Where the Rake Is the Hero

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is, IMO, a great play. I've enjoyed the movie many times--Rupert Everett, Minnie Driver, Kate Blanchett, Jeremy Northam--and considered the themes a bit, but the ideas cut deeper when reading it, and I agree with a lot of it. (Not all, certainly.) While enjoying dozens of comic lines, we still get to think about the impossibility of perfection and the ramifications of accepting that, whether we should forgive ourselves and others or if we should withdraw from society and hide our faces.

We learn quite early that Sir Robert Chiltern, a rising star in parliament, owes his wealth to selling a big secret when he was very young, and Lady Chevely has arrived to used that information against him, to make him support a "scheme" (as they called it then) that was really a scam but would make her money. Sir Robert agrees to do what she asks, though he had been about to deliver a strong speech saying the opposite. He is as afraid of losing his wife's love if she found out what he had done as he was of any scandal, but he's stuck, because she knows he considers the scheme a fraud; there's no way he can address parliament supporting it without her learning that something is wrong. He fails either way.

Slacker Lord Goring, brilliantly played by Rupert Everett in the movie and in my head, turns out to be the voice of reason and morality both in the play, the one most responsible for leading the story to a happy conclusion. Everybody thinks he's just a degenerate playboy, including his father, but he's the one who intercepts Lady Chevely, gives both Sir Robert and Lady Gertrude good advice, and models forgiveness, or more accurately a judgment-free friendship, that spreads to the others.

The funniest lines are those delivered between Lord Goring and the woman he (almost secretly) loves, Sir Robert's sister. (Minnie Driver in the movie.) Their amused ironic banter keeps the play light when it could seem dark. Lord Goring's interactions with his father are also very fun.

Lord Cavendish: Why don't you propose to that pretty Miss Chiltern?
Lord Goring: I am of a very nervous disposition, especially in the morning.
Lord Cavendish: I don't suppose there is the smallest chance of her accepting you.
Lord Goring: I don't know how the betting stands today.

There's a lot of amusing fluff in a Wilde play, but lots of musings on the classes in England at that time, on what good government means (if anything), on morality, and a preoccupation with those trying to be perfect. It would be wonderful to talk to him about what he was thinking when he wrote about such topics.

Anyway, it's a good story with lots of humor and the right amount of ironic detachment to make the satire bite. Highly recommended.

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