Reviews

Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen

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paola_mobileread's review against another edition

2.0

The annotated Penguin paperback edition, though not exhaustive has enough notes to indicate clearly that Ibsen was using satire against the conservative Norvegian and Swedish societies, and Norvegian nationalism in particular, with several references to the (damming) non intervention when Denmark was invaded - of course I woulnd't have been able to tell, and even with the notes I remained pretty much in the dark "thanks" to my total and utter ignorance of Norwegian history.

In addition, there were various references to changes in the structure of the verse for dramatic effect, but of course that is completely lost in the (non rhyming) translation. As far as translation goes, I found the freely available Adelaide University ebook version perhpas more poetic though more criptic for me as a non-native speaker than the Penguin version (transalted by Peter Watts). As prose, I found it very flat, and at various points it felt very much like reading [b:The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights|93101|The Arabian Nights Tales from a Thousand and One Nights |Richard Francis Burton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320518022s/93101.jpg|859375].

In short, I cannot say I liked it.

On the positive side, one of the passages that struck me most is the answer of the Button Moulder to Peer's question on what it means to be oneself, to which the Button Moulder replies "Being one's self means slaying one's self ... Above everything else it's observing the Master's intentions in all things"; and beside this, there is a running theme on Christianity to which Peer pays only lipservice until (maybe) the very last moment.

(edited version of my own post in the MobilerRead Literary Book Club discussion)

sidharthvardhan's review against another edition

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5.0

Okay this one is a little too big a size for Ibsen's plays. It moves to and fro between reality, fantasy and dream worlds crazily. The question of identity seems an important theme. If you are a human; and being considerate of other humans is a neccesary characterstic of humanity; can you be yourself when you follow your instincts without having that consideration? Peer Gynt can lie, use women and then abandon them without any remorse, cheat people, tell tall tails etc while claiming that he is being himself - only to learn he never was himself in the end. He seems a bit like the main character of Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Times' in that the author (in this case the dramtist) endows him with vices he finds most common to his times coupling them with romantically attractive qualities (good looks, ideals like going around or being oneself etc in this case) that are of little value to anyone else but the titular character himself.