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A review by amyreadsbooks917
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
3.0
This is the first Mamet play I've read, and he's got a very unique style.
What I liked about the book was the speech patterns. Plays are so dialogue-centric, and I felt like Mamet took extra attention to make the dialogue seem... conversational. A bunch of acerbic salesmen are not going to deliver their lines and wait for another person to speak before responding. There was stuttering and repeating of words and cutting others off, talking over them -- all perfectly scripted. It's weird that that's what I liked most about the play, but it really was the mastery of conversational dialogue and writing it in a way that really reflected that.
It was also fun at times to imagine the characters as malfunctioning robots stuttering and repeating themselves. They were like profane Daleks... but I digress.
I also liked that the beginning relationship between Levene and Williamson came full circle towards the end of the last scene. And the later scene with Levene, Lingk and Roma had me squirming with how manipulative the salesmen were.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It wasn't amazing, but it was good, and I really think that it would be even better to see it performed live. I've also heard that the Mamet-written screenplay has more depth -- if only because of the scene with the character of Blake acted by Alec Baldwin.
What I liked about the book was the speech patterns. Plays are so dialogue-centric, and I felt like Mamet took extra attention to make the dialogue seem... conversational. A bunch of acerbic salesmen are not going to deliver their lines and wait for another person to speak before responding. There was stuttering and repeating of words and cutting others off, talking over them -- all perfectly scripted. It's weird that that's what I liked most about the play, but it really was the mastery of conversational dialogue and writing it in a way that really reflected that.
It was also fun at times to imagine the characters as malfunctioning robots stuttering and repeating themselves. They were like profane Daleks... but I digress.
I also liked that the beginning relationship between Levene and Williamson came full circle towards the end of the last scene. And the later scene with Levene, Lingk and Roma had me squirming with how manipulative the salesmen were.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It wasn't amazing, but it was good, and I really think that it would be even better to see it performed live. I've also heard that the Mamet-written screenplay has more depth -- if only because of the scene with the character of Blake acted by Alec Baldwin.