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Loading... Longa Jornada Noite Adentroby O´Neill (otherwise under Eugene O'Neill)
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This is an amazing play and is an excellent example of the era of realism in American drama. I highly recommend the TV biography of Eugene O'Neill put out by PBS American Exerience. It gives the backstory to the play. Read this in an afternoon in the bathtub, what a great play to read at the exact point I had chosen to quit a bad habit or two. Damn, oh well. you'll never think of a "summer cold" in quite the same way again This is a difficult long play to read, but once the character start to fill out, it gets you hooked. 0.043 seconds to build listing no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0300046014, Paperback)This 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.(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:24 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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This is the first O'Neill play I have read, and I have to say that I found it excellent. Not much fun, but really well done. The theme, to me, was that of excuses, excuses. The entire family has someone - someone else, that is - to blame for being the way they are. Mary blames her husband, her dead son, Edmund, life in general, not having her own house, her circumstances. Tyrone senior blames his difficult childhood, his lost chances. Both sons blame their parents. But in the end, every character admits the truth of why they are the way they are.
Every character except Mary. Despite many chances to admit the truth - she is a drug addict - she denies to the very end. And it is the difference between the men in the play, with their ultimate honesty, and Mary's self-deception that makes me angry with her and feel empathy for the others.
There is a chance, a small one, but still a chance, that Edmund will get well, that Tyrone will stop drinking, that Jamie will branch out on his own. But Mary is stuck where she is, dreaming and lying through her life.
Like I said, this wasn't exactly a fun play, but it was extremely realistic. Very well done and highly recommended. (