09 March 2006

Breakfast, Oscar Wilde and the local bookstore

Just got back from breakfast with PC. Actually its breakfast for me and lunch for him (he eats breakfast while the rest of us are getting ready for dinner!). We are both currently reading The Importance of Being Earnest and its had us in stitches! Imagine my joy at discovering that I had this gem of a play tucked away in my pile of books to read. I am at the point in the play where it is apparent that Earnest is the suitable mate for both Gwendolyn and Cecily, however he doesn't exist! (Gwendolyn loves Jack, but wishes he were called Earnest, likewise Cecily loves Earnest who is actually named Aglgernon). I think Wilde has passed across vital information here; the perfect man doesn't exist, and even if he did, he cannot be had because he is unrecognisable! Although this is my first complete work of Oscar Wilde it seems quite familiar, almost like I had read it before maybe in bits and pieces (like I am currently reading the Count of Monte Cristo). I realise the play seems so familiar because Wilde is widely quoted from it, imagie my joy to find one of my favorite quotes in the play:

"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness"

My copy of the play was published by Wordsworth Editions Limited, and at the back there is a long list of other classics published by them. PC looks through and as he reads out the various authors and their works, we both 'travel down' memory lane. I have never read The Pickwick Papers and he told me that 'Earnest' was child's play in the comic department. We both eagerly trot of to the nearby bookstore only to get there and start to wonder why we had come! Imagine we both couldn't remember the title that had brought us rushing down! Well it was good exercise and great company so I guess the trip wasn't such a waste.

3 comments:

TMinx said...

Haven't had the fortune of reading the book but loved the film with Sylvester Stalone! It can't be better than the book though..mental note to me..look for the book.

Unknown said...

Do you like George Bernard SHAW?

adefunke said...

Yes I do, I grew up on 'My Fair Lady', read 'Pygmalion' when I was older. I have this book of anecdotes that has a lot of GBS quotes, quite a cantankerous guy