Wilder, Thornton

Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays and Writings on Theater (Library of America)

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Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays
A must have for anyone who loves Wilder, drama, and American letters
A "must" for classic theater shelves
Someone from Wisconsin

Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays and Writings on Theater (Library of America)
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1598530038
Release Date: 2007-03-15

Book Description

Tender, beguiling, suffused with feeling and wit, the remarkable plays of Thornton Wilder occupy a unique place in American culture. His most celebrated play, Our Town, has achieved iconic status as an expression of the spirit and pathos of small-town American life; adapted for the movies and the operatic stage, it continues to resonate with audiences responding to its formal elegance, plainspoken poetry, and moving evocation of the inevitability of loss.

Collected Plays & Writings on Theater, the most comprehensive one-volume edition of Wilder's work ever published, takes the measure of his extraordinary career as a dramatist by presenting the complete span of his achievement, beginning with his early expressionist experiments and daring one-act plays such as "The Long Christmas Dinner" and "The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden" (one of Wilder's personal favorites), ranging through the full flowering of Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth, and The Matchmaker, and encompassing the intriguing dramatic projects of his later years, such as his adaptation of the ancient story of Alcestis (The Alcestiad) and plays written for dramatic cycles based on the Seven Deadly Sins and the varied ages of an individual's life. Complementing the selection of plays is an illuminating group of essays that captures Wilder's reflections on his plays and contains a revealing epistolary account of the film adaptation of Our Town, as well as evaluations of dramatists such as Sophocles, George Bernard Shaw, and the Austrian satirist Johann Nestroy (whose farce Einen Jux will er sich machen Wilder brilliantly transformed into The Matchmaker).

Collected Plays & Writings on Theater also includes material never before published: scenes from The Emporium, an ambitious unfinished play that, emerging out of Wilder's intense engagement with existentialist philosophy in the postwar years, imagines a Kafkaesque department store whose enigmatic activities are as inscrutable as the mysteries of life itself; and the complete screenplay Wilder wrote for Alfred Hitchcock's film Shadow of a Doubt just before reporting for military service in 1942. Although faithful to the spirit of the film, the screenplay presented here restores Wilder's original dialogue, some of which (to Wilder's dismay) was altered for the movie. A study of family life, youthful illusions, and the desperation of a criminal on the run, the Shadow of a Doubt screenplay is a masterful exhibition of the art of suspense and taut dramatic storytelling, and is an essential part of Wilder's ouevre.

Customer Reviews:

Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays.......2007-05-12

Excellent edition of the works of one of America's greatest writers and dramatists. Readable type, good paper, scholarly notes & introductory material.

A must have for anyone who loves Wilder, drama, and American letters.......2007-04-13

I find the plays of Thornton Wilder to be a refreshing delight. While they have humor, satire, a freedom with the conventions of drama, and a telling use of the ordinary to make a deeper point, they also have scenes of emotional power and depth without ever becoming maudlin. Wilder never needs to make things "real" to make a real point. I can't think of any of his characters that need the psychological torture or a pathos built on a foundation of narcissism or the endless drumbeat of sex as the universal explanation for whatever one wants to conclude about life. Yep, I enjoy what Wilder provides and enjoy it very much.

The play that most people associate with Wilder is "Our Town", but they know it mostly from the 1940 movie. The play is sparer and Emily does not live. I think the play is better because her death makes its point about life more strongly than it does when she pulls through. This wonderful edition from the Library of America has articles by Wilder on the production of the play and a series of letters between Wilder and the producer, Sol Lesser, on the making of the movie version are quite interesting. This volume also has notes by Wilder on some of his other plays and on other theatrical topics.

What most people may not know is that the musical "Hello, Dolly" is based on Wilder's play called "The Matchmaker". The musical paid him sufficient royalties that made him financially secure for the remainder of his life. Wilder had based "The Matchmaker" on earlier works. It has a fairly long tradition because it is such a delightful topic.

The volume opens with a series of very short "plays" that are really literary pieces more meant to be read than produced. These were previously collected in a volume entitled "The Angel That Troubled The Waters".

Then come the longer and performable and even regularly performed one act plays. "The Long Christmas Dinner" is probably the best well known. The effect of the time compression of 90 years of Christmases (not every year) is such an interesting effect. The actors age on stage, are born, and die for four generations (a fifth being hinted at). The ordinary language and the way we observe these lives in "fast forward" tell us so much. Quite a fine achievement.

Then come the big plays. Wilder won three Pulitzers. One for his novel, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" in 1928. Another for "Our Town" in 1938, and then for the strangely wonderful "The Skin of Our Teeth" in 1943. "The Skin of Our Teeth" is said to be influenced by "Finnegan's Wake" and Wilder did love that book. It toys nearly every dramatic convention one can think of. The three acts aren't really related except by keeping the central characters. But they are not informed from the other acts. It is full of anachronisms such as mixing 20th Century New Jersey with an ice age. And not only do the characters talk to the audience (a Wilder trademark), they do so out of character as if the actor himself or herself is speaking. But they are playing a role there, too.

The volume also includes a number of Wilder's "uncollected plays" and which are quite enjoyable and valuable.

The book also includes a very informative chronology of Wilder's life and very good notes on the texts.

Strongly recommended for those who love drama and American letters.

