Man and Superman

This is the third play I've read by George Bernard Shaw and my least favorite. It was interesting but it felt like more of an experiment. It's about a woman Ann whose father's will leaves her in care of two men. One of them is a young man with daring ideas. Ann ends up dumping the guy who has pursued her for this man. This play is based on Nietzsche ideas and has the Don Juan theme. The third act also called Don Juan in Hell is sometimes cut from productions. It kind of drifts from the plot. It's about Don Juan and the devil and while intriguing it feels like a separate play on its own.

Six Characters in search of an author

This play shows that a good translation can make all the difference. I put this 1920's Italian play on interlibrary loan and received a wretched translation job that included modern pop cultural references. I didn't like the play at all but then I realized it was probably just the translation. I wasn't giving it a fair chance. So I bought the translation job done by Eric Bentley on Amazon and he did a good job. It's an unique play, kind of avant=garde. It received mixed reviews at first but went on to become a classic. It's about six characters, a family who want their life stories to be done by the cast at the theatre. Gradually family secrets come out as the play enfolds resulting in tragedy. The playwright Luigi Pirandello later won the Nobel Prize.

Spring Awakening

Man this play was controversial. It wasn't performed for years after it was written in the late 1800's. It concerns teenagers and involves abortion, suicide, and rape. I thought it was good but it was not an easy read. If anything this play really promotes the need for sexual education. Some of the characters are hurt by their ignorance. For example the girl doesn't understand why she became pregnant. I really read this because the writer's Lulu plays inspired Pandora's Box, one of the all time great silent movies. This was later made into a musical but to be honest I've had enough.

Mrs. Dalloway

This is my first introduction to Virginia Woolf. It was ok but it was hard to follow. It was inspired by James Joyce's Ulysses by its stream of consciousness. It took me a while to figure out just what was going on. It's about a middle aged woman thinking of her past loves and homosexuality. It also concerns a suicidal veteran suffering from trauma. I'll eventually read another book by Woolf but so far I think the legend is more interesting than the works.

Fuente Ovejuna

I've never heard of the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega. I read this play from the 1600's completely on a whim and I liked it. It's supposedly based on a true story. It's about a town Fuente Ovejuna where there's a vile commandeer. The town rebels and kills him each taking an oath with each other that the town committed the murder and not just an individual. This is even when they get tortured. They stick by it each other. It was interesting. I will read other plays by this author. There are so many classic plays from the past that I have yet to read.

The Gammage Cup

This was a good children's book that became a Newberry medal book. The plot concerns a group of people called the Minnipins. Despite being kicked out of their land everuone unites to fight off the bad guys the Mushrooms. The book deals with themes like conformity. There was a lawsuit later on against Harry Potter and another author over the name Muggles. But this book preceded them all with that name. The author of this book Carol Kendall didn't care that they stole Muggles which I think it is funny. It was probably just a coincidence anyway. Carol Kendall didn't write that many books for children which I thought was disappointing. I'll interlibrary the sequel sometime. It was a cute book and it was imaginative.

Murphy

I didn't care for the play Happy Days but I decided not to give up on Samuel Beckett. I decided to look into his prose. I enjoyed this early cynical work of his. At the time it barely made any sales. It's about a man who spends his days naked in his rocking chair who works at a mental hospital. There is a patient he plays chess with at the hospital. Murphy also has a love interest with a prostitute. Samuel Beckett wasn't one to write conventional fare, always experimenting. The good thing is that this is a short work so if you don't like it then not much is lost. It's worth at least trying.

Writers

This was an ok book on short biographies of writers. There's the usual like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf. There were some I didn't know though like Hwang Sok-yong. I was annoyed that Jean Paul-Sartre was mentioned not to say he's not a good writer but DK already mentioned him in their philosopher book, give another person their due. It seemed like the end of the book was mostly dedicated to Nobel Prize winning authors. I wish they got more clever. It was weird seeing major writers like Sylvia Plath and J.D. Salinger just being given a paragraph. Still I liked it. It was a quick read. Don't buy the Kindle version. There's problems with it. It's a ripoff.

Come back Little Sheba

This was William Inge's first play. It was much better than his later play A Loss of Roses. It's about a chiropractor who used to be an alcoholic. He wishes that he had made more of his life. They have a female college boarder. She represents the child his wife and him couldn't have. He has unrealistic expectations of this girl which is one of the reasons he goes off the wagon. He is one mean drunk and kind of psychotic. Little Sheba refers to their dog that ran away. I need to watch the movie again. I imagine that Burt Lancaster did a good job but Shirley Booth was the one who won all of the awards, the Tony and the Oscar. 3/4

The Language Archive

 

I liked this play. It wasn't pretentious and it gets its message through clearly. A man who works in languages knows little about human relationships. His own marriage is falling apart from a wife who suddenly has a need for independence. His lab assistant has a crush on him but is afraid to tell him about it. What I liked most about this play was the plot containing unrequited love because I've had a few. The play takes a different direction on that. I was glad about it because Hollywood's treatment of it is always boring and trite.  

