A review by dolorsitamet
Life Is a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca
3.0
*3.5
I mean, it was fine. Certainly a welcome change from the international/unfamiliar type that we had been reading up to this point. I read it with the Spanish beside two versions of the English, so that was interesting. It felt like it leaned pretty strongly on Hamlet, and I appreciated the soliloquies/language etc. The plot didn't make much sense, and was kind of ad hoc [am I finally using that phrase right?] and not very...naturally following from one event to the next [Aristotle, Poetics]. But the themes explored were nice enough –
I also feel somewhat defensive of this play, though. Because my class seemed to have hated it. Consider the following:
Start class: what opinions did you guys have on the play?
"Everything that needs to be said that can be said has been said...Many, many, many times over."
(Class laughs)
"There's here this three column soliloquy. There's probably a lot of meaning in there? but who wants to go through it?"
(Class laughs)
"He really can't just say what he means. Can't get there straight. Lots of..."(sinusoidal hand motions)
and, of course... (Class laughs)
When people are getting to know someone interested in lit, I feel one of the mildly inevitable questions will be (if you've read them both) whether you prefer Hemingway or Faulkner. I, for one, don't care for Hemingway's style at times – short sentences, stating the surface; show, don't tell. I understand the paradigm; I can appreciate it. But, then, where's the fun in that? Why not unpack a single moment ad infinitem? Describe the every thought and nuance, unfold layer after layer, regardless of whether anything's under it all at all? I think it is perhaps (and maybe I will change my mind on this later – thus the 'perhaps', I suppose) the difference between watching a film of someone's day (in which they do not soliloquy in asides, explain their motive, etc.) and being inside their heads, getting lost in another's perspective (in this case, whichever the author has provided). There are benefits to either, but how can/why do people [in my class] despise one version so?
What do you think the point of this passage? Why did the author do this? What did he intend? Oh, it's clearly something to do with his religion etc etc
No, please stop there. I cringe at these questions. Not because they cannot be valid – I am indeed aware of various schools of literary criticism, but I am not interested in a character study of the author. I do not read a text to learn who an author was.
Let's discuss – must we have a goal in mind? Need we have a destination? Discussion for the sake of discussion; thought for the sake of thought; text for the sake of text itself – these are enough for me. They say they don't like Hamlet. too! They laugh at the description alone, an indecisive one who cannot choose – just do it already, they say to him exasperatedly, as I look on them exasperatedly. So what, it was a little on the long side. Some things are a little on the short side. It's a style! (and...one I like, at that.)
I mean, it was fine. Certainly a welcome change from the international/unfamiliar type that we had been reading up to this point. I read it with the Spanish beside two versions of the English, so that was interesting. It felt like it leaned pretty strongly on Hamlet, and I appreciated the soliloquies/language etc. The plot didn't make much sense, and was kind of ad hoc [am I finally using that phrase right?] and not very...naturally following from one event to the next [Aristotle, Poetics]. But the themes explored were nice enough –
I also feel somewhat defensive of this play, though. Because my class seemed to have hated it. Consider the following:
Start class: what opinions did you guys have on the play?
"Everything that needs to be said that can be said has been said...Many, many, many times over."
(Class laughs)
"There's here this three column soliloquy. There's probably a lot of meaning in there? but who wants to go through it?"
(Class laughs)
"He really can't just say what he means. Can't get there straight. Lots of..."(sinusoidal hand motions)
and, of course... (Class laughs)
When people are getting to know someone interested in lit, I feel one of the mildly inevitable questions will be (if you've read them both) whether you prefer Hemingway or Faulkner. I, for one, don't care for Hemingway's style at times – short sentences, stating the surface; show, don't tell. I understand the paradigm; I can appreciate it. But, then, where's the fun in that? Why not unpack a single moment ad infinitem? Describe the every thought and nuance, unfold layer after layer, regardless of whether anything's under it all at all? I think it is perhaps (and maybe I will change my mind on this later – thus the 'perhaps', I suppose) the difference between watching a film of someone's day (in which they do not soliloquy in asides, explain their motive, etc.) and being inside their heads, getting lost in another's perspective (in this case, whichever the author has provided). There are benefits to either, but how can/why do people [in my class] despise one version so?
What do you think the point of this passage? Why did the author do this? What did he intend? Oh, it's clearly something to do with his religion etc etc
No, please stop there. I cringe at these questions. Not because they cannot be valid – I am indeed aware of various schools of literary criticism, but I am not interested in a character study of the author. I do not read a text to learn who an author was.
Let's discuss – must we have a goal in mind? Need we have a destination? Discussion for the sake of discussion; thought for the sake of thought; text for the sake of text itself – these are enough for me. They say they don't like Hamlet. too! They laugh at the description alone, an indecisive one who cannot choose – just do it already, they say to him exasperatedly, as I look on them exasperatedly. So what, it was a little on the long side. Some things are a little on the short side. It's a style! (and...one I like, at that.)