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Loading... Our Town (1938)by Thornton Wilder
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. The last time I read this was in AP English back in 1983. 😳 After reading TOM LAKE, I had to revisit it, and I'm so glad I did. I remember finding it pointless at the tender and stupid age of 17. What the hell was wrong with me? Such a poignant reminder to carpe diem--especially the most mundane moments of our lives because going about our daily business is the life of living and we must cherish every single second. Thanks, TW, for the reminder. ( ) I absolutely love this play, but seeing it performed again this summer was an emotional experience. It was the 25th anniversary of my Mom's death and she performed as the lead in high school. The play is a celebration of life, both its simple routines and its big moments. Seeing it and rereading it was incredibly moving. I can't imagine experiencing this play and not appreciating the beauty of life a bit more when you are done. "I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. All that was going on in life, and we never noticed. Take me back – up the hill – to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners. Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking. And Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths. And sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?" The third act reminded me of Lincoln in the Bardo. There is a vein of sentimentality that runs through Our Town that (I think) kind of obscures the larger point about how we are locked into our cultural framework, from which the only liberation is death. The second act makes a sort of radical point about marriage. And the staging was innovative for the time. I'm looking forward to seeing the 2002 adaptation with Paul Newman, waiting in my DVD.com queue. no reviews | add a review
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This beautiful new edition features an eye-opening Afterword written by Tappan Wilder that includes Thornton Wilder's unpublished notes and other illuminating photographs and documentary material. Our Town was first produced and published in 1938 to wide acclaim. This Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the small village of Grover's Corners, an allegorical representation of all life, has become a classic. It is Thornton Wilder's most renowned and most frequently performed play. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)812.52Literature English (North America) American drama 20th Century 1900-1945LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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