the narrator suggests) the dialogue's genesis.
The novel builds in its despairing tone until the ending, which consists mainly of very long run-on sentence

Run-on sentence

A run-on sentence is a sentence in which two or more independent clauses are joined without appropriate punctuation or conjunction. It is generally considered a stylistic error, though it is occasionally used in literature and may be used as a rhetorical device...

s. It closes with the phrase "You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on," which was later used as the title of an anthology of Beckett works.

Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...

's musical work Sinfonia

Sinfonia (Berio)

Sinfonia is a composition by the Italian composer Luciano Berio which was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its 125th anniversary...

uses extensive sections of The Unnamable, along with the music of Mahler and quotes from many other famous compositions for its third movement.