Quite the reputation, this one has. Which can sometimes lead to overblown expectations. While I liked it, I just wasn’t blown away by it.
I thought a Quite the reputation, this one has. Which can sometimes lead to overblown expectations. While I liked it, I just wasn’t blown away by it.
I thought a lot about one of my favorite plays, Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, while reading this. They’re both about a female protagonist/antihero who’s undergoing an emotional crisis. But whereas Gabler feels like a Greek myth, a purity plucked from the heavens by Ibsen, something so perfect it was inevitable; Streetcar is much more complex, messier perhaps, more open-ended. That’s not to say it was bad, it was just less impactful to me.
I’ve never seen the Marlon Brando/Vivien Leigh film. Maybe the performances will change my mind. ...more
In college, this became my first ancient Greek love. It's a primal story that couldn't have been left unwritten. It's also a gateway to the HCU—HellenIn college, this became my first ancient Greek love. It's a primal story that couldn't have been left unwritten. It's also a gateway to the HCU—Hellenic Cinematic Universe. It bleeds references to history and myth that the first-time reader doesn't understand, but she can sense the richness of it all. Like what's the deal with the Sphinx? She's apparently a bad guy, and she was doing something bad to Thebes, and Oedipus saved Thebes, but this play only runs tangent to those events. Oedipus Rex exposes the edges of lots of great stories, and hints at the power of the gods, but you've got to go elsewhere to get more of the good stuff.
So you go to the Odyssey, and you're thrown headfirst into a wine-dark sea of gods and demigods and heroes and mythical creatures, and it's all presented as if, of course this is how things are. It's the most immersive experience you can buy.
So I encourage everyone to jump into the ancient Greek waters wherever you see fit, but if you're unsure of where, Oedipus Rex would be a good starting point. It's simple, it's short, but it's rich and rewarding. And I bet you'd like to finally know what you're really talking about when you say someone has an Oedipus complex, wouldn't you?...more
Not to say it's terrible, but this is at the bottom of the McCarthy barrel; it's the least essential of his oeuvre. It basically feels like a rehash oNot to say it's terrible, but this is at the bottom of the McCarthy barrel; it's the least essential of his oeuvre. It basically feels like a rehash of No Country for Old Men. It's a drug deal gone wrong, and you know that everything is going badly for everyone, but mostly for the protagonist; the villain—as much as there is one—may or may not survive. The philosophy interspersed in the dialogue is less intriguing than in McCarthy's better work. Mostly, this suffers from lacking an oppressive sense of ultimate evil and fate. Despite its insistence from the onset that cruel endings are written before the beginning, nothing in this book has the predestined aura of the events brought about by the chaotically evil Anton Chigurh or Judge Holden.
And Cormac McCarthy happens to be a terrible writer of love and sex scenes. Stick to your blood and guts and pessimism and fatalism....more
Just an amazing, well-paced, incredibly thoughtful, important, terrifying and beautiful meditation on the value of human life. Basically a treatise inJust an amazing, well-paced, incredibly thoughtful, important, terrifying and beautiful meditation on the value of human life. Basically a treatise in dramatic form on Blackstone's formulation that "it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." If I were to make one of those lists of books that everyone should read, this would be near the top....more
McCarthy is basically my favorite author, and this is fine, but it's not really McCarthy. McCarthy is big and philosophical and violent and arcane andMcCarthy is basically my favorite author, and this is fine, but it's not really McCarthy. McCarthy is big and philosophical and violent and arcane and doesn't fit well on the teevee....more
I highly recommend finding Wilde's plays on audio and listening to them while driving early in the morning. Press play as you sit in your freezing carI highly recommend finding Wilde's plays on audio and listening to them while driving early in the morning. Press play as you sit in your freezing car, spend the first scene in a shivering fit, then ease into the second scene all nice and warm and toasty, at ease enough now to chuckle or chortle or guffaw at the playwright's acerbic wit. Pause in the middle of an argument between the Windermeres to roll your window down and request through a metal box a concoction of glutinous egg, english muffin, cheese and disturbingly circular meat. It's shameful but sometimes you just don't have the time or motivation in the morning to fix something healthy. Burn your tongue on bitter coffee as someone delivers a killer one-liner. Let your mind wander for a moment at a traffic light when you notice a single shoe in the middle of the intersection, imagining a kid limping through the halls at school, head bobbing up and down like a carousel unicorn, then finding yourself lost when it comes to the action of the play. Hit the 30-second reverse button once, then twice more just to be safe, to gather context to regain your footing in the world of Lady Windermere's ball.
What's this? A plot twist, spousal misunderstandings, they really should attend some seminars on the importance of communication. The upheaval of social norms and mores. Lies, betrayal, what a way to start a day! All on the way to work one Friday morning, in your beater of a car, you really need to get that oil checked, it seems to be putting out more gray smoke than usual, several different shades of grey, and after all it's been six thousand miles since its last change, but who has the time for that? You know exactly where the story is going, not necessarily the plot, it's impossible to predict exactly what will happen, but you can see its shape: it's a comedy, it ends happily, not like the usual stuff you like, your mother pointed out last weekend when you recommended a tv show you liked that you always make her watch things that end with blood dripping on a photograph or someone crying at the bottom of a well or some such nonsense, but she likes movies that end with a wedding. You must admit, the montages they play through the first song of the credits of that type of movie, everything and everyone major key and dressed in white, a New England beach in the background probably, seabirds present but not causing any commotion, a handsome thirty-something dancing with a flower girl, those hit a certain delightful chord when you somehow manage to see them. Everything is not doom and gloom. You should tell yourself this more often.