A "must" for classic theater shelves.......2007-04-11

The most comprehensive one-volume edition of dramatist Thornton Wilder's work published to date, Thornton Wilder Collected Plays & Writings on Theater is an 800+ page compendium of plays Wilder wrote throughout his career, essays that reveal Wilder's reflections on his own plays, an epistolary account of the film adaptation of the classic play "Our Town", a chronology, notes, and much more. Of special interest to literati is material that has never before been published: scenes from "The Emporium", an ambitious yet unfinished play that evolved out of Wilder's involvement with existentialist philosophy in his postwar years, as well as the complete screenplay that Wilder wrote for Alfred Hitchcock's movie "Shadow of a Doubt" just prior to reporting for military service in 1942. Like all Library of America editions, Thornton Wilder Collected Plays & Writings on Theater features a sturdy hardcover binding, a compact, relatively lightweight design, and an inset ribbon bookmark. A "must" for classic theater shelves, and recommended for college and public library collections.

Someone from Wisconsin.......2007-04-08

The master anthologist J D McClatchy does it again with this superb edition of Thornton Wilder's plays and associated writing for the theater.

In the SF Chronicle the other day, a reviewer gave this volume horrible marks, he didn't like one thing about it. He said THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH is labored claptrap, and that was about the nicest thing he said.

I'm here to refute that opinion. To me Wilder is a great god of the theater and the shame is that some of his very best work has rarely or never been staged. Over the past ten years, as the different episodes of his two cycles have been given to us by Gallup and others, it's been one enchanting masterpiece after another! I had no idea how protean his imagination was, nor how everything had to be different from one another. What a shame he didn't finish the 7 ages of man, but the episodes we have, "Infancy," "Childhood," "Youth" and especially the new "The Rivers Under the Earth" are pretty spectacular, And as for THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS, what can I say, I don't believe any other author could have pulled it off. "A Ringing of Doorbells" gets sort of into Tennessee Williams country, but Williams lacked the control Wilder had in spades.

OK, I wasn't crazy about "In Shakespeare and the Bible," but I probably just don't understand it. I can't decide if Katy did the right thing, nor what the point was about her having changed her name from Mildred, nor what agreement is made by the other two more worldly characters, her fiancee and her aunt, after Katy makes her exit. "Bernice" and "The Wreck on the Five Twenty Five" are beyond praise and I wish I could step into a time machine and see Ethel Waters and Lillian Gish act in them in Berlin or wherever their fugitive premiere was. We don't usually think of Wilder as being interested in civil rights, and the famous plays we know by him deal with almost totally white worlds, but "Bernice" is all about a sort of Frantz Fanon liberation and empowerment after enslavement, just brilliant.

And the two "extra" (non cycle) plays are cute too, "The Marriage we Deplore" has a surprise ending, and "The Unerring Instinct" has a device I think John Waters would love -- or has he used it already?

The EMPORIUM grows in power and eerie knowledge every time I read more of it. Someday I hope to read the manuscripts for the whole thing, no matter how chaotic they are.

For many the great plus of this McClatchy-edited volume will be the screenplay for SHADOW OF A DOUBT. It is remarkable how much of it Hitchcock used! And yet while the editorial apparatus tut tuts the contributions made to the screenplay by NEW YORKER hack Sally Benson, I think she helped. She wasn't the carpetbagger some have made her out to be. Her writing is always good, and a thorough study of her work on the final screenplay of SHADOW OF A DOUBT must be undertaken at once. Is Benson still alive? Somebody must know. In the meantime we have this fantastic book will console us.

Our Town: A Play in Three Acts (Perennial Classics)

Average customer rating:

Our Town, a short yet entertaining read that captures the several stages of life.
Our Town utilizes simplicity to its max
Small Town America
much more than nothing
Our Town in Every Town

Our Town: A Play in Three Acts (Perennial Classics)
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Our Town

ASIN: 0060512636
Release Date: 2003-09-23

Book Description

A handsome Perennial Classics edition of America's favourite play, Our Town, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

First produced and published in 1938, this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the small village of Grover's Corners has become an American classic and is Thornton Wider's most renowned and most frequently performed play.

This Perennial Classics edition includes a foreword by Donald Margulies and contains an afterword with documentary material edited by Tappan Wilder.

Customer Reviews:

Our Town, a short yet entertaining read that captures the several stages of life........2007-06-12

Thorton Wilder's short play, "Our Town," follows the lives of two close knit families, experiencing the different stages of life: birth, childhood, adulthood and death. I recommend anyone to read this play just so they can have the opportunity to read about the phases that others go through. For example, the story mentions the common worries, concerns and yearnings of parent Mrs.Gibbs, who wishes to take a break from the stressful life of being a mother yet she is held back by the contrasting wishes and aspirations of her husband. "Our Town" is filled with amusing yet relatable events of being disciplined by your parents, which remind us of our childhood, such as when George is admonished by his father. Another interesting tale unfolds as we witness a young relationship between George and Emily flourish into a marriage. Their entertaining anxieties while dating, and even getting married, are humorous and thought provoking for young readers. Unexpected turns of events and sudden losses conclude the story, leaving an important message for the reader which is, care and treasure your loved ones while you still can.

Our Town utilizes simplicity to its max.......2007-06-12

One significant feature of this play is its simplicity in both plot and props. While it carries great meaning throughout, the story does not feature any extreme, earth-shattering events. Instead, it presents the plain, daily occurrences in a normal small town, allowing the reader to follow the story in a simple context. In addition, although the reader undergoes a different experience than the play-goer, it is evident to all that the conspicuous lack of props is a prominent element that further emphasizes the simplicity of the story.

