Without Feathers

1975, possibly first paperback edition, from Random House
Woody Allen
Without Feathers
Original price unknown, purchase price $5.50
Worn paperback
C

Weak follow-up to Getting Even.  Some of the content is mildly clever, like the title that plays off an Emily Dickinson quote about hope.  But generally forgettable, except for the line about the Russian Revolution, "which simmered for years and suddenly erupted when the serfs finally realized that the Czar and the Tsar were the same person."  I might've given the book a C+, but I got tired of jokes about rape and prostitution.  Contains two plays, one of which he would adapt into the movie Shadows and Fog (1991).

The Journey

1905, from 1963 Signet Classic edition of Gigi and Selected Writings
Colette, translated by Enid McLeod
The Journey
Original and purchase price unknown
Tattered paperback
This selection a B-

A short animal story in the form of a play, this deliberately develops the dog and cat more than the human couple of He and She.  Colette understands animals, and I like how after the cat has been a drama queen, the dog gets the last word:  "I have to lift my leg."  He's named Toby, like Annie's dog in the last Claudine story, so I suspect Colette actually had a dog named Toby.  The setting is a train, but it's not really about the journey or the destination and more about the contrast in personalities.

The Importance of Being Earnest

1895
Oscar Wilde
The Importance of Being Earnest
A-

 
Not just Wilde's best play, but my all time favorite play, this remains laugh-out-loud hilarious, whether on page or stage.  (The collection of plays averages out to C+, thanks to Salome.)  The 1952 film is also a lot of fun, although I loathe the 2002 version.  This play has only nine characters, and everybody but Merriman (Jack's butler) gets funny lines.  (Algernon's manservant Lane not only insults him politely but later says that cucumbers were unavailable, "not even for ready money.")  Nearly every line in this play is quotable, and some of the best are about economic class, like the one about the "charity sermon on behalf of the Society for the Prevention of Discontent among the Upper Orders," and the one about the middle class failing to be good role models.  Wilde's wit also weighs in on love, marriage, widowhood, and family, as well as education, literature, art, music, and fashion, among other things. 

While the first two society plays examined the double standard, Jack here defends his supposed unwed mother, Miss Prism, and demands, "Why should there be one law for men, and another for women?"  Yet, she isn't his mother, so he looks ridiculous in his earnestness.  The play is about the impotence of being earnest; it's a serious plea against seriousness. 

In the end, Jack turns out to have accidentally been telling the truth about being called Ernest and having a younger brother.  Gwendolen promises to forgive him, "for I feel that you are sure to change."  But what of poor Cecily?  She's not given any lines about her opinion of the situation.  Algernon is still Algernon.  And it's unlikely that he's going to give up Bunbury, exploded or not.

In its reversals of cliches, of both plot and phrasing, this play reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse.  As Bertie Wooster would say, "Aunts aren't gentlemen," and that's particularly true of Algy's (and Jack's) Aunt Augusta.  I also think of Alice in Wonderland, because Algy's line about not being able to eat muffins in an agitated manner, because the butter would get on his cuffs, reminds me of the argument at the tea party about butter in the watch.  The play definitely is in the proud tradition of British absurdity delivered with a straight face.

I have to say that the line I appreciate more than ever, after surviving so many long Victorian novels, is "I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us."  With the exception of a few nonfiction works, the books of the 1900s are going to be a lot shorter than Middlemarch and Anna Karenina.  Well, until we hit the 1980s anyway.  (Mists of Avalon, I'm looking at you.)  On the other hand, there are going to be a lot of 20th-century works.  So from here on out, I'll be labeling the books by decade rather than century.

We'll start with a couple books from 1900, technically the 19th century, technically the Victorian period.  (The queen died 22 January 1901.)  But since they both shaped my identity, I'm going to count them as honorary 20th-century novels.

An Ideal Husband

1895
Oscar Wilde
An Ideal Husband
B


This is the play where Wilde got the most playful with the stage directions, as in the early description, "Watteau would have loved to paint them."  My favorite of the witty lines this time is "Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are."  Along with the plot, which has a scandal that's not sex-related for once, these make for my second favorite of Wilde's works.  (I've read but don't own Dorian Gray and some of his other fiction.)  The characters are more complex than in the three earlier plays, and I thought Caversham was great as the snarky father of snarky Goring.  Also, Mabel Chiltern is charming.  The title character and his wife seem like the usual stodgy Puritans, but at least they're allowed to react in rational ways for once.

