Rating: 
Summary: depressing. . .wonderful
Review: As an English student, I have come across this play 3 times. The first time was in high school, when every student in the class thought it was boring boring boring. Including me. My second year of college was the second. I was very biased against it, so it was with trepidation that i opened it to refresh my memory on the details so i could discuss how much i hated it in class. I was shocked when I discovered that i was reading an almost completely different play! I had some interest in what was being said both in and between the lines! I still wouldn't have given it 5 stars, though. The third time was 2 years later, in another class. I was finally able to read it with an open mind and really see how moving it is - if your willing to really look. I think that the point of telling all of this is to say that I really needed more experience living before I could relate to this play at all. If you read this and hate it - fine. But give yourself a chance to sit with it before you make a final judgement. As a P.S. - this play was performed at San Quenten several years ago. It was chosen because all 5 characters are male - not really because it was thought that the inmates would particulary like it. It was a hit. The inmates who saw the performance really related to it. That should serve as a clue to all those people who say this play is about nothing - if you've never felt trapped or imprisioned maybe it means nothing to you.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing Ever Happens. . .
Review: One of the most striking plays written in the 20th century, Samuel Beckett's, "Waiting for Godot," is a must read for any serious student of theater, lover of the theater of the absurd, or those interested in high thought as seen through the eyes of a couple of nobodys. An absurd play, it is stirring, chilling and unreprentively satirical. The characters even poke fun at the play that they are in as one of the states that, "nothing ever happens," and he is right. Stark and empty, the play has an air of waiting for something to happen. Not only are the main characters, Didi and Gogo (Vladimir and Estragon), waiting for something monumental, but so are the readers. The potential bleakness of the world that we live in comes to a head in this play where every action hinges on the appearance of Godot, who strikes a resemblence (acording to the players) to God himself. Beckett was quoted as saying that if he had meant, "God," he would have said "God." Godot, is ambiguous and powerful; as is the play that carries his name. An excellent, though thick read. The play is dark, and by no means uplifting. By this point in time, "Waiting for Godot," should have been read by everyone. This piece is the center of the theater of the absurd movement, and has been quoted, and been alluted to more often then any play since its writing. It is perhaps only less well read than, "Hamlet," and "Private Lives," by Shakespeare and Coward, respectively.
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Summary: Simply put, one of the highwater marks of the theatre.
Review: If you haven't read or seen 'Godot', log off right now, get to your nearest library or bookstore, and get a copy. Read it, have a good cry, read it again. It definitely bears a first, second, a hundredth look. 'Godot' is probably the most important English-language play of the 20th century, a play which gives itself over to a simple interpretation and (on further reflection) staunchly refuses to be so easily encapsulated. It is a prime example of the 'Theater of the Absurd', in which physical reality entirely gives way to the reality of the stage. It is a play in which language itself breaks down spectacularly, in which the players are not characters but types, in which the central character doesn't appear on stage -- and in which the notion of a 'central character' comes under attack. Read the play with an ear for the rhythm of the dialogue and the overwhelming mood of the piece. The characters' speech is musical, making the piece far more engrossing than (for instance) 'No Exit' by Sartre. When you're finished, have a look at 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead' by Tom Stoppard, which hautningly weaves together 'Godot' and 'Hamlet'; also have a look at Beckett's own 'Endgame', which features one of the most heartbreaking final monologues in all of theater. To dispel a myth: Beckett did not intend for Godot to be simply God; the fact is, we do not and *can not* know who Godot is. But neither can we look at Vladimir and Estragon without seeing something of ourselves.
Rating: 
Summary: Complicated yet Interesting
Review: Waiting for Godot is a book that takes a lot of concentration and understanding. It holds a great amount of importance and significance dealing with life. You will find yourself very frustrated at imes because of the way Becket writes the book. The plot is very dull and boring. It takes place around a tree on the side of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The main characters are two men named Vladimir and Estragon. They spend the entire book waiting for Godot, a man in which neither of them have ever met. They need to talk to him because they have questions and no answers. While they wait they meet Pozzo and Lucky, two other important characters. The theme of hope plays a mojor part of the book. Hope is what Vladimir and estragon build while they spend days waiting for Godot. The two characters are faced with many situations in which their hope is a great importance. Their hope gets them a long way. Waiting for Godot is a good book once you are able to realy understand it. The author makes it difficult for readers to understand. Although it is frustrating at times there is strength in the book. That is the importance of our lives that is expressed to make a point to the readers. It makes you think about your life and the way you are spending it. Becket semed to make the book confusing which i believe could have been written just as good without being so confusing. At the end it would have been nice to know what happens. Maybe it was made to be like that but it would have been good to know the outcome and not just leave the reader with wonder. If you are able to take a challenge and read Waiting for Godot, I wish you luck. Once you understand Beckets writing, it really is quite an interesting book.
Rating:
Summary: What is there to get from Waiting for Godot
Review: I thought the play beautifully expressed in laconic dialogue how some individuals deny reality, the human condition, and mortality by distracting themselves with meaningless activies. I don't know if Beckett saw life as meaningless. The mystery of life makes all of us story tellers. It's our responsiblity to find a story, activity, purpose, gift, belief that gives our lives fullness as opposed to emptyness.