In three acts, Our Town presents a complete view of three different stages of life: daily life, love and marriage, and death. The play focuses on two families, the Gibbs and Webb families, yet it gives a panoramic view of many townspeople's lives in Grover's Corners. More specifically, the play follows the relationship between Emily Webb and George Gibbs. We first witness them in their youth, as they realize their passion for each other. The story then skips forward to their marriage and finally to Emily's death, as she is finally able to witness her life without actually worrying about daily demands. When she is finally allowed to witness life in her town pass by as a spectator, Emily falls into a heavy regret at her wasted life, as she realizes that nobody takes the time to truly look at each other.

Stressing the importance of the simple, daily wonders of the world, Thornton Wilder underscores the appreciation of life due to both its brevity and its inherent beauty. The third act is truly epochal, as it presents the general purpose of the play through the death of Emily; as she relives her 12th birthday, she realizes that no one cares to really appreciate each other or their own lives. Emily, as with every other citizen in town, is too concerned with her own life that she is unable to see the beauty of it, and she ends up missing the most seemingly trivial of things afterwards, such as sleeping and taking baths. Wilder, by contrasting Emily's life with her death, demonstrates the consequences of falling into a state of content and complacency with one's life; instead of blindly following a routinely schedule everyday, Wilder teaches the audience that they must be grateful for the daily wonders of life, as they may be gone the next day.

This is not a good book for those seeking entertaining and action-packed plots. Truthfully, I did not enjoy reading this book until I understood the meaning in the final act. At first glance, the play seems to drag on, depicting the mundane lives of ordinary people. Yet when I got to the third act, I realized that this is exactly how Wilder wanted us to feel: bored in the first two acts at the seemingly simple things in life, yet remorseful in the last act due to the intrinsic ungratefulness of our lives. Anyone looking for play with a relevant, significant message to everyone's lives should pick up this book immediately.

Small Town America.......2007-06-12

Wilder's Our Town was by far one of the strangest books I have ever read. It was a pretty good book. Set in typical Small Town, USA, Wilder explores how humans understand and under-appreciate the notion of time. The first act is typical, the second act is special, and the third act is monumental. Wilder's style is slightly odd, because when I first read the play, I couldn't completely understand his purpose. It was when I read it the second time I understood that he was criticizing how we as people never understand how to love the lives that we have. It's the lesson we are taught all the time, yet we never seem to take to heart. I know that all plays were meant to be seen rather than read, but this is the only play I've read where I feel that the only way to grasp the author emotion is to actually see the play instead of reading the book. Still, it was worth the read.

much more than nothing.......2007-06-12

When first reading this play, it may appear to be about nothing more than the every day life in an ordinary town. However, it is much more than that. This town is representative of any little town in all of America and its actions as something that could have been done anywhere. These simple facts expand the scopes of this play to new heights. It is not just a play about the little events that occur in a small time but is rather representative of life as a whole. Each act represents a stage in life: "Daily Life," "Marriage" and "Death." These words take on new meaning though as the daily life seems so dull that no one would ever want to live there, yet hardly anyone leaves; the marriage is somewhat pushed on George and Emily; and finally, Emily dies along with many other characters who are seen as being more "alive" than any of the living characters in this play. It takes on many unique points of view and teaches many lessons, making it necessary to take it apart completely. The most incredible part is that all of this is contained in a book about "nothing."

One major thing that is pointed out in this play is that people walk through life without ever really seeing anything, and this is shown on many an occasion, not really being noticed until it is too late to do anything about. People that are alive do not have the worries that life will be short because they are still living it. They do not worry about spending each second like it was their last because it is not. They live life on a day to day basis, not worrying about whether or not they live it to its fullest because there will always be more time. The worst part is that life could end at any minute. And when that person has not lived a full enough life, they will have no one to blame but themselves for not appreciating it when they had it. It is often said that people do not miss things until they are gone, and this is one more example. If only people could miss it when they still had it, then losing it would not be such a tragedy because they would have been happy either way.

Our Town in Every Town.......2007-06-12

First off, this is not the kind of play anyone would normally expect. While it is composed of the essential characteristic of a play, such as scenes and dialogues, there is a new and different idea mixed into it. The Stage Manager plays a major role in directing the play, organizing which scenes are to come next and cutting short scenes as he feels necessary. The Stage manager can be considered the director of the play. However, the Stage manager fulfills another role. He directly speaks to the audience, informing them about each scene's background or characters. Thus the Stage Manager stands on the border of the stage and the audience, sort of like straddling the border by interacting with the audience and assuming different roles within the play itself. It is truly unique.

What I also like about this book is that it is able to take the cliché concept of "cherish what you have" and present it or argue it in such a manner so that it is refreshing almost. The characters in the play, as normal and everyday as people can get, pass through their lives so fast that they don't seem to realize the importance and value of everyday life. They can, in most aspects, represent who we are. We can easily fit into their shoes and see through their eyes, and so it is fairly easy for readers to understand to treasure everything that they have before them, no matter how small or how big.

Yet this book is boring. Even though the boring, everyday plot plays a crucial role in the development of the overall argument, it is, nevertheless, a boring read. There are no special events or some wowing, crazy, once in a lifetime phenomenon, just everyday, mundane episodes of the average human life.

Overall, it is interesting to analyze and interesting to take apart, but when it comes to the first read, it is a tough trip.

