Selected Prose And Drama, Vol. 94 Book

Rhinoceros.

How can you pass up a title like that?

Ionesco, a man who spent his life in Romania and France, is an exceptional writer.

This collection was of his plays, but he writes prose and poety also.

There were three or four plays in this collection, but the most outrageous one was 'Rhinoceros.'

It can be understood on many levels.

We can find several sentiments that recur throughout these four plays.

His thought carriage contains; a disdain for material things, a lack of trust in the communication process, an agitated awareness of banality, a need for solitude at times, the absolute absurdity of the human disease, a distaste for ideological conformity, a lucid reduction of reality that is both frightening and fantastic, and much more.

Is 'Rhinoceros' an allegory or sorts about Nazism, which he lived through? Is it a declaration or a refutation of this system which must subvert free will to allow the killing machine to work? And how did the victims rationalize away their free thought and systematically allow themselves to take fatal showers and chose the suicidal paths created for them?

Remember Ceaușescu? Have you ever seen that crazy and ridiculous government building he created in Bucharest? The second largest edifice of its kind in the world, the Pentagon is first. I wondered how Ionesco perceived this while reading him and I am fairly sure I could surmise his impression.

Or are his plays just plain funny and witty and enjoyable?

They are both, and that is what may elevate this author to limited oxygenated heights.

A real treasure regardless of how you would like to interpret it.