tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post2008497881133590860..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: It’s all here in these books! - The Father, some realistic StrindbergAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-43892832481281899242014-10-18T23:14:28.115-05:002014-10-18T23:14:28.115-05:00I would love to see this one performed. Lines lik...I would love to see this one performed. Lines like that "cage full of tigers" - juicy red meat for good actors.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-88453836377069495622014-10-18T09:12:28.367-05:002014-10-18T09:12:28.367-05:00I like the quote about the cage full of tigers. Ha...I like the quote about the cage full of tigers. Haven't read this one, which sounds fantastic, btw, although I have seen a few Strindbergs performed. Guy Savagehttp://www.swiftlytiltingplanet.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-14859608534371963092014-10-17T21:48:54.456-05:002014-10-17T21:48:54.456-05:00It is a good plot. I would have loved to see the ...It is a good plot. I would have loved to see the Steppenwolf actors do this play. It is quick, varied, and nuts, and in the right hands it would be very funny. "Recent research" - ha ha ha ha!<br /><br />And it is all, like Scott says psychologically credible. That is exactly Strindberg's big discovery (with some help from Ibsen) - that he could create psychological realism by violating the surface realism. Then he had one more big move in this direction with <i>To Damascus</i> - why, if the psychology I am really interested in is my own, do I even need these characters and coherent stories and so on?<br /><br />But in this case, the characters are effective and exciting. Getting to RT's point, the play begins as something like a Naturalistic domestic melodrama, but then it swings towards a real tragic effect. It's exciting to watch the Captain become more Lear-like, to accept or embrace his tragic fate.<br /><br />Cleanthess, I need to remember to write something about this when I write about <i>Bleak House</i>. The big embrace of Dickens makes it even more surprising when <i>he</i> undermines sympathy in a character (like Skimpole). It is rare. I had to refresh my memory of that chapter from <i>Martin Chuzzlewit</i>. Ah, that's good!Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-36255315736446853982014-10-17T20:42:52.449-05:002014-10-17T20:42:52.449-05:00Nobody can induce feelings of sympathy like Dicken...Nobody can induce feelings of sympathy like Dickens. This is how he makes us pity even the soon to be murdered, unscrupulous, pyramid scheme-like insurance scam runner and thief, Tiggie Montague:<br />"His fears or evil conscience reproduced this door in all his dreams. He dreamed that a dreadful secret was connected with it; a secret which he knew, and yet did not know, for although he was heavily responsible for it, and a party to it, he was harassed even in his vision by a distracting uncertainty in reference to its import. Incoherently entwined with this dream was another, which represented it as the hiding-place of an enemy, a shadow, a phantom; and made it the business of his life to keep the terrible creature closed up, and prevent it from forcing its way in upon him. With this view Nadgett, and he, and a strange man with a bloody smear upon his head (who told him that he had been his playfellow, and told him, too, the real name of an old schoolmate, forgotten until then), worked with iron plates and nails to make the door secure; but though they worked never so hard, it was all in vain, for the nails broke, or changed to soft twigs, or what was worse, to worms, between their fingers; the wood of the door splintered and crumbled, so that even nails would not remain in it; and the iron plates curled up like hot paper. All this time the creature on the other side—whether it was in the shape of man, or beast, he neither knew nor sought to know—was gaining on them." <br />Montague's final moments:<br />"So cold, although the air was warm; so dull, although the sky was bright; that he rose up shivering from his seat, and hastily resumed his walk. He checked himself as hastily; undecided whether to pursue the footpath, which was lonely and retired, or to go back by the road.<br />He took the footpath.<br />The glory of the departing sun was on his face. The music of the birds was in his ears. Sweet wild flowers bloomed about him. Thatched roofs of poor men's homes were in the distance; and an old grey spire, surmounted by a Cross, rose up between him and the coming night.<br />He had never read the lesson which these things conveyed; he had ever mocked and turned away from it; but, before going down into a hollow place, he looked round, once, upon the evening prospect, sorrowfully. Then he went down, down, down, into the dell.<br />As the sunlight died away, and evening fell upon the wood, he entered it. Moving, here and there a bramble or a drooping bough which stretched across his path, he slowly disappeared. At intervals a narrow opening showed him passing on, or the sharp cracking of some tender branch denoted where he went; then, he was seen or heard no more."Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-83896705343271114852014-10-17T17:38:04.182-05:002014-10-17T17:38:04.182-05:00"He and his wife Laura compete for the affect..."He and his wife Laura compete for the affection of their daughter. The wife wins by having her husband sent to a mental institution."<br /><br />That's like the greatest plot ever!LMRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08538873868140070018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-47409703029618733772014-10-17T17:32:53.421-05:002014-10-17T17:32:53.421-05:00This is so much like realism, I don't know how...This is <i>so much</i> like realism, I don't know how you could tell it wasn't. <br /><br />That's good stuff, him looking for heroes and prophets in that stack of books. That's quite <i>psychologically</i> realistic, innit?scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-66897002964955172482014-10-17T17:29:35.678-05:002014-10-17T17:29:35.678-05:00Oh, I like the Aeschylus and Shakespeare connectio...Oh, I like the Aeschylus and Shakespeare connections. What an interesting perspective. I wish I had thought of it. R.T.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13220814349193561823noreply@blogger.com