Rating: 
Summary: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Review: If you thought reading books was fun,then you've never seen this dull book.This is a real tragedy,alright-the tragedy is the book was written and plublished.You wade through pages of meaningless drudgery,trying desperately to find ANYTHING exciting.You keep reading,hoping and praying it will get better.But no.It just keeps getting worse with every sentence.I finally gave an utter scream from frustration and set fire to this dud,mentally kicking myself for wasting money on it.If you want an actaul BOOK,read Charles Dickens or Mark Twain instead.
Rating:
Summary: Don't let Samuel Beckett fool you!
Review: I am very interested in absurdism and meaninglessness in literature and philosophy, so naturally I picked up a collection of works by Samuel Beckett, one of them being Waiting For Godot. Needless to say I was disappointed to the point of absolute frustration. I felt ripped off. I picked up Beckett like I have picked up works by Camus and Sartre, expecting drama, passion and moving accounts of the futile struggles of everyday man. This is not the case with ANY of his works. Reading his works was like the equivalent of staring at a robot saying "life is pointless, life is pointless," over and over again. His works have no soul and no since of the actual struggles and conflicts the modern human faces when coming to terms with existence. Shame on these so called intellectuals who tout Beckett's brilliance. Read "The Stranger" by Albert Camus and "Nausea" by Jean-Paul Sartre, which are written with a strong sense of urgency and introspection. And forget about Beckett's works, which read like they come from the pen of an automaton.
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Summary: I don't understand this entry
Review: This entry makes no sense. In one section of the "Editorial Review" it mentions that this hardcover is a recording of a production at the Toronto Stratford Festival starring "McCamus and Ouimette." Then the "Production Notes" state that it stars Zero Mostel and Burgess Meredith with Kurt Kaszner and Alvin Epstein and directed by Alan Schneider. Mostel and Burgess were in an early 1950's TV version - which is quite good. But what does that have to do with this "book"? What does either? Very unclear.
Rating:
Summary: "Nothing happens, twice".
Review: "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!". That phrase, said by one of the main characters of "Waiting for Godot", somehow sums up the whole plot of this short tragicomedy in two acts. Strange??. You can bet on that!!!. So much that a well-known Irish critic said of it "nothing happens, twice".
The play starts with two men, Vladimir and Estragon, sitting on a lonely road. They are both waiting for Godot. They don't know why they are waiting for him, but they think that his arrival will change things for the better. The problem is that he doesn't come, although a kid does so and says Godot will eventually arrive. Pozzo and his servant Lucky, two other characters that pass by while our protagonists are waiting for Godot, add another bizarre touch to an already surreal story, in which nothing seems to happen and discussions between the characters don't make much sense.
However, maybe that is exactly the point that Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) wanted to make. He was one of the most accomplished exponents of the "Theatre of the Absurd", that wanted to highlight the lack of purpose and meaning in an universe without God. Does Godot, the person that Vladimir and Estragon endlessly wait, symbolize God?. According to an irascible Beckett, when hard-pressed to answer that question, "If I knew who Godot was, I would have said so in the play." So, we don't know. The result is a highly unusual play that poses many questions, but doesn't answer them.
Ripe with symbolism, "Waiting for Godot" is a play more or less open to different interpretations. Why more or less open?. Well, because in order to have an interpretation of your own, you have to finish the play, and that is something that not all readers can do. "Waiting for Godot" is neither too long nor too difficult, but it shows a lack of action and purpose in the characters that is likely to annoy many before they reach the final pages, leading them to abandon the book in a hurry. That is specially true if the reader is a student who thinks he is being barbarously tortured by a hateful teacher who told him to write a paper on "Waiting for Godot" :)
My advice, for what it is worth, is that you should persist in reading it. If it puts you to sleep, try reading it aloud with some friends, and discuss with them the implications of what happens with the characters. This play might not be thoroughly engaging, but it changed theatre and the possibilities opened before it forever. In a way, it provoked a blood-less revolution, and because of that it deserves at least a bit of our attention.
Belen Alcat
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Summary: "Yes, let's go. (They do not move)"-- Waiting for Godot
Review: Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is a play of subtle beauty and truth of humanity's search or lack of search for meaning. Beckett uses minimalist techniques such as one set for the two acts to achieve the idea that merely letting life pass one by is absurd. The play takes places on a road where is little scenery besides one tree, alluding to the tree of knowledge. However in the first act, the tree is leafless, symbolizing that knowledge is dead; thus, life is chaotic and absurd. Contrastingly in the second act, the tree has leaves illustrating that there is still some hope. However, Vladimir and Estragon do not utilize this hope since they never leave this area. They wait for Godot to come to them. This lack of action demonstrates that if meaning is to be found one cannot wait for knowledge or life to come to him, it must be sought out. Furthermore, the two men's inability to leave their situation illustrates the difficulty humans have in searching for meaning. Moreover, Beckett does not suggest that the searching for meaning is worthless but a struggle. For instances, the leaf filled tree signifies the existence of knowledge and the characters talk of other places to flee to; they are not bound to their area. However, they do not leave. They wait for Godot to come them and once he has not come they do not move. In Waiting for Godot the absurdity of life lies in its characters inability to search for meaning since they hope it will come to them eventually. Consequently meaning or knowledge never comes to a person, which explains the ludicrousness in the two men's worlds where they no longer have a grasp of reality. They are bound to a world of chaos by their choice.
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