FAIL BETTER!

I caught Edward Albee being interviewed on the Charlie Rose show last night. Being a fan of his works I’ve either read or rehearsed, and having met him briefly some ten years ago (Mr. Albee mentored an experimental Theatre piece that I was involved in as a performer), I stopped the pre-sleep channel surf to listen. I was half way to Slumberland, when I heard the following quote that Albee prefaced with, “Didn’t [Samuel]Beckett say…”

“Every time you write, fail, fail again, and then fail better.”

That’s what I remember hearing, and that’s what I toted into my subconscious.

It stuck, even though by wake-up I wondered if I'd misheard; I was betting that Mr. Albee gets his Beckett quotes squared before employing them so I hit the Google, and discovered two versions, before following the tangent explained below said quote[s]:

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

&

“Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.”

– Samuel Beckett

My detour, from the Beckett search, lasted for the better part of my Wednesday morning. I had stumbled upon an essay by a previously unknown [to me] writer named Zadie Smith. Apparently, she has garnered much attention in her native UK, since making her initial splash whilst at Cambridge. I fell for her essay entitled “Fail Better”, for far more than the title she surely pinched from the Beckett quote: it was like finding yet another useful reminder of why some of us set out to write, sometimes for no audience but the one staring at the screen, through our own idiosyncratic prisms.

After getting through the essay and wanting more Zadie Smith (who is as stunning as she is talented, what!), I found a short story she’d had published in “The New Yorker”, September of 2004. It is called “Hanwell in Hell”, and all I can say is that I’m now eagerly wanting to read more Zadie Smith: precisely what every writer would like to hear from those who encounter their words…