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A review by pickett22
Dear Brutus by J.M. Barrie
5.0
This has been my bath-time reading for a while, and I finished it tonight. It was an excellent bath book; fairly cheerful, clever, and funny, and yet thoughtful.
When I started it I was kinda...
Can't tell if funny... off-putting...
I wasn't sure at first if the narrator was very tongue-in-cheek or actually serious. It becomes clear really early on, though, that it's the former. And it's really funny. And sweet. And rather sad. It's sad for my favourite characters, but really lovely for my runners-up.
Also, I was so pleased with how the philanderer ended up. That was really, really well done.
Actual quote:
JOANNA: It's so lovely not to be married to you, Jack.
JACK: (spiritless) I can understand that.
I see in Margaret Hopkins' Spring and Fall. I'm sure that's not an accident. Literary references abound, this was just my favourite.
I'm not sure how well this translates to stage, or if it's meant to be one of those plays that are read and not performed, because the stage directions are a.) hilarious and b.) very important to the tone of the thing. You'd need to really ham it up, I think, to make it come across with the same kind of feeling. Actually, if you hammed it up, it would lose something, because part of the hilarity is in how serious everyone takes themselves. So yeah, I dunno.
Really good read, though.
Re-read in 2020:
This book is really fun to teach. Watching a bunch of teenagers try to puzzle out what went wrong with the Dearth's marriage is really funny and interesting, even though in the end I had to point it out to them.
I actually read it twice in a very short time-span, because we also did it as a Covid-19 online read-along for drama club. I pulled parts out of a hat and away we went. The play is SO funny in places, and then shifts tone to be so heart-wrenching, but it's all handled so beautifully. It would be great to see it (or be in it), but the entire group agreed that a narrator would be required as the stage directions are pretty fundamental to the story.
When I started it I was kinda...
Can't tell if funny... off-putting...
I wasn't sure at first if the narrator was very tongue-in-cheek or actually serious. It becomes clear really early on, though, that it's the former. And it's really funny. And sweet. And rather sad. It's sad for my favourite characters, but really lovely for my runners-up.
Also, I was so pleased with how the philanderer ended up. That was really, really well done.
Actual quote:
JOANNA: It's so lovely not to be married to you, Jack.
JACK: (spiritless) I can understand that.
I see in Margaret Hopkins' Spring and Fall. I'm sure that's not an accident. Literary references abound, this was just my favourite.
I'm not sure how well this translates to stage, or if it's meant to be one of those plays that are read and not performed, because the stage directions are a.) hilarious and b.) very important to the tone of the thing. You'd need to really ham it up, I think, to make it come across with the same kind of feeling. Actually, if you hammed it up, it would lose something, because part of the hilarity is in how serious everyone takes themselves. So yeah, I dunno.
Really good read, though.
Re-read in 2020:
This book is really fun to teach. Watching a bunch of teenagers try to puzzle out what went wrong with the Dearth's marriage is really funny and interesting, even though in the end I had to point it out to them.
I actually read it twice in a very short time-span, because we also did it as a Covid-19 online read-along for drama club. I pulled parts out of a hat and away we went. The play is SO funny in places, and then shifts tone to be so heart-wrenching, but it's all handled so beautifully. It would be great to see it (or be in it), but the entire group agreed that a narrator would be required as the stage directions are pretty fundamental to the story.