Salome

1894 for first English translation, but written in French in 1893
Oscar Wilde, translated by Lord Alfred Douglas
Salome
F+


Wretched on just about every level, it's hard to say how much of this is Lord Alfred's fault (like so much in Wilde's life), and how much of the play was bad to begin with.  I don't know French, but here's my translation--
YOUNG SIRIAN:  The princess is so pretty, with feet like silver.
PAGE:  Dude, why are you always looking at her?
JOKANAAN:  (offstage) The queen is a slut.
HERODIAS:  Honey, that preacher is insulting me!
HEROD:  Not by name.
SALOME:  The preacher is rude about my mother.  I must meet him.
HEROD:  My stepdaughter is pretty.  Her skin is as white as moonlight and fish bellies.
HERODIAS:  Dude, why are you always looking at her?
SALOME:  The preacher is as pale as I am, like diamonds and bones.  I must meet him.  (Jokanaan enters)  You're hot!  Let's snog!
JOKANAAN:  You're a slut like your mother!
SALOME:  You're disgusting.  Kiss me!
(Young Sirian kills himself.  Herod almost slips in the blood.)
HEROD:  This is a bad omen.  Minion, get a mop!  (The Jews argue about whether the Messiah has come.)  Stepdaughter, you are white like pearls and eyeballs.  Dance for me!
SALOME:  Will you give me anything I want?
HERODIAS:  Don't do it!
HEROD:  Of course.
SALOME:  OK.  (She dances.) 
HEROD:  What gift did you want, Princess?
SALOME:  Bring me the head of John the Baptist!
HEROD:  Who?
SALOME:  Jokanaan.
HEROD:  You must be jokan.
SALOME:  Please.
HERODIAS:  Do it!
HEROD:  No way.
SALOME:  Pretty please.
HEROD:  (sighing) Oh, all right.  (Jokanaan is killed.  Salome kisses his head.)  Your daughter is disgusting!
HERODIAS:  I'm so proud.
HEROD:  (to soldiers) Kill Salome!  (They do.)

THE END

A Woman of No Importance

1893
Oscar Wilde
A Woman of No Importance
C+

As in Lady Windermere's Fan, a mother has a scandalous past.  This time, her former lover has unknowingly chosen their son as his protegee.  And there's a "Puritanical" young American woman mixed up in things.  I think this is Wilde's most forgettable play.  Other than "Nothing succeeds like excess," there don't seem to be any memorable quotes.  Even the part where Lord Illingworth says, "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy," and Mrs. Allonby replies, "No man does. That is his," is improved when Algernon gets both lines in The Importance of Being Earnest.  The funniest thing about this play is Lytton Strachey's 1907 interpretation, well, funny in a horrible way.  He sees Lord Illingworth's intentions towards his secretary as incestuous.  "Oh! he’s a very wicked Lord!"

Lady Windermere's Fan

1892, in 1980 Penguin edition of Play: Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Lady Windermere's Fan
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-


This play was performed in 1892 and published in '93.  As with Wilde's other plays, I'll be going with the earliest possible date, and in any case this is his first successful stage production, as well as his first society play.  The title "character" is a prop that incriminates Lady W., until Mrs. Erlynne, a woman with a bad reputation, who's secretly Lady W.'s mother, takes the fall.  The title could also refer to Lord Darlington, who offers to be Lady W.'s darling when it looks like Lord W. is cheating on her with Mrs. E.


I find the play to be more quotable than notable.  My favorite two quotations are "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it" and "History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality," although this is where the definition of a cynic comes from: "A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."  The plot itself is contrived, particularly Lord Windermere's behaviour.  Yes, he's in a difficult spot, financially supporting his secret mother-in-law, while his wife thinks Mummy died when she was a baby, rather than ran off with a lover.  But Lord W.'s insisting on inviting the scandalous Mrs. E. to Lady W.'s coming-of-age party seems only a device to introduce her to the audience, and a dilemma to his wife.  And then later, when he thinks that Lady W. was in a man's rooms late at night, he forbids his wife to visit her.  By the end, he's flip-flopping on whether he should reveal Mrs. E.'s identity to his wife.  The other characters make mistakes, but his annoy me the most.

