Reviews

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde

tornoutending's review

emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

☆☆☆☆¾

What drew me to the book: I thought it sounded interesting and I'd read a play by Wilde before which I really enjoyed so I decided to give another one a chance.

How long it’s been on my TBR: Maybe like a year.

My expectations: Basically what the synopsis provided although I was unsure how much I'd enjoy it.

My thoughts whilst reading: I didn't write down my thoughts but I found myself really entertained whilst reading it and I was excited to see in which direction the story would go and how everything would turn out.

Overall: I really, really enjoyed this one, it was just as entertaining as Lady Windermere's fan. I loved all the different characters and relationships and watching how they played out throughout the course of the play. I really don't have much to say except that I really enjoyed An Ideal Husband.

Miscellaneous: I don't remember my exact thoughts as I read this over a month ago (I should've written this review sooner whoops).

Did it meet my expectations: It didn't just meet them but overthrew them.

Favourite character: Lord Goring, I loved his parts whenever he was on the page.

Favourite relationship: Probably the relationship between Lord Goring and Mabel Chiltern, although I did also really enjoy the relationship between Lord and Lady Chiltern, especially watching how it changed as they faced what life (or rather Mrs Cheveley) threw at them.

Favourite scene: Ooh that's a tough one, I liked the end when Lord Goring caught Mrs Cheveley with the bracelet.

Favourite quote: 'Between you and him there are chasms. He and I are closer than friends. We are enemies linked together. The same sin binds us.'

Why I rounded the review up: I really enjoyed it so why not round it up!

Will I be reading the sequel: N/A.

Will I be investing in a physical copy: 100% yes!

Do I regret reading it: Not in the slightest.

Do I recommend it: Yes!

*(For rating systems such as Goodreads)

Book #7 from my TBR Jar.

omwomack02's review against another edition

3.25

if oscar wilde has 100 fans, i am one of them. if oscar wilde has 1 fan, it is me. if oscar wilde has 0 fans, it is because i am no longer on this earth. 

sjreadsssss's review against another edition

funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

marieintheraw's review

4.0

I love Oscar Wilde's work

bhall237's review

4.0

“MRS. CHEVELEY. Ah! the strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women merely adored.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. You think science cannot grapple with the problem of women?
MRS. CHEVELEY. Science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why it has no future before it, in this world.”

Oscar Wilde knows how to write plays unlike any I’ve read thus far. I was hooked into this play from the first act to the last and I could not wait to turn the page and see what came next. Just about all the characters are flawed and have a major obstacle in their current predicament and it makes for some exquisite drama that had me fully immersed into the world of Robert Chiltern and company.

The biggest flaw of this play is sadly the final act, and really only the last few pages of that. Everything is just too neatly wrapped up, and the element of the real world drama and issues individuals face was wiped clean by the happy ending that was given.

Besides that and overall, I loved this play and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves plays or dramas for that matter.

is_book_loring's review against another edition

4.0

“You see, it is a very dangerous thing to listen. If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person.”

Could always depend on Oscar Wilde for a brilliant, witty banter, noteworthy quotes and a good guffaw any time. Like everything he wrote, it was comical but with underlying tone of serious, sarcastic critic on significant topics, even more in this play. An Ideal Husband also gave great insight into the depth and intricacy of the relationship between misogyny, marriage, idealism, self-image, the force it played on social concepts, and how it affected each gender's thought pattern, action to their respected gender and their opposite in the patriarchal community of the era.

“I am always saying what I shouldn't say. In fact, I usually say what I really think. A great mistake nowadays. It makes one so liable to be misunderstood.”

“It is always worth while asking a question, though it is not always worth while answering one.”

doriansread's review against another edition

emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

madeleine20678's review

fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

mashedpotatoandsaladcream's review against another edition

emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

‘oh i love london society!… it is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. just what society should be.’

there is a reason why multiple of wilde’s plays were such successes in his time, enough so to still be performed. i’ve only read two but each of them have been something so witty and entertaining - his skill in writing witty dialogue, like that of lord goring and mabel chiltern is ridiculous, i had me repressing smiles and all that because i just found it so funny and snarky. 

