Where Jack and Algy Are, at Last, Earnest

The Importance of Being Earnest Annotated by The Importance of Being Earnest Annotated Oscar Wilde
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oscar Wilde is a clever, funny writer, and this is as good as anything he's written. Might be my favorite. (I also enjoyed "An Ideal Husband," "A woman of No Importance," and "Lady Windermere's Fan." Lots of similarities.) His characters are comic rather than realistic, always slightly askew, which could be a turnoff for some. But if you hear them as if they're always being tongue-in-cheek and only partly sincere (which is not too far off), as if they are always in on the joke, like a character in an SNL sketch, and always about a second from bursting out into laughter, it makes a lot of sense. People get angry here, but they're always performatively angry. They give and take offense, but forgive it immediately. They behave badly but but feel shame and embarrassment for about one line--and then they're over it.

It works for me.

Jack, who calls himself Ernest while in London, pretends when he leaves his home in the country that he's going to London to visit his *brother* Ernest (who doesn't exit), a poor young man who's always supposed to be in some kind of trouble, and he wants to marry Gwendolyn, his friend Algernon's cousin. Algernon, who leaves London occasionally to visit his imaginary sick friend Bunbury, finds out Jack has a young female ward who he wants to meet. He tracks down Jack's home, finds Cecily, pretends to be the poor brother Ernest, falls in love with her, and convinces her to marry him. Jack, returning home in mourning pretending Ernest is dead, is horrified to find Algernon pretending to be the fake brother Earnest in excellent health.

Then, the hijinks. Really, though, it's the ironic dialogue that's funniest. Here's Jack when he's caught in a lie and forced to confess:

Jack: Gwendolen--Cecily--it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind...

And here's Algernon explaining to his aunt that his friend Bunbury is dead:

Algernon: My dear Aunt Augusta... The doctors found out that Bunbury could not live... so Bunbury died.
Lady Bracknell: He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians. I am glad, however, that he made up his mind at the last to some definite course of action, and acted under proper medical advice.

A mystery gets solved, problems are cleared up, and everybody gets a very nice happily ever after.

It's a very funny play, light and silly, and I recommended it.

View all my reviews

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.

View all my reviews

Where Wilde Hits a Few Targets

A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a pretty entertaining play with a couple nuggets of truth well worth finding out, and it's filled with sayings that amuse but probably distract from what's at the heart of the play more than they add to it. IMO. But the play is more successful than not, especially if one is inclined to like Wilde, as I am, and would like to see it performed.

But it seems like Wilde let loose with the aphorisms that look like they mean something but probably don't. I got tired of that. Lots of "women do this and men do that," including the famous bit about women becoming like their mothers being their tragedy and men not becoming like their fathers being theirs. That's the best one. Among the rest, some draw blood; others are too by-the-numbers to feel like they truly say anything. Probably got laughs, I suppose.

It takes a while to figure out who the play is about and what's happening with them. The story of Mrs. Arbuthnot and her adult son, who's being offered an amazing position with Lord Illingworth, emerges from a lot of random dialogue in the first act, where a number of guests at Hunstanton Chase are talking about nothing in particular. Much of it tends toward the behavior of men and women, but all with a jaded, insincere, ironic tone. Lady Hunstanton, explaining why a particular young lady didn't receive an offer of marriage from Lord Illingworth: "But I believe he said her family was too large. Or was it her feet? I forget which." That's funny, and shows how ridiculous marriage had become among the upper classes of England, but it's also pointless conversation. Later: "Poor Lord Belton died three days [after eloping] of joy or gout. I forget which."

It's all just fodder for endless, pointless conversations, where the details hardly mattered. That's a critique of the institution, but the reader also begins to feel that nothing means anything; nothing they say is worth attending to. When asked about uneducated people voting, Lord Illingworth says he thinks they are the only people who should. Then he cautions against taking sides, because that "is the beginning of sincerity, and earnestness follows shortly afterwards, and the human being becomes a bore." Later he says that he adores simple pleasures, adding "they are the last refuge of the complex." Maybe that means something. I can imagine something deep there, but I got the feeling that even Wilde was just tossing out jokes, hoping they sounded significant. The whole conversation seems to be just setups for clever bon mots that don't really mean much, and I started to wonder if anything would happen in the story.

