Mercier and Camier, Beckett's first postwar novel and his first in
French, has been described as a forerunner of his most famous work,
Waiting for Godot. Like the play, Mercier and Camier revolves around two
wandering vagabonds. Their journey is described as relatively easy
going, with no frontiers or seas to be crossed. The reader never knows
where the journey starts or where it ends and the novel is less about
the characters' physical progress than their exchanges regarding the
meaning of their journey, their goals, and life in general. One of
Beckett's more accessible works, Mercier and Camier is one of his early
endeavors to experiment with structure and reimagine the novel as it had
been known.