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joyce_appreciator's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
- Two absolutely outstanding works of proto-modern art. I'd never read Ibsen of this stripe before, although some of the boundary-pushing patriarchs of other works (e.g. the Master Builder) hint at this sublimity, the desperate post-Romantic worlds of Peer Gynt and Brand push it to it's very limits.
- Brand pursues its religious theme with an intensity that is bold even on the part of the dramatist, displaying an endless interest in divine justice which leaves nothing wanting. Maybe that Einar ought to have been developed more in the play to give a more viable intellectual counterpoint to Brand's all or nothing... The segment with the mother is absolutely excruciating too.
- Peer Gynt goes in the opposite direction to Brand, pursuing the self with the same feverish drive that Ibsen's preacher pursues the heavens. I believe that Joyce's 'Circe' is plucked pretty unashamedly from the carnivalesque sequences of this play, and although it likely drags on a bit and labours a little too hard at the same metaphysical quarry, this exhaustion is a useful aspect of the play as Peer hunts again and again for answers. The folksy and proto-modern elements (the Boyd, the trolls, the Devil) add a delightfully Rabelaisian touch to a world, and help reinforce the notion that in a world where anything can be anything, Peer is somehow failing at just this. Even the story about the boy who chops his finger off to avoid conscription feels like something decades before its time, and the resources that Ibsen has at his disposal wonderfully anticipate the modern dilemma of 'becoming' while deeply ensconced in the nineteenth century
- Brand pursues its religious theme with an intensity that is bold even on the part of the dramatist, displaying an endless interest in divine justice which leaves nothing wanting. Maybe that Einar ought to have been developed more in the play to give a more viable intellectual counterpoint to Brand's all or nothing... The segment with the mother is absolutely excruciating too.
- Peer Gynt goes in the opposite direction to Brand, pursuing the self with the same feverish drive that Ibsen's preacher pursues the heavens. I believe that Joyce's 'Circe' is plucked pretty unashamedly from the carnivalesque sequences of this play, and although it likely drags on a bit and labours a little too hard at the same metaphysical quarry, this exhaustion is a useful aspect of the play as Peer hunts again and again for answers. The folksy and proto-modern elements (the Boyd, the trolls, the Devil) add a delightfully Rabelaisian touch to a world, and help reinforce the notion that in a world where anything can be anything, Peer is somehow failing at just this. Even the story about the boy who chops his finger off to avoid conscription feels like something decades before its time, and the resources that Ibsen has at his disposal wonderfully anticipate the modern dilemma of 'becoming' while deeply ensconced in the nineteenth century
abomine's review against another edition
3.0
If South Park's Eric Cartman went on a magical roadtrip around the world, it would be a lot like this play. I wouldn't say it was fun to read, but I'd love to see this play in person.
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