I do like that a "fallen woman" is allowed to be the true heroine, making a sacrifice for her daughter, although if you look at the ending, it's not too unhappy for her, as she wins back her suitor, Lord Augustus.  His nickname is Tuppy, which kept reminding me of Bertie Wooster's chum.  Wilde definitely had an influence on P.G. Wodehouse, conscious or not.

Scraps

1793
Jane Austen
Scraps, containing The Female Philosopher; The First Act of a Comedy; A Letter from a Young Lady, Whose Feelings Being Too Strong for Her Judgement Led Her into the Commission of Errors, Which Her Heart Disapproved; A Tour Through Wales; and A Tale
C+

Lesser in quality and length, this juvenilia from the year Austen turned 18 have their moments, like the tale of a "furnished cottage," but there's not much notable here.  The main exception is the first work, which contains a proto-Mary-Bennet.

Austen's earliest works

1787-1790, Oxford Illustrated edition of Jane Austen: Minor Works 1967?
Jane Austen
Juvenilia thought to be written between those dates, includes Frederic & Elfrida, Jack & Alice, Edgar & Emma, Henry and Eliza, Mr. Harley, Sir William Montague, Mr. Clifford, The Beautifull [sic] Cassandra, Amelia Webster, The Visit, and The Mystery
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good shape except for frayed jacket
These works collectively a B-

Even in early adolescence, Jane was witty and talented, although her spelling, punctuation, and capitalisation could've been better.  Also, there's deliberately not much plot, character, or other substance here.  Highlights of each story are listed below.
Frederic & Elfrida:  The way groups of people deliver speeches simultaneously.
Jack & Alice:  Probably my favorite of the group, with the lines "Charles Adams was...of so dazzling a Beauty that none but Eagles could look him in the Face" and "...[T]he whole [masquerade] party not excepting Virtue were carried home, Dead Drunk" being best.  I also like how Lady Williams (AKA Virtue) is calmly infuriating.
Edgar & Emma:  The Willmots seem to have over 20 children.
Henry and Eliza:  The implausible trope of the missing baby that turns up years later and is easily recognised, nicely parodied.
Mr. Harley:  Very short--three paragraphs!--but with conflict and resolution.
Sir William Montague:   A man with wandering eyes and feet, who rejects one fiancee because she chooses 1 September as their wedding day, and that's the start of the hunting season.
Mr. Clifford:  When Mr. Clifford gets to an inn, he orders "a whole Egg to be boiled for him & his servants."
The Beautifull Cassandra:  Dedicated to her sister Cassandra, this is twelve extremely short chapters about a young lady who goes into town, creates havoc, and then returns to her mother, whispering to herself, "This is a day well spent."
Amelia Webster:  Perhaps the world's shortest epistolary novel, seven letters about the romances of the Hervey family.
The Visit:  Lord Fitzgerald's excuses to his guests (all blaming his late grandmother) and Lady Hampton's curtain line, "And may you all be Happy," provide the most fun here.
The Mystery:  Every conversation drops vague clues.

The School for Scandal

1777
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The School for Scandal (see She Stoops to Conquer for more details)
C+

Ladies and gentlemen gossip, worry about money, and have (or attempt to have) romantic intrigues.  The characters are less interesting than in She Stoops to Conquer, although I do like some of the witty lines, particularly in the "auction scene."  Also notable for having a relatively sympathetic Jewish character.

She Stoops to Conquer

1773, Bantam Pathfinder Edition 1966 (includes The School for Scandal as well)
Oliver Goldsmith
She Stoops to Conquer; or, The Mistakes of a Night
Original price 60 cents, bought used for 40 cents
Cover has fallen off, otherwise OK condition for its age
B-

The subtitle mostly refers to the mistakes of the character Marlow, who thinks that a private house is an inn.  The "she" of the main title is Miss Hardcastle, who passes herself off as a barmaid in order to woo Marlow, who is shy with ladies but amorous with women "beneath him."  Meanwhile, Miss Hardcastle's cousin Miss Neville has a romance with Marlow's friend Hastings.  And then there's Tony Lumpkin, Miss Hardcastle's half-brother and Miss Neville's very reluctant suitor, who's introduced as an immature lump but ends up being the most likable character.  Plus, various parents and other elders.  A pretty good farce overall.

