The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Hello!

The Importance of Being Earnest was book #4 read for me so far this year, and I have to say it was quite good! A Victorian era farce at its finest! I have read that Oscar Wilde's play was a subject of influence for slapstick comedies such as Monty Python, and I can absolutely see it. It is cartoonish, ridiculous, not deep at all, and had me chuckling every page. This play is really well done. Oscar Wilde is brilliant.

The play itself has both nothing and everything to do with the value of earnest, and centers more around the name "Earnest". I don't really want to break it down and spoil the hijinks, but just know this is Oscar Wilde at his finest and most creative. The man invented wit. It is a not-so-subtle satire- an indictment on the upper classes of Victorian society- and it has no qualms it shaping this society out to be so absurd. This absurdity is reality, especially in the cases of love, courtship, marriage arrangements, and even the church. Our main "protagonists" Jack and Algernon, jump through hoops to maintain the strangest of falsities in hopes to lure and marry their beloveds, and keep their discreet pleasures alive and hidden. Everyone in this play is shallow as all hell, yet somehow I was left rooting for them all with the exception of Lady Bracknell (Gorgon!). And yet, these idiots often times display such wit. One liners such as “Oh! I don't think I would like to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.”, run rampant throughout this work. I promise you that you will find lines both worth laughing about and reflecting over.

A word of advice: Read this book with audible or another audio book platform. And make sure you get a reader who specializes in performing different voices. Or a cast of narrators. I read along with the audio book narrated by Edward James Beesley, and he did a terrific job being consistent with the voices of all the characters. It made a world of difference, and added to the humor of the play. I think it brings out the more subtle nuances of some of the dialogue. Tell me what you think if you have read the play. And if you haven't read it, and are in the mood for something lighthearted and whimsical in these uncertain times, give it a try!

“Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?”

“Never met such a Gorgon . . . I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair.”