My chapter presents select findings reached during my long-term investigation of the hidden dimension of Beckett’s novel Watt, written in France during the war years 1941–1945. For the present discussion, the point of most consequence is that Watt depicts a fictive pursuit of meaning that parallels the actual quest of the intended flesh-and-blood reader. The novel’s co-protagonists, Sam and Watt, both contend with bewildering and difficult texts which, like Watt itself, are designed to keep their covert ideas hidden, while making them accessible to those that engage in strenuous hermeneutic quests. Success in interpretation is thus viewed as an attainable goal, where success is defined as understanding what the author wished to be understood. Two epistemic emotions, confusion and curiosity, stand at the forefront of my discussion. As I plan to show, they are engendered by the author with the aim of procuring motivated interpreters for his work. Three main methods used by Beckett to this end are the application of confusion techniques borrowed from the renowned hypnotherapist Milton H. Erickson, the deployment of intentional puzzles, and the devious use of narrative voice to undermine narrative reliability. Different in type, they work together to create within actual readers the same irresistible need to understand, which is a necessary condition for hermeneutic success, that animates the characters.