More Pricks Than Kicks

A collection of ten short stories tracing the career of Belacqua Shuah. Belacqua--the first of Beckett's anti-heroes, a student, philanderer, and failure--studies Dante, carries on an ill-fated courtship, witnesses grotesque incidents in the streets of Dublin, attends vapid parties, endures a troubled marriage, and finally meets an accidental death. The work reveals the early stages of one of Beckett's underlying themes, bewilderment in the face of suffering.