I always get a smidge nervous reviewing short works and book club choices. This one is both. Exciting times friends! My immediate takeaway when I finished was that it may be too absurdist for me. But that doesn’t quite grasp the idea I was after. From my limited experience with Stoppard, he is always playing with words, playing with meaning, playing with intent, and has no problem (perhaps prefers) to have his characters speaking at cross purposes. What that does to a reader is leave […]
Book Announcement: #CannonBookClub Reads a Play
To quote a literary legend “The play’s the thing!” and we’ll be reading and discussing Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound on Wednesday December 13, 2017. I have posted Discussion Topics post as a reminder to finish up and food for thought. As in Book Clubs past, feel free to visit us here on the group blog for the dedicated post or in our Facebook Cannonball Read Book Chat group where I’ll have even more topics to discuss. Here’s a synopsis of our choice: The ultimate parody of the stage […]
Book Club Reads a Play: Voting
Voting for this Book Club is now Closed. See our Announcement Post for which Play we are reading. We’re going to round out our 2017 book clubs with an adventure into the theatre: let’s read a play! There are many ways to experience dramatic literature, and reading it can be challenging. You might feel like you’re reading a set of instructions or the work may play out on the stage of your imagination. Regardless, a play can be a moving literary experience. I’ve pulled together a […]
Resonating for the last 135 years
I first read An Enemy of the People when I was in high school and I can recall being quite moved by it. Since the phrase “enemy of the people” has been bandied about in the news lately, I thought this would be an excellent time to revisit the play. Would it be as poignant as I remembered, or would I discover that the brain of a teenager is too unsophisticated to appreciate Norwegian drama and that I’d missed the nuance? The plot is pretty much as […]