Denis Johnston wrote of Samuel Beckett that his works were "algebraic, in that his characters have the quality of X. And what X means, depends not upon him, but upon us." The Godot that bums wait for isn't simply God, but anything humans wait for that will solve everything….

Robert Coover, in his new novella ["Spanking the Maid"], has adopted Beckett's algebraic method. There is a "maid" and a "master," but they're as stylized as Beckett characters and will stand for any master-slave relationship you think fits.

The maid enters, tries to be perfect, fails; the master spanks her. She tries again, gets spanked again. Some of it sounds like Samuel Beckett rewriting "The Story of O": "And what has she done wrong today? he wonders, tracing the bloody welts with his fingertips. He has forgotten. It doesn't matter."…

We're not gaining Samuel Beckett but we are losing...