The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume T (Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder)

Average customer rating:

Pullman Car Hiawatha - Amazing

The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder, Volume T (Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder)
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Theatre Communications Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays and Writings on Theater (Library of America)

ASIN: 1559361492

Amazon.com

The theater world's great rediscovery of Thornton Wilder shifts into high gear with this glorious volume of short plays--some recently discovered among his papers and published here for the first time. The Pulitzer-winning author of Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth returned constantly to the short form, perhaps more than any other contemporary playwright. His mastery is revealed in cut gems Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden, The Long Christmas Dinner, and especially Pullman Car Hiawatha. With this volume edited by Donald Gallup and Wilder's nephew A. Tappan Wilder we add the playlets of two great unfinished cycles, The Seven Ages of Man and The Seven Deadly Sins, several of which have been completed by a scholar, respectfully based on Wilder's writings and conversations. Best among the hitherto unproduced works is Rivers Under the Earth, about the dark currents moving beneath the placid surface of a family on summer vacation. Like so many of Wilder's longer works, these short plays seem to be homely slices of Americana--but every once in a while they suddenly yield glimpses of the infinite.

Customer Reviews:

Pullman Car Hiawatha - Amazing.......2000-03-15

I performed as Harriet from Pullman Car Hiawatha in State Competition for one-acts, and we won! It is quite moving if done right, and is a lot like Our Town - on a shorter and more eccentric verson.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Perennial Classics)

Average customer rating:

Why do bad things happen?
"Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan."
Elegant but ultimately unsatifying
Love is enough, a bridge beyond death.
Very good, but . . . he got a Pulitzer for this?

The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Perennial Classics)
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060088877
Release Date: 2003-04-15

Book Description

This beautiful new edition features unpublished notes for the novel and other illuminating documentary material, all of which is included in a new Afterword by Tappan Wilder.

"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world.

By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition. This new edition of Wilder's 1928 Pulitzer Prize winning novel contains a new foreword by Russell Banks.

Customer Reviews:

Why do bad things happen?.......2007-04-29

Set in a mythical, post-medieval Peru, Wilder's novella is one of the simplest, least presumptive stories ever told. It attempts to address the time-worn dilemma: Why do bad things happen to good (or, perhaps, not so good) people? Five travelers plunge to their deaths in a tragic accident, and a local Franciscan, Brother Juniper, seeks to use rationally based methods to resolve this unanswerable question.

At the outset, Wilder makes clear that the good brother's investigation is misguided, and his conclusions are ridiculous. "He thought he saw in the same accident, the wicked visited by destruction and the good called early to heaven." Nevertheless, we are treated to a trilogy of stories examining the lives of the five victims and those who love them.

Each of three stories differs in its portrait of the characters, but all are epigrammatic in style and elegant in tone. My favorite of the three is the first, about the mortifyingly ugly and emotionally distant Marquessa de Montemayor (modeled after the historical Madame de Sevigne, a famous writer), who sends beautiful letters to a daughter who has fled the nest and who will never return a mother's love. A young helper, Pepita, is an orphan placed with the Marquessa to acquire "worldly experience"; she feels abandoned by the abbess who raised her and longs "for the dear presence, the only real thing in her life." Both the Marquessa and her helper are so preoccupied with what they don't have that they recognize all too late the joy of each other's presence.

Readers who think Wilder is going to help us discover the solution to the randomness of deaths are trying to find depth in the shallow waters under a collapsed bridge. The "point" is as simple (and, in some ways, as frustrating) as the book itself: "It seemed to be sufficient for Heaven that for a while in Peru a disinterested love had flowered and faded." That is, instead of focusing on the reasons for their deaths, Wilder celebrates their lives--and especially the love that each of the five experienced, however briefly, while they were on earth.

"Either we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan.".......2007-04-19

Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize winning novel takes on the daunting task of exploring whether or not there is a plan behind why we live and die - and how. The debate rages around the incident of the Bridge of San Luis Rey snapping one day, sending five people plummeting to their deaths. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan missionary, witnesses the tragedy and determines to make it the test case in an experiment he has long sought to complete: to prove that the victims were either impious and therefore punished or pious and therefore being whisked away to Heaven to stand beside God. It is a radical study in his time, and its inherent questioning into the nature of the world will ultimately see Brother Juniper mislabeled as a heretic by the church.

The character studies that make up the bulk of the novel (which is really more of a novella given its brevity) are uniformly intriguing, and it is there that "Bridge" truly shines, in addition to Wilder's superb use of language. His portrait of the Marquesa, her servant Pepita, Esteban and his twin brother Manuel, and the Perichole are awe-inspiring glimpses into lives that feel full and true to life - an even greater achievement considering the short amount of time Wilder spends on each of them in order to move the plot forward. If it is more difficult to get a handle on other characters like the Archbishop, the viceroy, Jaime, and the enigmatic Uncle Pio we can forgive Wilder because they still fit the larger scheme of the novel and add to its compelling plot. What emerges from their intertwining lives is the realization that human lives are often too complex to be accurately affixed with such extreme labels as `good' or `bad'. Each has marks for them and against them, making an experiment like Brother Juniper's impossible to complete. There are too many shades of grey to see things as black and white as the missionary would like them to be.

