In the weekend Globe and Mail Ian Brown describes the brief lifetime of a resolution which flared into existence “the moment the Grove Centenary Edition of the complete works of Samuel Beckett landed on my desk.”

I would read the complete works of Beckett, and then I would write about them. It was a serious set, with etched and semi-matte hardboards and black moiré endpapers — serious books for serious readers.

This is an admirable resolution, and one for which the editorial collective can feel much sympathy, for we have ourselves been invigorated by similar resolve from time to time. There was the occasion when, inspired by a rather perky adaptation of Oliver Twist for Masterpiece Theatre, we decided — quite giddily — that this would be our Dickens year; there was the time when we inherited a misleadingly compact three-volume edition of Shakespeare’s plays, and vowed — hand pressed firmly on Hamlet — to conquer the Bard in his voluminous entirety before the year was out of joint.

Brown starts with Beckett’s novel Murphy, “a book which I have actually read and was looking forward to revisiting,” but 13 pages in he begins to falter as he considers all that lies ahead, including How It Is, “a 109-page verbal hemorrhage that employs neither grammar nor sentences,” and What Where, “a play in which the characters names are Bam, Bem, Bim and Bom.” Faced with these bleak prospects Brown executes a rather neat revision to his original resolution. “A revelation” he calls it, in tones that bring to mind the hoarse relief expressed by a drowning man on first glimpsing a graspable straw.

I would not read all of Beckett over the course of many months. Instead I would inhale his collected works in a single day. I realize it sounds cheesy: skimming Sam, versus the enduring effort of battling through, word for word. But having done it, I can tell you this: It doesn’t make any difference. I imagine Beckett would approve.

It doesn’t make any difference. What a balm that revelation must have been for our Mr. Brown, and to his credit he does manage to spin a passable three-page article out of his day spent “skimming Sam.” Evidently, though, even this abbreviated version of his self-appointed task was more than Brown could bear for he confesses that every now and then he would have to “get up and go out to my car and sit in the rain and listen to Led Zeppelin to rest.” Ah yes: “Stairway to Heaven” the perfect complement to Godot; how odd that no literary critic had stumbled on the pairing before.

For our part, we have taken Mr. Brown’s actions as a sterling precedent, and have decided to spend the next thirty minutes skimming Proust. A brief tea break, followed by a rigorous hour’s dabble through Henry James. Thanks to Brown we’re poised to become far more productive readers than we’d ever dreamed possible.