Matt Seidel said Molloy was Samuel Beckett’s “great road novel,” and I think it is, since every road novel runs the route of the mind traveling back to childhood, encountering himself in the daydreaming child who wanders around the village looking for a bicycle. Even if the father is Penelope and the son is Odysseus.
There is much to be said of the home-going scenes, particularly when the son makes a conscious effort to ignore the sirens of the field, namely the "friends in human shape and the phantoms of the dead that tried to prevent" him from returning. On this long walk, the young son cogitates and comes up with a list of questions. Here is the passage:
But I shall not dwell upon this journey home, its furies and treacheries. And I shall pass over in silence the fiends in human shape and the phantoms of the dead that tried to prevent me from getting home, in obedience to Youdi's command.
But one or two words nevertheless, for my own edification and to prepare my soul to make an end. To begin with my rare thoughts.
Certain questions of a theological nature preoccupied me strangely.
As for example,
What value is to be attached to the theory that Eve sprang, not from Adam's rib, but from a tumor in the fat of his leg (arse?)?
Did the serpent crawl or, as Comestor affirms, walk upright?
Did Mary conceive through the ear, as Augustine and Adobard assert?
What is one to think of the Irish oath sworn by the natives with the right hand on the relics of the saints and the left on the virile member?
Does nature observe the sabbath?
Is it true that the devils do not feel the pains of hell?
The algebraic theology of Craig. What is one to think of this?
Is it true that the infant Saint-Roch refused suck on Wednesdays and Fridays?
What is one to think of the excommunication of vermin in the sixteenth century?
Is one to approve of the Italian cobbler Lovat who, having cut off his testicles, crucified himself?
What was God doing with himself before the creation?
Might not the beatific vision become a source of boredom, in the long run?
Is it true that Judas' torments are suspended on Saturdays?
What if the mass for the dead were read over the living?
And I recited the pretty quietist Pater, Our Father who art no more in heaven than on earth or in hell, I neither want nor desire that thy name be hallowed, thou knowest best what suits thee. Etc. The middle and the end are very pretty.
It was in this frivolous and charming world that I took refuge, when my cup ran over.
But I asked myself other questions concerning me perhaps more closely. As for example,
Why had I not borrowed a few shillings from Gaber?
Why had I obeyed the order to go home?
What had become of Molloy?
Same question for me.
What would become of me?
Same question for my son.
Was his mother in heaven?
Same question for my mother.
Would I go to heaven?
Would we all meet again in heaven one day, I, my mother, my son, his mother, Youdi, Gaber, Molloy, his mother, Yerk, Murphy, Watt, Camier and the rest?
What had become of my hens, my bees? Was my grey hen still living?
Zulu, the Elsner sisters, were they still living?
Was Youdi's business address still 8, Acacia Square? What if I wrote to him? What if I went to see him? I would explain to him. What would I explain to him? I would crave his forgiveness. Forgiveness for what?
Was not the winter exceptionally severe?
How long had I gone now without either confession or communion?
What was the name of the martyr who, being in prison, loaded with chains, covered with wounds and vermin, unable to stir, celebrated the consecration on his stomach and gave himself absolution?
What would I do until my death? Was there no means of hastening this, without falling into a state of sin?
Samuel Beckett. "Molloy." The Selected Works of Samuel Beckett: Volume II: 160-162.