In addition to this main theme, Wilder expertly weaves in questions regarding love, family, and faith. And while I greatly appreciate his refusal to come to any definite answer, one does wish that Wilder had put more into his presentation. In his exploration of this tragic event and its implications he does little more than present evidence for the reader to interpret as they see fit, and the problem there is that they will come away with whatever preconceived notions they may have had regarding the subject perfectly intact. Wilder brings no new insights to the central question and he makes no poignant arguments for either side. "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" is, then, essentially a test case for the reader to apply their own theories to. There will be no earth-shattering revelations to make them reconsider their position, and as good as the novel is in all other respects, I wish that the debate as Wilder presented it had more meat. It certainly isn't lacking in substance, but just a touch more flavor would have been greatly appreciated.

Still, I would highly recommend this book to any lover of literature and anyone who is trying to find their own answers to the question it poses. Wilder's novel takes on additional significance in the wake of 9/11 that makes it even more relevant to modern readers. To read that "The bridge seemed to be among the things that last forever; it was unthinkable that it should break" is to revisit the stunned disbelief that has permeated the years since that tragedy.
Grade: B+

Elegant but ultimately unsatifying.......2007-04-08

Bridge of San Luis Rey is a most elegantly written short novel, completed before the author was thirty but imbued with a surfeit of word pictures indicative of artistic maturity. Having said that, the characterization is to me nonsensical. All of us know a someone whose objects are difficult to fathom or who lives on the cusp of reality; but in this story we're introduced to a half dozen such, lives that supposedly interact with one another and whose self-understanding is all too suddenly transformed before or after the tragedy. That "love" is the only human survival may satisfy during sunlit hours, but it is cold comfort in the midnight of the soul.

Love is enough, a bridge beyond death........2007-04-04

Thornton Wilder won the first of three Pulitzer Prizes with this lyrically written tale of five people who fall, with a broken rope bridge, into a chasm in 1700's Peru. The language is beautiful, and Waterston brings to the reading of it a surprising, effortless range of voices, from an aging, tentative prima donna to a gruff sea captain to a rich, spoiled contessa. But it's Wilder's ideas, his musings on the butterfly-wing-fragility of life, which make this book a classic. The last couple of pages are as gentle, timeless and moving as anything ever put on paper (thus the title of my review above).

Very good, but . . . he got a Pulitzer for this?.......2007-02-21

A humble Peruvian friar witnesses a bridge collapse in which five people die. He accomplishes an exhaustive investigation into the lives of the victims, searching for a pattern which would reveal who and why God selects to die. The short novel then takes the reader into the life stories of the five. I don't give away endings, but I will take you to the final "moral of the story", which is, "Love bridges life and death. There are no other bridges." These are deep waters (no pun intended).

You can get a detailed recap of the book by reading either of the very nicely done Amazon Spotlight reviews above. There's no point in me retelling it again. My take on the book:

Thornton Wilder created beautiful phrases and they are a pleasure to read. The book is thought provoking and I found myself frequently looking for hints of patterns and connections among the victims in the story. Wilder makes his point about love, but it is not a blinding revelation for most of us. (Sadly, I note the presence of that old sure-fire combination . . . boldly proclaim the power of "love" while decorously diminishing the power and plan of the Living God, and the critics will treat you exceedingly well).

This book contains NO action. That can be ok if there is some element of suspense, heartbreak, comedy (even subtle wit), or other emotional stimulus to make up for it. There isn't. You can read this book in one sitting and your pulse will never move off of a pleasant 70 (unless you fall asleep). The "connections" among the five victims are cleverly contrived, but I noticed an error in chronology that became a fly in the ointment for me.

Wilder's use of words, and his character development and consistency, is pristine. For that . . . 4 stars.

Average customer rating:

Caesar's last months
Fascinating novel about Caesar
A 1950's Book, set in 44 BC, and perfect for 2006
A unique historical novel of the last year of Julis Caesar
A different historical novel

The Ides of March: A Novel
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060088907
Release Date: 2003-09-16

Book Description

Drawing on such unique sources as Thornton Wilder's unpublished letters, journals, and selections from the extensive annotations Wilder made years later in the margins of the book, Tappan Wilder's Afterword adds a special dimension to the reissue of this internationally acclaimed novel.

The Ides of March, first published in 1948, is a brilliant epistolary novel set in Julius Caesar's Rome. Thornton Wilder called it "a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic." Through vividly imagined letters and documents, Wilder brings to life a dramatic period of world history and one of history's most magnetic, elusive personalities.

In this inventive narrative, the Caesar of history becomes Caesar the human being. Wilder also resurrects the controversial figures surrounding Caesar -- Cleopatra, Catullus, Cicero, and others. All Rome comes crowding through these pages -- the Rome of villas and slums, beautiful women and brawling youths, spies and assassins.

Customer Reviews:

Caesar's last months.......2006-11-27

The structure of this novel, made up of letters written by different persons, allows us to examine Julius Caesar from multiple points of view. Undoubtedly a man of enormous energy, ambition, intelligence and the will to exercise power, Caesar is different things to different observers. Dictator, traitor, military genius, great politician, depraved soul. Who exactly is Caesar? Through family and political gossip, a tight web is being formed around this titan of history, until the final stabbing in the Senate. A fascinating counterfactual question is: What would have happened had Caesar survived the attack? But he didn't and civil war ensued, ending with the death of the Roman Republic and the beginning of Empire. Some of the best parts of the novel are Caesar's own letters, especially those adressed to Lucius Mamillius Turrinus, where Caesar develops his views on politics, power, and government, as observed by a natural born leader, a ruler of soldiers and politicians; a vain and authoritarian man, but also extremely conscious of his mortal human nature -he was exasperated by omens and superstition- as well as of the immense responsaibility that power brings upon rulers. Jumping in time, this novel takes us by the hand towards the tragic end of one of the most important and enigmatic characters of history.

