(i) A Beckett Creature

When Federman writes he is almost always writing about Beckett. This is very different to writing after Beckett. Indeed, writing after Beckett might not even be possible, since according to Federman he is both the first and the last of postmodern authors. To say that Beckett was an influence, even the main influence, on Federman's writing would be inaccurate. Though I am yet to come across a direct reference to Harold Bloom in my reading of Federman, Bloom's full-hearted adoption of Freudian frameworks in The Anxiety of Influence seems targeted in Federman's 1976 essay “Imagination as Plagiarism,” where the “traditional” critic is equated with the traditional psychoanalyst. It is certainly interesting to note Bloom's insistence on “strong” authors. So often parodied, perhaps this insistence can be useful in thinking about Federman's queering of Freudian frameworks, especially considering his contemporaneity to Bloom. In a much-cited formulation Bloom insists that he is only interested in a “battle of strong equals,” “Oedipus and Laertes at the crossroads.” The strong writer must overcome, must kill the father and assert his originality. Though the strong author writes through reading his forebear, he does so by creatively mis reading. Why then is what Federman does so far removed from Bloom's idea of creative misprision? Is he not also misreading Beckett? Firstly, Federman is by no means a canonical author. But a lack of commercial success and critical recognition do not account for a qualitative difference. Even if Federman were to achieve posthumous fame, Bloom's framework wouldn't fit. Federman does not so much misread Beckett as take him at his word. A postmodern believer, he zealously defends against any pretense of originality. In Freudian terms, he has no intention of letting go of his primal identification with—and homosexual desire for—the father. There is no battle and so there can be no separation, since Federman simply refuses to let Beckett go. His misreading of the master-text, though an act of aggression, is with the hope of soliciting the satisfaction of punishment. Federman identifies more with Beckett's creatures, tormented and exiled, than he does with the author.