On The Letters of Samuel Beckett

Those years were troubled by a dilemma that threatened the young man’s mental health. Beckett’s parents had wanted him to get involved in the family quantity surveying business; instead he studied languages and in 1928 went to Paris as a young academic. It seemed a sensible choice, sufficiently respectable for his parents to approve, yet not so onerous as to stand in the way of a career as a writer. However, on his return to Dublin and Trinity College in 1930, Beckett lectured for only four terms before resigning his post – he couldn’t face a classroom – and thus declared himself free from parental expectation while ensuring that he would remain financially dependent on those he had disappointed. Like Murphy or the hero of First Love, Beckett needed to be his own man, but he also needed to be looked after.

That is from an interesting review of a new book on Beckett.