tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post1278435570934881261..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: all allegories come to an end somewhere - Shaw interprets Wagner - Bakunin, soap opera, and phossy jawAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-22009983838885240962015-11-25T09:04:55.813-06:002015-11-25T09:04:55.813-06:00Isn't it great? You would enjoy this book. I...Isn't it great? You would enjoy this book. It is both the thing it is meant to be and a pure dose of Shaw.<br /><br />"John Gabriel Borkman" - that's good. The title character blends Alberich and Wotan, yes.<br /><br />Ibsen should have gone to <i>Das Rheingold</i> and skipped the rest. Or gone to part of it and left at intermission. I wish he had seen at least the beginning of <i>Siegfried</i>, too, where Siegfried has something in common with his fellow anarchist Peer Gynt.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-22210511810664379302015-11-25T08:42:45.993-06:002015-11-25T08:42:45.993-06:00"...about which Shaw does not care, so he sim..."...about which Shaw does not care, so he simply expels it from his interpretation."<br /><br />Ha ha! Good old Shaw! So brilliant, and yet, at times, so very predictable!<br /><br />I rather like this Marxist (or pseudo-Marxist) interpretetation of the Ring. Shaw was naturally embarrassed by such human things like love, jealousy, and all the rest of it: he liked ideas, and Wagner must have disappointed him greatly - all those lovely ideas to begin with, and then, all that stuff about love and jealousy and betrayal ... what *could* Wagner have meant?<br /><br />Incidentally - and I don't know why Shaw did not point this out, being both a Wagnerian and an Ibsenite - Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman" has long struck me as a sort of Ring Cycle in miniature. It's all there - plundering nature for man's selfish ends; the renunciation of love for the sake of power, and teh moral compromises that need to be be made; the hope that the younger generation will redeem the past; the failure of the younger generation to do so; and so on. <br /><br />Ibsen never saw the Ring Cycle, though, despite living in Munich when the Ring was being produced in Bayreuth.His compatriot Grieg recommended him to go, but when he found out how long teh operas were, he made his excuses. Wise man.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com