But we find out that there are secrets and connections and a history between people, and the story does get interesting. It's all about how women get squashed by society for sexual impropriety, but men never have any consequences. It's disappointing that religion and strict morality are taken for granted here, and the prevailing perspective, as a result, is that men should suffer as much as women do, not that women should not. That feels like a missed opportunity, even considering the time of publication. However, you can read the ending as supporting that notion, of treating "sinners" (if you must) charitably, with forgiveness, especially since the least judgmental person in the play is the religious American woman who is often referred to as "the Puritan," and she refuses at the end of the story to hold a woman's past against her.

So maybe I should let that perspective get the final word on the topic.

For too long, I thought we were supposed to see Illingworth as the lovable cad, like Rupert Everett's Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband. (I haven't read that play yet--it's just the movie for me so far.) Turns out--spoiler--Illingworth's just a cad. His wordplay is self-serving, not self-deprecating, and his apparent immorality is who he actually is. TBH, it all makes a lot more sense when you read the beginning the second time, supplied with backstories and true natures. I wonder if people went multiple times to the play back in the day...

My favorite character, in the end, is the earnest and mocked young American woman. I don't know how she would have been received by Wilde's contemporaries, but she's just alright with me. Direct. Sincere. Forgiving. Good stuff.

Lots of it is funny, and I like the story. Wilde can absolutely do "clever." Just a bit more heart early on and it would have really worked for me. Still, 4 stars--it comes close.

View all my reviews

Where Lady Windermere Has Many Protectors

Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I found this thoroughly enjoyable. Emotional. Witty. Funny. Clever.

What's not to like?

It's in this play that we find the quip, "I can resist everything except temptation." There are so many effective, witty quips in the play, you could probably write a book about them. Maybe there is one.

Lady Windermere has never had reason to suspect her husband, but another gentleman, Lord Darlington, reveals some actions which call his faithfulness into question. The facts are confirmed. Then her husband insists she invite the woman named in the gossip to the ball at their home. The setup is complete when, certain of her husband's shockingly open infidelity, Lord Darlington offers to take her away to live in true love.

In a fit of pique, she writes a letter to her husband and goes to meet her admirer. But Lady Erlynne reads the letter and chases her down...

There are many parallels with An Ideal Husband, but that doesn't detract from the charm of this rather cozy comedy. One can admire virtually every character here in one way or another (which reinforces the theme that no one is wholly good or bad, making such categorical distinctions among people foolish and harmful). I like Lady Windermere; I like her husband; I like Lady Erlynne, who still has a great deal of good in her despite her shocking career; and I like simple old Lord Augustus, who is willing to believe everything she tells him so that they can marry. I'm not too keen on Lord Darlington, but I can hardly blame him.

I'm surprised that there isn't a fun movie adaptation from this generation. (There is one poorly-received modern version, but I'm not eager to try that one.) It is very straightforward and rather brief; it would need a bit of fleshing out to be a 100 minute movie. But I'd go see it, for sure, if someone made it happen. (I'm manifesting another movie. It hasn't worked so far.)

I love Wilde's comic style, though it may not suit everyone. If you tend to like it, you should read or go see this. I thought it was great.

View all my reviews

Just Not My Bag of Worms

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love Oscar Wilde plays, and he's an amazing writer, but I didn't like this book. Almost gave it a 2. All those people loving it must have some gene I'm lacking, cuz I don't get it.

Some of the language here is fantastic (which is why I bumped it to a 3). You can pick a page at random and find some pithy saying or memorable epigram and probably some witty dialogue, and if you don't find that then there's probably some fantastic description or useful insight. He can surely put the words together.

But I pretty much hated the story. And the characters. And the sh*t they talked about. And their collective attitude toward the world and everything in it. I hoped there would be something wonderful in the novel, but I just found it depressing, and I gotta say, I really don't care for depressing. Life's hard enough.

The action leads to some interesting discussions about life and art and morality (and the worthlessness of the moneyed class), and some of the language was funny and poetic and surprising, so I feel like it was worth reading. I got something of value out of the exercise.

But now I wanna go read something a lot more fun.

View all my reviews