Now wait just a minute — is it Godot or Godeau? Incredibly, it’s both

Chapman University Professor Mark Axelrod is not waiting for Godeau anymore.

Professor Mark Axelrod with his latest book, “Waiting for Godeau,” a translation of a play by Balzac.

Yes, that spelling – Godeau — is correct. He’s a character in the Honoré Balzac play Mercadet, the Good Businessman that Axelrod translated from French into English and which was published this month by Black Scat Books as Waiting for Godeau.

But that other fellow, the elusive Godot from Samuel Beckett’s legendary Waiting for Godot, has a part in this story, too. Years ago Axelrod translated the Balzac play in the course of conducting research for his Ph.D. dissertation in comparative literature. He was intrigued that Balzac’s work included a character named Godeau, reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s Godot from Waiting for Godot. But it was more than a bit of a name-game thing. There was this: Beckett’s Godot famously never shows up. Balzac’s Godeau arrives only at the very end of the play, remains offstage and is never actually seen.

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