The Good Woman of Setzuan

I want to go with the one I love.
I do not want to calculate the cost.
I do not want to think about whether it's good.
I do not want to know whether he loves me.
I want to go with whom I love.

Brecht is brutal here, situating his play in China, dangling the Gods who swing between Divine Indifference and Hypocrisy and filling the ranks with all the avarice and sloth that floats from our unctuous species. Some (may) find exception with the titular heroine and her Manichean solution to the query -- How To Serve Man: spoiler, it isn't a cookbook. I thought the device employed by the character is brilliant, a heady response to the pop-up morality of Snapchat Elysium. One came imagine Brecht seething.

Sexually frank but lacking overt violence show more (with one exception) this play becomes a lumpen comedy of manners. Who's laughing? show less

There are many outstanding reviews for this book, so I'll be short.

I immensely enjoy the mental stimulation this book gave me while I was reading it and keeps evoking some thoughts even after I've read it.

My friend warned me that "a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage", which I pass to whoever would read this review.

There must be happy endings, must, must, must!

Excellent play with a wonderful female protagonist. That the whims of the gods and the inability to be "good" and survive turn her into the more practical male counterpart for survival is fascinating to me. But she should have lost the boyfriend. Can you say "jerk?" I knew you could.

Considering Brecht's Marxist views and some textual evidence (the translation I read had some sentence about "exploitation" in the introduction and some scenes in the factory play into the "evil capitalists" theme a bit) I imagine he intended it to be an anti-capitalist piece. However it comes off as propaganda for Adam Smith - only when the tobacco factory is in operation are workers able to eat without resorting to stealing, Yang Sun is able to get a new suit and the future of the Shen Te's child is secure. Before the factory, when the ideal communist Shen Te is trying to make everyone happy, everything goes to shambles. Perhaps it's an example of art rising above ideology, so to speak. Or, more likely, an example of everyone seeing show more whatever they want to see in any given book. show less

A look at what happens when the gods look for, and find, a good person. A common prostitute turns out to be the only good person the gods are able to locate; they help her by giving her coins to pay her rent for giving them a place to sleep. All the townspeople come around with their hand out, and she must call on a cousin to protect her own interests. A gritty look at poverty and its consequences, the relationship of bosses to workers, and the relationship of the gods to the humans they created. Nobody comes off well, and the reader is left to wonder why we keep on getting out of bed each morning if things are so hopeless. The characters are so broadly drawn, and set in a part of the world so few people understand, or know much about, show more that he gives us the courage to examine our own mythologies and assumptions by allowing us to see glimpses of ourselves in characters that are plainly not us. Would have been five star without the epilogue. show less

I reread this after a discussion with my sister about books. It is her all-time favorite book and I couldn't remember that much about it so I read it again. She was right, it's an amazing book about three gods traveling the world in search of a good person. And finding that it is impossible "to be good and to be alive".
The end is amazing, one of the best I have ever encountered in a book. The king among epilogues. So thank you to my sister for inspiring me to read it a second time after more than 10 years.

In this popular play the gods come to Earth in search of a thoroughly good person. They encounter Shen Teh, a good hearted but penniless prostitute who, to muster sufficient ruthlessness to survive in an evil world, must disguise herself as a man.