Fascinating novel about Caesar.......2006-07-17

This excellent novel, Wilder's masterpiece, is set during the last 17 years in the life of Julius Caesar in Rome. In it he attempts to answer the following: "What sort of person was Caesar and why was he assassinated?" Told mainly through letters and documents of people who knew him, from the famous - Cleopatra, Catallus, Cicero, Brutus - to the lesser known - Cytheris, an actress; Turrinus, a friend; Cornelius Nepos, a political observer - and including such sources as Caesar's commonplace book and journal, broadsides, and various official memoranda, Wilder creates a brilliant picture of the man and the people who surround him. We learn of Caesar's great love for Rome, but his disdain for those who populate her. In a magnificent observation by his physician Sosthenes, he says, "Caesar does not love, nor does he inspire love. He diffuses an equable glow of ordered good will, a passionless energy that creates without fever, and which expands itself without self-examination or self-doubt....I could not love him and I never leave his presence without relief." Those few sentences speak volumes. We see in Caesar's own (private) letters how different the public figure (lofty, dictatorial, the great warrior) is from the private man (amused by human folly, lonely, sensitive to those who have been injured by life's cruelties). Yet the book is not just a history lesson, despite its appearance, but a moving novel that builds masterfully to a stunning climax on the Ides of March with his murder. The book is truly magnificent, filled with much insight into human motivation and observation. Definitely worth looking into.

A 1950's Book, set in 44 BC, and perfect for 2006.......2006-02-21

The year? 44BC. The secret police are rifling through an artist's dresser. An emperor's mistress from the Middle East has come to pay him a visit in Rome. Soldiers are mobilizing for another assault on Persia. Senators are plotting against Caesar. His scatterbrained wife is worried about dresses while the great Cleopatra plays her for a fool. Poetry, assaults, poisonings, decadant parties, price fixing, and intregue. We all already know about ancient Rome. The question is, how could Thornton Wilder predict 2006. Ah, the more things change... the more they stay the same. What a fun read for the average guy, like me!

A unique historical novel of the last year of Julis Caesar.......2004-03-26

I think most people know the story of Julius Caesar's death: stabbed 23 times on March 15th during a session of the Senate. What Thornton Wilder has done with his novel is to give the reader a glimpse in to the human side of Caesar, through journal entries and correspondence from him and those surrounding him. We learn of the statesman, who tries his best to govern his people; of his "divinity" and his tolerance of the belief in gods and goddesses; of the family man living in a tepid marriage with his wife Pompeia; and of his attraction to intellectuals, whether if be the poet Catullus, whose poetry he highly regards even if it mocks him, and the beautfiul Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, whom he considers almost an equal in terms of ability to rule. Wilder also lets us in on public opinion concerning the Dictator, as Caesar was also known, through intercepted correspondence of Clodia Pulcher and others. Caesar becomes more of a human figure in the hands of Wilder. He has his foibles and his share of indecisions, just like any other person. He also tries to do what he believes to be the right thing in terms of treating others. A unique historical novel.

A different historical novel.......2003-01-25

Contrary to what we could think, this novel is not dedicated to Julius Caesar's death, as Shakespeare did in his tragedy. It does not talk about his life, either. It just tells us about his last eight months.
He does it with a tecnique different from tradicional historical novel from the XIXth century and it's different, too, from the pseudo-memories, which is the favourite form of historical novel in the XXth century. Thornton Wilder prefers to juxtapose in four books a series of documents from different sources: letters, political pamphlets, inscriptions, poetry... He does not follow a chronological order but, as a kind of consecutive focusing, each book starts before and ends later than the previous one. And the very core, the central point, is September 45 BC, when an attempt against Julius Caesar's life was made. This way of telling the story is very pleasant but it asks a little effort from the reader to organize those materials in his mind.
Anyway, Thornton Wilder is not strictly historical, and he tells us beforehand. Some events happened years before 45 or 44, some characters were already dead. I think he does not really want to talk about Caesar or his time. He prefers to talk about loneliness: of a ruler that can trust no one, of man in front os his own mortality, of the absence of gods (lived not dramatically but with no consequence, either).
In the last part of the book I think he tells exactly what he's worried about: the mistery of life is very huge. It's so big that we have not a definitive idea about it, is life good or bad? tidy or chaotic? To sum it up, has it got any sense at all?
It looks as if Caesar was only worried about posthumous glory, the way future generations were going to remember him. It sounds a very poor reward, but it is more that what the majority of us will achieve.
I liked some femenine portrays in this book. Not Cleopatra or Clodia Pulcher, the first one is a mistery in herself (a Greek princess in an Egyptian kingdom), the second one so evilishly depicted by Catullus poetry that we could never get what she really was. The great women are the Roman matrons, the ones that had such a big influence in the Roman Republic, and the respect towards them as the real shadow cabinet.
Why should anyone read this book? Because it's very entertaining and you could learn some philosophy and a little bit (not too much, really) history.