Henry VIII

1613
William Shakespeare
Henry VIII
C-

As in Antony and Cleopatra, WS has a talent for making vibrant historical figures flat and uninteresting onstage.  Almost 80 years after her death, was there a reason to strip Anne Boleyn of her vivid personality?  Even Henry comes across more vividly in every book I've ever read him in than he does here.  Ironically, pious, demure Katherine of Aragon steals the scenes she's in.  Also LOL at the way the last scene works in praise not only for Elizabeth I but for her successor James I.  (You'd think Henry might be annoyed by a prediction that his daughter will not only be the ruler but die a virgin, considering all his succession issues.)

Overall, this collection of Shakespeare averages out to a C.  I'll hold on to it, but I'll probably continue to read it through only once every 20 years.

The Tempest

1610-1611
Shakespeare
The Tempest
B

The penultimate of WS's surviving plays (until Cardenio and The Two Noble Kinsmen turn up) is his first good play in about a decade (since Hamlet).  Interesting characters and setting, memorable quotes (including "brave new world"), and the themes of reconciliation, young love, and of course getting monsters drunk, all blend well.  Weaknesses:  perhaps too many subplots and more needless cameos by the gods.  (Ires, Ceres, and Juno here, while Cymbeline brought in Jupiter.  At least As You Like It gave Hymen some good lines.)

Cymbeline

1610-1611
Shakespeare
Cymbeline
D

The title character's daughter, Princess Imogen, goes through a series of unfortunate events, but with none of Lemony Snicket's wit.  The title is sort of fun to sing to the tune of Chuck Berry's "Maybellene."

The Winter's Tale

1594-1611
Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale
C-

While certainly a continuation of Shakespeare's midlife slump, this is a definite improvement over the somewhat similar Pericles (a king's wife and daughter disappear for about fifteen years, presumed dead), even if Leontes is a jealous idiot for half the play.  Credit goes to the comic relief:  Autolycus the pedlar, the Shepherd, and the latter's son the Clown.  Also, things aren't quite so far-fetched and there's a lot less distasteful material.  And, yes, this is the play that J. K. Rowling took Hermione Granger's first name from, as well as being the drama with the wonderful stage direction "Exit, pursued by a bear."  Plus, there's a certain d-word that will make you blink in surprise in Act IV, scene iv.

Coriolanus

1608
Shakespeare
Coriolanus
F+

Possibly WS's most boring play, in which an unappreciated Roman hero gets exiled as a traitor during a political campaign.

Pericles

1608-1609
Shakespeare
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
D-

Our title-character hero solves a riddle that reveals that a neighbour king is incestually involved with his daughter.  (The riddle is painfully obvious and it's unclear why this is used as a way to weed out suitors for the said daughter.)  So Pericles has to run for his life from the evil king, who later conveniently dies offstage.  Then Pericles marries a different king's daughter, who seems to also die offstage, giving birth to their daughter, Marina.  But it turns out that she's not really dead, so she's revived and becomes a priestess of Diana.  Meanwhile, Pericles has Marina raised by friends for the next fifteen years or so.  But the foster mother pays to have her killed off, except Marina is kidnapped by pirates, and then ends up in a brothel, where her purity makes the customers try to be more virtuous.  In the end, father and daughter, and then mother, are happily reunited.

Probably the most ludicrous plot in all of WS, but much less bloody and racist than Titus Andronicus.

All's Well That Ends Well

1606-1607
Shakespeare
All's Well That Ends Well
D-

As with Measure for Measure, a "light" title hides a darker play that involves bed-partner substitution, along with other questionable material.  AWTEW is worse because we're actually supposed to be rooting for not very sympathetic Helena and totally unsympathetic Bertram to get together.  Helena is sort of a female doctor but lacks the cleverness of Merchant of Venice's "lawyer" Portia.

Antony and Cleopatra

1606
Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra
D+

Not very interesting version of Cleopatra.  Rather than being a clever, complicated woman, she's basically a jealous nag, but a sexy jealous nag.  Antony's just there to Othellically think the worst of the woman he supposedly adores.  Octavian comes off as more interesting than either.

Macbeth

1603-1606
Shakespeare
Macbeth
C+

Another brief halt in WS's decline, Macbeth is a bloody political drama with some pretty good speeches.  The "ironic" predictions could've been fulfilled a bit less eh.  "Look out, here comes an army with branches!  Look out, here comes a man delivered by cesarean!"