Number of pages: 63
Number of reading days: 1
Why I read this book: Because Oscar Wilde is brilliant (studied Dorian Gray in London) and I adore the 2002 film adaptation with Colin Firth and Rupert Everett.
Thoughts:
Reading this play was an absolute joy. Gloriously witty word play and completely ridiculous situations. Not much else to say really. Except that the entire premise of this play--the name switching and mix-ups--feels very Shakespearean. And I quite like its focus on the trivial: Algy eating all the cucumber sandwiches, Bunburying, sugar lumps in tea, and muffins.
Favorite Passages & Quotes:
Algernon Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't.More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.
Algernon The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!
Jack That wouldn't be a bad thing.
Algernon Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't try it. You should leave that to people who haven't been at a University. They do it so well in the daily papers.
Cecily I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down I should probably forget all about them.
Miss Prism Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.
Cecily Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us.
Miss Prism Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days.
Cecily Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.
Cecily And here is the box where I keep all your dear letters.
Algernon My letters? But, my own sweet Cecily, I have never written you any letters.
Cecily You need hardly remind me of that, Ernest. I remember only too well that I was forced to write your letters for you. I wrote always three times a week, and sometimes oftener.
Gwendolen I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.
Gwendolen You have filled by tea with lumps of sugar, and though I asked distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far.
Jack How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.
Algernon Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.
Jack I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.
Algernon When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. (Rising.)
Jack (Rising.) Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. (Takes muffins from Algernon.)
Algernon (Offering tea-cake.) I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don’t like tea-cake.
Jack Good heavens! I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.
Algernon But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins.
Jack I said it was perfectly heartless of you, under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.
Algernon That may be. But the muffins are the same. (He seizes the muffin-dish from Jack.)
Algernon Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.
Jack I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.
Algernon When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. (Rising.)
Jack (Rising.) Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. (Takes muffins from Algernon.)
Algernon (Offering tea-cake.) I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don’t like tea-cake.
Jack Good heavens! I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.
Algernon But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins.
Jack I said it was perfectly heartless of you, under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.
Algernon That may be. But the muffins are the same. (He seizes the muffin-dish from Jack.)
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I love The Importance of Being Earnest! We read it in school and my role was that of Lady Brancknell. I think I've never had so much fun in school before :D
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