Average customer rating:

Close contender for "The Great American Novel"
The Eighth Day
Midwestern fables
An exceptional book...
a great and sadly neglected book

The Eighth Day: A Novel
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060088915
Release Date: 2007-01-02

Book Description

This new edition of Thornton Wilder's renowned 1967 National Book Award-winning novel features a new foreword by John Updike and an afterword by Tappan Wilder, who draws on such unique sources as Wilder's unpublished letters, handwritten annotations in the margins of the book, and other illuminating documentary material. </blockquote>

In 1962 and 1963, Thornton Wilder spent twenty months in hibernation, away from family and friends, in the Rio Grande border town of Douglas, Arizona. While there, he launched The Eighth Day, a tale set in a mining town in southern Illinois about two families blasted apart by the apparent murder of one father by the other. The miraculous escape of the accused killer, John Ashley, on the eve of his execution and his flight to freedom triggers a powerful story tracing the fate of his and the victim's wife and children. At once a murder mystery and a philosophical story, The Eighth Day is a "suspenseful and deeply moving" (New York Times) work of classic stature that has been hailed as a great American epic.

Customer Reviews:

Close contender for "The Great American Novel".......2007-01-06

Majestic! Wilder came closer than most to writing The Great American Novel. "The Eighth Day" appears to be the template for the novels of John Irving.

The Eighth Day.......2006-04-13

Set in a dismal Illinois coal town around the turn of the twentieth century, resident John Ashley is accused of killing Breckenridge Lansing, the money-grubbing, incompetent owner of the coal mine; he is found guilty and sentenced to be executed. But on his way to prison, he is suddenly rescued by six unidentified men and set free. He makes his way to Chile, puts his engineering background and love of mathematics to good use, and eventually makes his way back to the US. Ashley becomes a "man of faith," that faith being defined as a belief in a better, more caring, American community. (A new beginning = the Eighth Day.) One character says, "The [human] race is undergoing its education. What is education? It is the bridge man crosses from the self-enclosed, self-favoring life into a consciousness of the entire community of mankind." The "heroes" of the novel are those who defy the conventions that would keep them from crossing that bridge (Lily Ashley pursues a career as a singer, defying Victorian conventions) and those who wash their hands of the filthy pursuit of materialistic well-being (Roger Ashley becomes a muckraking journalist in Chicago eager to help the poor). The truth of John Ashley's innocence of the crime is revealed at the end (though Wilder tells us he's innocent in the Prologue). An annoying feature of the book is Wilder's blunt moralizing, especially near the end; characters are forced to make these little speeches about "false hopes" and "people changing" that make them suddenly appear remote and snobbish. (I'm not criticizing the message here, only Wilder's methods.) Wilder holds out a great deal of hope for the future of America, though he believes the road ahead is perilous with lots of false turns possible. This is his most ambitious novel, and it won the National Book Award in 1968.

Midwestern fables.......2003-12-02

There is a poor John mine is southern Illinois in Coaltown. The mine mechanic is charged with and convicted of the murder of the general manager. The two leading families in the town had been those of the general manager and the mine mechanic. The better man of the two was the mechanic. He had worked with the manager and had given him credit for things he accomplished.

The mechanic is sentenced to death but escapes through the work of an unknown group of men. One of the daughters decides that in order to carry on she and her family must run a boarding house. At the time people feared being relegated to the poor house.

The hopeful find nourishment in marvels. Eventually John Ashley, the condemned man, makes his way to Chile to work in the copper mines. The root of avarice is the fear of what circumstances might bring. Ashley had tried to live in a manner opposite that of his father who was a miser.

After the crisis and while the boarding house was being started, John Ashley's son Roger, age seventeen, moved to Chicago. In the beginning he was a dishwasher. Quickly he moved through jobs as a hotel clerk and an orderly. Roger met some journalists and resolved to become a newspaper man.

He was starved for food of the spirit. Once he was given a ticket to FIDELIO. After being in Chicago eighteen months he became a reporter. Roger met his sister, the musician of the family, in Chicago. His sister Lily's friend, the Maestro, told Roger that works of art are the only satisfactory productions of civilization.

Roger and his sister hit upon a plan to use their real extravagant middle names and last names in their newspaper work and singing respectively to enable their father to contact them. John Ashley had gone to engineering school in Hoboken. He met his wife Beata Kellerman there. Beata had been formed by her parents' best principles, but her parents did not recognize them. All young people secrete idealism.

In the end the child who started the boarding house and saved the family broke down and ended up in the poor house. Everyone else was successful and the mystery of the murder of the general manager was solved.

Thornton Wilder employs many myths drawn from history of the settlement of the west, including the settlement by unusual religious communities. This work resembles the novels of Willa Cather. It is excellent.

An exceptional book..........2003-02-13

I was wonderfully surprised by Wilder's writing style. This was the first novel of his that I read and found myself moved by his ever present ideologies regarding life, death, family etc. The book doesn't use dramatic crescendo's to keep the reader's attention, instead it's Wilder's ability to make the each character's daily struggle very human or common.

I would recommend this book to reader's who enjoy books that are more intellectual, filled with philosophical insight, perhaps similar to that of Rand.

a great and sadly neglected book.......2001-08-11

Thornton Wilder is best known as a playwright- for Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth and the Matchmaker. He was also an excellent novelist, and his novels should be much more well known. The Eighth Day is one of my all-time favorite books. The plot is exciting, but the beauty of the book is in the great compassion Wilder shows for his fellow humans. In this, it reminds me of Our Town. You will not regret reading this book.

