The Good Apprentice

This was one of Murdoch's later novels. I liked Under the Net and especially The Bell more. However, this was good. It deals with a young man who gives his friend a drug as a joke which results in the boy's death. He goes in search for the father he never knew. His father is a somewhat famous artist and Edward becomes friends with his sisters who are a bohemian bunch. Edward's stepbrother Stuart is looking for a deeper meaning in life. In a subplot a woman Midge falls for Stuart. This is despite the fact she is already involved with another man and her husband. It was over five hundred pages so it took me a while to read. The Kate Winslet movie Iris was a real disappointment. Someone needs to give the writer more justice. I would like a documentary.

Prizes

Janet Frame was a writer with an interesting life. She spent some of her life in mental institutions. Her writing saved her life because it got her out of a lobotomy. This is a collection of her short stories. The beginning short stories are good but the stories I like the best are the ones that make up The Reservoir . I have aspirations for writing so to me "The Triumph of Poetry" was a horror story. I don't know if I liked it. I liked "The Teacup", the story of a girl fondling over a man that her roommate is really dating. Some of the stories deal with madness such as in "How can I get in touch with Persia?" when a man can't accept his mother's death. The later stories are more depressing as we find Janet Frame thinking about death which only makes sense since she was getting older. There's a sense of humor here especially "A Relative of the Famous". I thought Wilfred was funny. I recommend this although I heard that Janet Frame's short stories weren't what she was best at.

An Inspector Calls

This was an entertaining 40's supernatural play. It deals with an inspector who reveals to a family just how awful they were to a woman until she reached the point of suicide. The father cut off her employment, the mother refused her aide in her charity, the brother knocked her up. Or was it really an inspector from the police department? It went by pretty fast. I was disappointed to see that youtube didn't have the original old movie. That would have been fun to watch. It looks like there has been multiple versions done of this play on film though.

Two sisters and a piano

This play was pretty good. I read a play by Nilo Cruz last week and decided to read another one. It's even better. This is about two sisters on house arrest during tough political times in Cuba. The lieutenant overseeing them falls for the writer Maria. He's been reading the love letters she's been writing her husband during the arrest. The lieutenant is pretty unlikable. The other sister loves to play piano and there's a subplot about a piano tuner. I need to read the play Cruz read the Pulitzer prize for.

Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams

This was an ok play written by a Pulitzer prize winning author. It deals with a brother and sister Luca and Luciana who got separated from childhood. There's also a subplot about Luciana's friend Hortensia and her troubles with her museum of dreams where she collects miracles. The incest I felt was more for shock value. I would have liked this play more without it although the play did have a poetic beauty to it. 3/5

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 drifts from the plot. It's about Don Juan and the devil and while intriguing it feels like a separate play on its own. There's a subplot about a rich woman Violet marrying a poor man and keeping it a secret that I liked as well.

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.