‘i remember so well how, with a strange smile on his pale, curved lips, he led me through his wonderful picture gallery, showed me his tapestries, his enamels, his jewels, his carved ivories, made me wonder at the strange loveliness of the luxury in which he lived; and then told me that luxury was nothing but a background, a painted scene in a play, and that power, power over other men, power over the world, was the one thing worth having, the one supreme pleasure  worth knowing, the one joy one never tired of, and that in our century only the rich possessed it… You have never been poor? and never known what ambition is. You cannot understand what a wonderful chance the baron gave me.’

the play itself follows lord and lady chiltern as a letter has reappeared that would ruin the moral upstanding position the lord has seemingly and justifiably gained himself over his political career, and it has been threatened in being revealed by a lady from the lady chilterns past who she vehemently hates. this letter shows the single proof of the selling of government secrets for money, ultimately it’s a moral choice for the lord of whether stand by his morals to refuse to do the lady’s bidding or throw away everything he believes in for the chance of not undergoing a scandal that would ruin him. but not only would it ruin his public appearance but also his personal relationship with his wife who has places him upon a pedestal he must withstand to keep her love. the quote above is from act 2 and it’s provoking where wilde has chiltern admit it all to goring, talking of ambition and the want of money has on those who don’t have it, the hypocrisy of society and whether it is so bad to do one single thing for a lifetime of status and power - the bravery and courage it takes to ‘stake all one’s life on a single moment, to risk everything on one throw… there is no weakness in that. there is a horrible, a terrible courage. i had that courage’

‘lord chiltern: … and that i had done a thing that i suppose most men would call shameful and dishonourable?

lord goring (slowly): yes; most men would call it ugly names. there is no doubt of that 

lord chiltern (bitterly): men who do it every day do something of the kind themselves. men who, each of them, have worse secrets in their whole lives

lord goring: that is the reason they are so pleased to find out other peoples secrets. it distracts public attention from their own

lord chiltern: and, after all, whom did i wrong by what i did? no one

lord goring (looking at him steadily): except yourself, robert. 

[pause]’

and as i’ve only read two, both being societal comedies, he uses these trope characters (like the doting and devoted husband to the wife who is strict with her beliefs to a detrimental standard, or the dashing aesthete best friend who is there for advice to save the main pairing) with a degree where you could read multiple forms of the same story and still find it interesting. 

lord goring? i LOVED him, from the minute he appeared to the way he out smarts the antagonist, to his loyalty to the main pairing and to his conversations with his soon fiancé. he’s just such a funny and interesting character and i cant help liking him so much. but it isn’t only him that i liked, i liked lord chiltern but maybe that’s just my weakness for a husband who never truly doubts his wife and all the sappiness that arrives from that because no matter the purity accusations his wife throws at him, in the end he still knows she loved him and wouldn’t have cheated on him with his longest and oldest best friend.  

‘there was your error. the error all women commit. why can’t you women love us, adults and all? why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? we have all feet of clay, women as well as men: but when we men love women, we love them all the more, it may be, for that reason. it is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come cure us - else what use is love at all? … a mans love is like that. it is wider, larger, more human that a woman’s… you made your false idol of me, and i had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. i was afraid that i might lose your love, as i have lost it now.’

my only issues with the play was largely the ending and the low-key misogynistic quotes but then it’s a societal comedy, it makes fun of comedy so it could just have all been an exaggerated view of women. the quote above? lord chiltern says to his wife after she refuses to look at him after finding out his one mistake. it seems off to me for a man to preach women as loving less? i’m not sure if others would class it as misogynistic and i’m on the fence myself because i agreed with parts of it but wilde sure knows how to write an emotional confrontation. the ending is happy?? it gets all resolved it just seemed lacking to me. 

i have not read guy domville yet but if i were james running to see this play after his was booed off on the same night? i would understand him later giving up on theatre. a kick to the confidence is all. 

molly_vi0let's review

funny hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75