Measure for Measure

 

This was an ok Shakespeare play.  I felt like reading one of his less famous plays this week.  It's a play about morality.  A deputy Angelo wants to get Claudio in trouble for getting a girl pregnant before marriage.  Claudio's sister Isabella who is a nun tries to help her brother only Angelo shows his hypocritical side by asking for sex for Claudio's release.  This play discusses what should be lawful and the age-old debate between hypocrisy and morality.  Angelo is really unlikable.  It looks like there are a few movie adaptations of this.  It wasn't Hamlet but it did have ideas.  I should explore Shakespeare's other minor works.  

A Wrinkle in the Skin

 

This was an ok post-apocalyptic book written in the 1960s about what happens after the world falls to pieces because of earthquakes.  There are only a few instances where I thought this rose above the normal science fiction book.  I like the friendship that Matthew has with the boy Billy.  I also like how the main character is driven to find his daughter after the catastrophe.  However, in the back of his mind he knows she's a goner.  I appreciate how the book didn't stumble to create a happy resolution for his unease.  I like how the character April gives a reality check to Matthew about the way that women are being treated in the post-apocalyptic world.  I'm not sure that such a speech would manage its way into modern science fiction books.  It didn't change my world but it was all right.  

The Lobotomist

 

This isn't my usual book but a family member recommended this book to me. The book is a biography of the lobotomist Walter Freeman.  He made major breakthroughs at the time on lobotomy although nowadays that is a practice that is rightfully condemned.  Although he did do thorough checkups on his patients years after the surgeries, it seems that he viewed them as specimens.  But it also seems that he also believed completely in what he was doing.  There are times when he goes too far like when he decides to use an ice pick during the procedure.  There are also instances when you feel for him especially the story of the death of his son Keen.  The most famous surgery he is remembered for is JFK's sister.   Towards the end of the book, you feel sorry for him when he just can't let lobotomy go even after it is way out of fashion.  It's his identity and he can't part from it.  The book is interesting because it provides a picture of a man who definitely was not a saint just a misguided man. Although there is much room for growth in the fight against mental illness at least this horrific practice isn't being used isn't more.

Curse of the Starving Class

One day I watched True West on television.  It wasn't planned.  It was just the best thing on that moment.  I became a fan of Sam Shepard immediately.  He was a versatile man, a talented playwright, and actor.  True West still remains my favorite but Curse of the Starving Class is pretty amazing as well.  It's about an alcoholic father and mother selling the family's farm behind each other's back.  The mother's having a fling with Taylor, a lawyer who also sold some worthless land to the father.  The two seem to not care about their two children Emma a girl just turning into a woman and their son Wesley.  Wesley desperately tries to fix things in the play without success.  The father tries to turn his life around but is it too late?  This play is ultimately about family and the selfish choices that sometimes family makes.  It would have been interesting to see the original production with Pamela Reed and Olympia Dukakis.