Long Day's Journey into Night (1956)

Again, don't remember exactly when I read this, but I did a lot of underlining. ( )

Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night is regarded as his finest work. First published by Yale University Press in 1956, it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957 and has since sold more than one million copies. This edition, which includes a new foreword by Harold Bloom, coincides with a new production of the play starring Brian Dennehy, which opens in Chicago in January 2002 and in New York in April.rrThis work is interesting enough for its history. Completed in 1940, Long Day's Journey Into Night is an autobiographical play Eugene O'Neill wrote that--because of the highly personal writing about his family--was not to be released until 25 years after his death, which occurred in 1953. But since O'Neill's immediate family had died in the early 1920s, his wife allowed publication of the play in 1956. Besides the history alone, the play is fascinating in its own right. It tells of the "Tyrones"--a fictional name for what is clearly the O'Neills. Theirs is not a happy tale: The youngest son (Edmond) is sent to a sanitarium to recover from tuberculosis; he despises his father for sending him; his mother is wrecked by narcotics; and his older brother by drink. In real-life these factors conspired to turn O'Neill into who he was--a tormented individual and a brilliant playwright.

Peça autobiográfica sobre uma família mergulhada em vícios e negação. Brilhantemente escrito. ( )

Of interest to me: forward by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanties at Yale University.

Maybe the most intimate and autobiographical of O'Neill's plays, his mastery is as clear here as it is in his other work. In the space of a summer home and with a single family as not only the focus, but the only cast (aside from one servant), this work is both powerful and heartwrenching.

Tinged with both poetry and humor, this journey is worth reading for any mature reader. As always, O'Neill's style also makes his plays easier to read than many other dramas--this one, especially, since the cast is so small. Absolutely recommended. ( )