Reviews for Edith Somerville

The average rating for Edith Somerville based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-07-19 00:00:00 Nicholas Kallemeres "The trouble with Western Society today is the lack of anything to conceal," teased Joe Orton in 1967, a short time before receiving a deadly cosh from his jealous Signif Other. Orton, the ultimate worldling whose plays reminded UK critics of Ben Jonson, Shaw and an Oscar Wilde of the Welfare State, kept a diary during the last months of his irreverent life (d. age 34) that bursts w the upside down manners of his ironic - classic - comedies. Polishing his masterful chamber work, "What the Butler Saw," he opined: "Sex is the only way to infuriate the public. Much more fucking and they'll be screaming hysterics--." Like a Restoration playwright he exercises the comedy of paradox -- w colloquial ease. US comic writers aim for the punch-line (Neil Simon) or the put-down (Dorothy Parker). Orton targets the mind with verbal jousts like "How dare you involve me in a situation for which no memo has been issued" and "Show your emotions in public or not at all." The diary records his London life. After a trip to the barber, he says, "My hair cut looks pretty good. It appears to be quite natural whilst in actual fact being artificial. Which is a philosophy I approve of." Overheard conversation between two ladies on a bus: "There's a lot of blue about lately." The other replies, "Yes, and there's a lot of green about too." After buying a china pig as a gift for his TV producer, he reports that the clerk "packed it in a cardboard box that originally held three Bronco toilet rolls. A more sensible present in many ways." Forays with the Beatles are here, along with comments about Olivier as "Othello" ("his costumes were just fashionable beach wear"), and Vanessa Redgrave and her father ("he must have been bisexual or she wouldn't be alive today.") There's plenty of forthright sex. A doctor, he reports, keeps his house stocked with lads, each with a task, including a boy responsible for the goldfish. Finger wag : "Now, Dennis, you've neglected to feed the fish. What is your excuse?" "Well, you see, I had the trade in and I forgot." "You've no right to have the trade in until you've fed the goldfish." The Orton charm is YouTube visible in an Eamonn Andrews TVer just before he died. In life, in theatre, in his diary -- too much is never enough for the wondrous Joe Orton horseplay, except when it was.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-12-07 00:00:00 Michel Veillette I was only just sixteen when I bought this book. I had to hide it from my parents because it was "subversive". One of my friends recommended it to me. It was definitely not your normal material for a sixteen year old. I loved it. It was so different and raw from the happy go lucky books all around me. The stories were so different than what was required in school. I still look back on Joe Orton and this book with fondness. The writing is of a caliber I rarely encounter anymore. Then again, I couldn't read 500 of these type of books every year. I'd be weighed down and slit my wrists. Recommended for those who enjoy something different than the usual.