Burroughs on Beckett: "quite literally inhuman"

"Some people are undoubtedly more conerned with interpsychic data than others. We can see it in a spectrum with various degrees of attention. And it seems to me that Proust and Beckett are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Proust is principally concerned with time. Beckett is virtually timeless. Proust is concerned with minute descriptions of objects and characters with their sets. What do the characters, if they could be so called in Beckett, even look like, beside being awkward and not young And the sets? What sets? His writing can be taking place anywhere.

...I am very much closer to Proust than to Beckett. I am concerned with the creation of character. In fact I can say that this is my principal preoccupation.

...There is no time in Beckett.

...There is no memory in Beckett.

...Beckett is quite literally inhuman. You will look in vain for human motivations of jealousy, hate, or love. Even fear is absent. Nothing remains of human emotions except weariness and distress, tinged with remote sadness.

(page 183)

-- William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine: Selected Essays