Skip to main content

A Doll's House

I read Ibsen's "A Doll's House" last night. I admit I've never enjoyed plays the same way that I enjoy prose, but it was fantastic. The freedom that comes from developing characters through their own words made it seem a lot easier, but I'm sure a play is harder to write. The characters, his portrayal of their relationship, and most of all his description of guilt is so suddenly universal. In one minute you're moving from an Act of a play to a very real, very common household situation that seems could be your own. He describes Helmer's complete misunderstanding of Nora's charachter so brilliantly. The patronage. The anger. The expectations. The loss he is at when he sees her change. And I admit, I've come to appreciate strong endings by realizing how terribly difficult they are to write.Fantastic play. And I got it for only 30 rupees too. I've always wanted to read Ibsen since Ayn Rand mentioned him in The Fountainhead.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

God Save the Queen

I'm an arsonist at heart. I light fires tentatively, with much trepidation and little tolerance for heat. I shy away from the ensuing flame, and usually panic when it reaches my hand. I've only let a matchstick burn to my fingertips once, and that was just to find out how it felt. But I'm an arsonist at heart. I look at the oil slick, curving its way from the car. Its bends are lazy, pronounced. Like a section of a river that flows slowly over the ground, knowing its reduced speed, almost enjoying it. The slick is thick in clusters, where the bubbles inside the oil almost threaten to burst. The oil dries away before it reaches me, its riverbank a small lump of gravel that the oil bubbles collect against, rising in number, like a protest that goes on eternally. I just stare at the oil. It looks so inviting, so delicious. A matchstick might be enough, a box of matchsticks better. A lit up Zippo might have been perfect. I'm scared of flames. I've sprayed deodorant at c...
5 comments
Read more
Are there deadlines in fourth grade? At that time homework left over for after ten o' clock was a taboo. There were phone curfews, some people slept early, others did their homework right after reaching home, and I admit I've done it in school if someone was late picking us up. Calling a friend to ask a particularly difficult question at eleven in the night was outrageous. You could tell it was - your parents thought so, their parents thought so, they thought so and you thought so. Eleven! What did you do the other six hours you had to yourself? That's what everyone asked implicitly, always implicitly because the question spoken aloud was always about how long it would take, when you would sleep. I remember calling a friend at six - six! - in the morning, to tell him excitedly how I'd solved the question we couldn't understand last night - this was seventh grade - and setting off a whole chain of calls that ended with people hurriedly scribbling homework before clas...
6 comments
Read more

The Parrot

The first few steps were always measured and slow, so he didn't find them hard to manage. Slightly tipping over on either side, groping the sofa and the dining table, almost tripping over the power plug. It was a small room, cramped with a dining table that was too big for it, and as he got older his slow, practised walk across the room appeared more dangerous each day. His hands scraped something; it turned out to be cream from the half-eaten doughnut lying on the dinner table. He rubbed it off with slow despair and kept on feeling his way across the room. The maid only came once a week now; standing here, feeling as soiled as he could ever remember being, he couldn't understand why he had asked her to do that. He finally made it to the cage. He fumbled his way around the lock until he found the latch; when he jerked it open, he heard the splash of the little water bowl being turned over. He felt through the numerous things in his coat pocket, things he'd been instructe...
7 comments
Read more