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Title: A Doll's House
ISBN: 1599869497
Author:
Henrik Ibsen
Publicate Date: 2007-11-07
Publish: 2007-11-07
List Price: $4.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.82
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1: Irish playwright McGuiness interpretation of the Charlotte Barslund literal translation LIVES!
John Lahr (yes, he of the Cowardly leonine father and author of Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles and Notes on a Cowardly Lion: The Biography of Bert Lahr), long the brilliant, urbane and astute drama critic for the New Yorker magazine, finds citation in the back matter of this edition of Doll's House, calling McGuiness's interpretation and retelling: "A triumphant Doll's House . . .thrilling."
We can say no more. Even without the support of a live cast and staged setting, this book reads wonderfully, with robust life and reality, a bit too quickly, but urging repeated re-readings for greater understanding. As an interpretation of a literal translation, an interpretation written in (one of the two of) the native language(s) of the interpreter, himself a skilled and polished playwright (including Frank McGuinness: Plays One: The Factory Girls, Observe the Sons of Ulster, Marching Towards the Somme, Innocence, Carthaginians, Baglady (Faber Contemporary Classics)), this is perhaps the best version of A Doll's House we may find in English.
Famously as an undergraduate, the author of what the juried panel of the New York Review of Books determined the "greatest novel of the Twentieth Century, " namely Ulysses (Gabler Edition), Mr. James Joyce defended Henrik Ibsen, author of this play (and of Four Major Plays: (Doll's House; Ghosts; Hedda Gabler; and The Master Builder) (Oxford World's Classics) as well as Peer Gynt (The Collected Works of Henrik Ibsen Copyright Edition Volume IV) and Three Plays of Henrik Ibsen; An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, and Hedda Gabler) and was castigated for it. Nevertheless, Mr. Joyce studied Norwegian in order to read Ibsen, and to correspond with him. Mr. Joyce's one overt attempt at playwrighting Exiles by James Joyce (A Play in 3 Acts ISBN 0586048065) directly draws from Ibsen. The joke in Dublin of course among all aspiring writers is that they plan one day to dramatize Exiles.
Here we find dramatized for us into living English Ibsen's play Doll's House. This serves as a fine portal into Ibsen, who can often be so poorly and nakedly represented. This gives us an opening. We have here the play, just the play, indeed, with no commentary, but we have comprehensible to us the play itself, and we may read it until capturing its underlying themes and lessons, worth our acquisition.
For further understanding we may read Approaches to Teaching Ibsen's a Doll House (Approaches to Teaching Masterpieces of World Literature, 7) and of course the always trustworthy first source Ibsen's Selected Plays (Norton Critical Editions).
Read this book. It won't take long. Only the rest of your life! Like Ulysses by Mr. James Joyce . . .
This is not disposable drama, but to be learned.
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2: Excellent shape
The book came in perfect condition and in a very timely fashion. I was pleased.
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3: somaia n. A Doll's House
A Doll's House is an outstanding play that brings up many topics into question, topics such as gender roles, love in marriage, and self fulfillment vs. family duties and responsibility. I think that Nora's and Torvald's characters are excellently drawn out to show the extremes of what could go wrong in a seemingly normal and happy home in 19th century Europe. Gender roles, even though they have changed drastically over the century, have roots from the beginning of time that stick throughout the years. Roots such as that women are more likely to stay at home and men are more likely to be the ones to work; even though these days women and men are legally and socially equal. Nora's actions in the play were courageous and good intentioned, even though they went against her husband's wishes. I really liked how she was created to be so naive that she did not realize that she had no life of her own, but despite that naivete, she still understood that something was missing. Torvald, on the other hand, knew perfectly well that Nora was not living life as people should, but out of his selfishness, he let things be as they were; he enjoyed life that way. What I liked most about this play was Nora's decision to live and to learn and be her own person, even though that meant huge sacrifice on her part and that of her family's. Was she selfish in doing what she did? That question is hard to answer. Should one live for themselves or is that right gone once they have children? Usually, I would say that a mother's duty to her children comes before anything, even her own needs; but what made Nora's situation so difficult was that she was a child herself, she never had the choice to live her life, once she had the chance it's good that she took advantage of it. The play was definetely worth the time spent reading it.
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4: A pleasant surprise!
This was quite an entertaining play! Very nice - I like it! In all seriousness, it's a fascinating story that revolves around the ideas of gender roles and the negativity that is associated with creating such distinctions in society. `Tis a well constructed (translated) piece, despite originating in Norway.
The characters within speak frequently and frankly, constantly interacting with one another. The simplicity with which this play is written is used to convey a broad message about how society is harsh towards those who do not live up to their associated gender roles. For example, Krogstad is seen by the other characters as a scroungy rogue, minus the charm, associated with being a divorced father of two.
While it may not be the sort of drama that can draw a sleazy crowd with a brief tagline or an action packed trailer, it entices it audience with realistically portrayed characters in a convincing setting with an invigorating premise. Oh, and it speaks for universal human efficacy.
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5: Functional edition of _A Doll's House_
First, the content -- Ibsen's play is as powerful and -- perhaps surprisingly -- as relevant as ever in today's supposedly more gender-equalized culture. Nora Helmer's predicament as a woman who faces the seemingly impossible choice between self-development and family is treated in a masterful way by Ibsen, who in the process manages to work in connections between bourgeois domestic culture, money, and spirituality.
But this edition is very functional -- no notes and a brief intro only. I have to say that I was a bit shocked because the new copy I ordered looked like it had been pulled out from the bottom of some old craters because it even had the faint impression of a sole on it!
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