The House on Parchment Street

 

I love giving chances on out-of-print children's books. This one is by Patricia McKillip who later became a fantasy writer. Apparently from the reviews I've read she got a billion times better later on, so I'll have to give her fantasy work a chance. This didn't change my life, but it was ok. It concerns a girl who moves to England to live with family. She and two boys there meet a ghost in the cellar and solve the mystery of the house. I put this on interlibrary loan which is usually the way to go with out-of-print children's books. Sure, you may get denied from time to time but it's better than taking a chance on a book that is worth more than $50. 

No Exit

 

This play was better when I read it when I was 11. This is where the quotation "Hell is other people" comes from. I felt that way when I was being bullied in elementary school, so it was more prominent then. It's still a good play though, three people are trapped in hell together and being with each other is their punishment. One is a tough guy who is really a coward, and one of the women killed a child. This one act play is riveting and depressing as they come. I've started reading another play of his The Flies this week.

A Loss of Roses

 

This was a disappointing William Inge play. It's not a classic like Picnic not even as good as The Dark at the Top of the Stairs although there were some things about it that I liked. It's about a gas station attendant still living with his mother during the depression. He is too close to his mother and it's not surprising that he starts a relationship with his mother's friend Lila who is rooming with them. Lila has dreams that he'll be the hero who will save her in the end. Things don't quite work out that way. I liked Lila's vulnerability. Warren Beatty was cast as the son and that really is perfect casting. It's too bad I couldn't have seen that production. He would have done a good job. 

Volpone

 

Ben Jonson was one of William Shakespeare's rivals at the time. Although this play is good there is just something about Shakespeare that is untimely. But then he just wasn't the best playwright of his time period, he is arguably the finest playwright in general. I guess it's an unfair comparison. In Volpone there is no likable character. It's about a rich man Volpone who sets out to dupe three men into thinking that they will be his heirs through deceitful means. Only he is cheated in the end by his servant Mosca who has been helping him all along. This would have made an awesome silent movie with someone like Conrad Veidt in the lead. It's a shame that no one envisioned this. 

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs

 

I loved William Inge's Picnic. I read it a few times when I was 11 and 12. I was thinking about that and decided to read another play from Inge. This one deals with the marriage of a salesman and his wife. After the salesman leaves after a fight, she is left with the possibility that it might have been for good. This leads to the wife begging her sister to let her family move in with them. In the family also their teenaged daughter has a tragedy happen with a friend and the lonely son is preoccupied with movies. It's too bad that the movie of this isn't available on amazon or YouTube. It didn't blow my mind like Picnic but this was a good play. I just interlibrary loaned a lesser-known William Inge play. We shall see if it is also good. 

Washington Square

 

This was a pretty good Henry James novel. I like the ending but the movie The Heiress gave it more of a dramatic justice. The book concerns a plain woman named Catherine and a charming handsome man who goes after her solely for the inheritance. But her father sees right through the man and warns that he was leave his daughter with nothing should they marry. All the characters have major flaws. The girl is too naive, the father is too much of a bully, but the most annoying character of all is the aunt who keeps correspondence with the dashing man and meddles in everyone's affairs. For me the most brutal thing in the book is when the daughter realizes her father doesn't even like her. It's heartbreaking. He just sees her as an inferior version of his late wife, no intelligence or beauty. This isn't an enjoyable read but it does live up to its reputation as a classic. 

Poor Things

 

I read this over fifteen years ago and with the movie out I decided to revisit it. The book was pretty fun. It's about Bella, a woman who has been revived from death. It concerns unreliable narrators. What Bella says later in the book doesn't coincide with what the first narrator said. One of the faults with the first narrator is that he's in love with her and frankly is jealous of the man who gets her. There's a definite sense of humor in the book especially with the book she later writes. I can see this on the screen and imagine it would be a visual treat. The plot may be borrowing off Frankenstein but it's really unique on its own. 

The Ghost in the Swing

 

I saw this on someone's forgotten children's book list, so I put it on ILL. It's from the 1970's and it had a charming quality about it. It concerns a girl who helps a ghost solve the story of her own murder. Nothing really surprised me, but it was fun to flip with through.  The writer only wrote one other book which I think is a shame. I think she had potential. 

Wide Sargasso Sea

 

A relative of mine was going on about how this book is none other than fan fiction. It was really unfair. I've never read fan fiction that was a classic in its own right. The reason why this pre-Jane Eyre works so well is that the author made it personal. The first half deals with her life of growing up poor and white in Jamaica which is talking about Jean Rhys background. Then we get the other parts of the book where the crazy wife in the attic meets Mr. Rochester. At first it is passionate, but he turns icy once he learns about her family mental illnesses. Then she starts to derail. The movie was NC-17. I can see how you could do that but it's really unimaginative and does shame to the book turning it into complete smut. The cool thing about this book is that Jean Rhys wrote her masterpiece when she was elderly. Most people only care about what you have to say when you are young, so I'm glad this book refutes that. I reviewed a biography of Jean Rhys earlier and she was an interesting lady.