Denis Johnston wrote of Samuel Beckett that his works were "algebraic, in that his characters have the quality of X. And what X means, depends not upon him, but upon us." The Godot that bums wait for isn't simply God, but anything humans wait for that will solve everything….
Robert Coover, in his new novella ["Spanking the Maid"], has adopted Beckett's algebraic method. There is a "maid" and a "master," but they're as stylized as Beckett characters and will stand for any master-slave relationship you think fits.
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