Although you know this will end with a wedding-type montage, perhaps not a literal wedding but you get the point—major key, that's the point—you pull into your office parking lot as the final scene is beginning, before the turmoil is resolved, and someone is pouting just as you turn the key and kill the engine. You will have to file yourself away for 9 hours before returning to your too old, too unreliable car to finish Lady Windermere's story. Step out of the car and realize that you are wearing only one shoe. A lonely, brightly polished, black leather loafer, its mate lying probably along the side of the highway or in the no-man's land of a suburban intersection. Walk inside to your brightly lit office condominium, bobbing up and down less like a carousel unicorn than a carousel camel. ...more
An intricate, grand epic set in my home state—and a play, no less! The Kentucky Cycle is a perambulation through several generations of the Rowen famiAn intricate, grand epic set in my home state—and a play, no less! The Kentucky Cycle is a perambulation through several generations of the Rowen family. The audience witnesses Michael Rowen, the patriarch, swindle a tract of land from Indians, and several generations later, we see the same land swindled from the family by a fast talking coal company representative.
It could just be my provenance, but the hills of Eastern Kentucky seem to me some of the richest land there is, steeped in blood; old, rusty things hiding in the brush; grand views marred by strip coal mines and high tension wires; chance encounters with three legged deer; long, untidy beards hiding tobacco stained teeth; rustles in the trailside kudzu, possibly a prowling lion; pictograms of hunters and antlered things drawn on the underside of cliffs, whether by ancient Indians or a mischievous camper I know not.
Eastern Kentucky is the best possible setting for a book, and sadly underutilized....more
I can't decide if this is a wonderful piece of literature or a mediocre episode of How I Met Your Mother.I can't decide if this is a wonderful piece of literature or a mediocre episode of How I Met Your Mother....more
Not since watching Breaking Bad have I been so enthralled by a man's descent into depravity.Not since watching Breaking Bad have I been so enthralled by a man's descent into depravity....more
I know it's a bad actor because I read this play and the performance it gave totally fell flat. It messed up all the punchlineMy brain is a bad actor.
I know it's a bad actor because I read this play and the performance it gave totally fell flat. It messed up all the punchlines. Often it had to go back to read parts that it misread. It even got bored during the middle part and totally phoned in the performance of the first half of the third act. It totally ruined this play for me with its terrible one-note performance. Stupid, stupid brain.
Luckily for me, Tom Stoppard directed a moving pictures version of his play, starring the magnificent Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, and Richard Dreyfuss, and it's available on Netflix. So after I finished reading this play, bewilderedly wondering what about it I should have liked, I pressed play on my computing device. What I saw before me on the screen was a hilarious, creative, meta, terribly intriguing story of two lovable weirdos romping through the world of Hamlet. The tedious coin-flipping scene so dully enacted by my brain was brought to glorious life by the good Sirs Oldman and Roth.
In short, I was just too stupid to see the brilliance of this play simply by reading it. But after seeing the movie, I was able to go back to the written work and appreciate some excerpts with gusto. Your brain is probably a better actor than mine, but if you have any doubts regarding its talents, I'd suggest watching the movie first. That's something I would almost never recommend, but after all, it is a play, something meant to be acted out in front of you rather than just inside that noggin of yours....more
Far less exhilarating than I anticipated; far less Freudian than I expected. As the Electra complex is the female equivalent of Oedipus, so I expectedFar less exhilarating than I anticipated; far less Freudian than I expected. As the Electra complex is the female equivalent of Oedipus, so I expected Electra to be that of Oedpius, but Electra, the play and the character, are vastly inferior creations....more
If you missed the last 600 years, let me tell you about the famous Jeanne d'Arc. Joan, as you're more likely to know her, began as a young farm[image]
If you missed the last 600 years, let me tell you about the famous Jeanne d'Arc. Joan, as you're more likely to know her, began as a young farm girl, but when she heard the voices of her Lord and myriad saints beseeching her to take action against the horde of English soldiers encroaching upon her French homeland, she showed up on the doorstep of the uncrowned King Charles VII with a divine mission. King Charles was so impressed by her ambition and confidence that he gave her charge of a battalion and she defeated the English troops at Orleans. Her career continued with several more victories. She became a national, if not international, superstar - a feminist icon in an age before feminism. She even crowned the new King of France in the beautiful Notre-Dame de Reims.
And then tragedy struck. Joan was captured by the English at Compiègne and instead of being given the traditional prisoner of war's ransom, she was subjected to a politically motivated trial in which she was found guilty by the Church of twelve counts of heresy. Turned over to the secular authorities for punishment, she was burned at the stake.
That's the gist of the story. Certain points are debated by historians - her military role may have been more in the morale department than fighting and planning; my use of the word "feminist" could be challenged (and would be challenged by Joan herself). But she is a larger than life figure. That you didn't need me to tell her story to you at all shows that history has not forgotten her. In 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized Joan as a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church. And that's when George Bernard Shaw began work on this play, which was published in 1923.
The play itself is not terribly exciting. It does what I just did in this review; it is a pretty standard retelling of the Joan of Arc story. It will keep your attention, but it won't thrill you. Shaw dispenses with battle scenes and we're left with political and philosophical exchanges between the cast of soldiers, officers, priests, servants, and the ever inspiring Joan.
When things get really interesting, though, is after Joan's death. The epilogue features King Charles twenty-five years after Joan is burned, dreaming in his bed, visited by ghosts from his past. It is in this very Shakespearean ending that Shaw finally finds his inspiration, so read the first scenes of this play quickly to get to this, the good part. ...more
Christopher
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