Novels I of Samuel Beckett: Volume I of The Grove Centenary Editions (Works of Samuel Beckett the Grove Centenary Editions)
Beckett was interested in consciousness as a form of comedy close to tragedy and logic as a crime, its perpetrators to be punished by offering them infinite numbers of absurd logical conclusions. He loved the tension in 'cogito ergo sum' and took a dim view of the connecting word, the 'ergo' in the equation. Cogitating was the nightmare from which his characters were trying to awake. Being was a sour trick played on them by some force with whom they were trying desperately not to reckon. Beckett produced infinite amounts of comedy about the business of thinking as boring, invalid, and quite unnecessary. His characters did not need to think in order to be, or be in order to think. They knew they existed because of the odd habits and deep discomforts of their bodies. I itch therefore I am."