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.