The Skin of Our Teeth: A Play (Perennial Classics)

Average customer rating:

All too human
"The end of this play isn't written yet."

The Skin of Our Teeth: A Play (Perennial Classics)
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060088931
Release Date: 2003-04-15

Book Description

A timeless statement about human foibles . . . and human endurance, this beautiful new edition features Wilder's unpublished production notes, diary entries, and other illuminating documentary material, all of which is included in a new Afterword by Tappan Wilder.

Time magazine called The Skin of Our Teeth "a sort of Hellzapoppin' with brains," as it broke from established theatrical conventions and walked off with the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama. Combining farce, burlesque, and satire (among other styles), Thornton Wilder departs from his studied use of nostalgia and sentiment in Our Town to have an Eternal Family narrowly escape one disaster after another, from ancient times to the present. Meet George and Maggie Antrobus (married only 5,000 years); their two children, Gladys and Henry (perfect in every way!); and their maid, Sabina (the ageless vamp) as they overcome ice, flood, and war -- by the skin of their teeth.

Customer Reviews:

All too human.......2006-03-16

This is a strange play. The political satire is timeless. However, I did not read it for enjoyment. I read it to help me to understand it a little more before I saw it adapted in a German theater is Saarbruchen. The little acting company was excellent and I enjoyed the play in its updated version.

"The end of this play isn't written yet.".......2005-02-08

Ignoring the conventions of time, this playful "message play" follows one family from the days of the glaciers and dinosaurs to a post-apocalyptic, modern world. George Antrobus, the inventor of the wheel, and Maggie, his wife, the inventor of the apron, have two children, Gladys and Henry (whose previous name was Cain). The bossy father, domestic and subservient mother, aggressive and dangerous son, and innocent daughter interact, often humorously, onstage and are also seen through the viewpoint of Sabina, the flirtatious maid. As the play progresses through the eras, Wilder raises questions about civilization and values. George, by Act II, is convinced that the world is made for pleasure and power, but by the final act, after a world cataclysm, the family confronts what is truly important in their lives.

A pet dinosaur and a wooly mammoth, the Boardwalk of New Jersey and the Miss America contest, the fraternal Order of Mammals (of which George is President), and the attempted seduction of George and his fellow Mammals by predatory women all add to the visual appeal of this production. Though the play pretends to be traditional in its dramatic structure, it takes liberties with the audience as the various actors step out of character to address the audience, as does the director. At one point Sabina refuses to play a scene, summarizing it for the audience as the director and George plead with her.

First produced in 1942, the play reflects Wilder's fear that the war then engulfing the world might truly be a war for the future of civilization. His conclusion, which highlights the values of western philosophers, such as Spinoza, Aristotle, and Plato, also reflects his religious beliefs and his belief in the enduring values of (western) literature. "We've come a long way--we're learning," he says, hopefully, but he also reminds us that "the end of this play isn't written yet." Creative and original in its day, the play represents a major moment in American theater. Less innovative now, more than sixty years later, it still offers food for thought in its reminder of enduring values and its questions about what we value and would save from our own lives in a similar cataclysm. Mary Whipple

Three Plays: Our Town, the Skin of Our Teeth, the Matchmaker

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Anyone searching for some good plays?
Classics that are deserving of the term
American classics which scratch beneath the surface...
Don't Read
Please read slowly

Three Plays: Our Town, the Skin of Our Teeth, the Matchmaker
Thornton Niven Wilder
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060912936

Book Description

This omnibus volume brings together the definitive texts of three outstanding plays by one of America's most distinguished writers. Thronton Wilder was equally prolific and successful as a dramatist and novelist. Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1942) were each awarded the Pulitzer Prize. The Matchmaker (1955) was originally staged as The Merchant of Yonkers (1938) and later appeared as a hit musical, Hello Dolly! (1964).

Customer Reviews:

Anyone searching for some good plays?.......2002-04-08

Thorton Wilder is one of the best playrights of his generation. This book brings together three of his best plays. "Our Town" which is a play centered around one town, and the way life can change within it. "the Skin of Our Teeth", which centers around one family that is going through all the changes that have ever happened in the world, including the ice age, world war 2, the depression, and so on. And finally "the Matchmaker" which is not the best play, but is still worth reading. Thorton Wilder does an amazing job with character developments and sub-plots, and these three plays really show his genius.

Classics that are deserving of the term.......2001-11-15

Skin of Our Teeth and Our Town both were prize-winning plays. The Matchmaker became one of the most popular musicals of all time - Hello Dolly. Thornton Wilder's plays are in production at countless high schools across the country, and that's a pity - few students have the maturity or insight to bring these words strongly to life.

Skin of Our Teeth, the story of the Antrobus family in stone age Atlantic City, NJ, deals with indomitable humanity, and how we can prevail against all odds, but especially against our own impulses. It also brings up the consolations of literature and of past times.

Our Town is a simple little play about love and death, and how life is composed as a series of moments. It is so important to live in every, every, moment.

The Matchmaker is about living life to the fullest, even in the midst of grief and aging.

This makes these plays sound dreadfully simplistic, and full of high-school style morality. Thornton Wilder's writing is full of irony, wit, grace, kind humor, and style. His writing has a deceptive simplicity and rhythm. Read these plays to bring some beauty into your life.

American classics which scratch beneath the surface..........2000-08-02

It's hard to imagine that there's a soul out there who hasn't come across at least one of these plays in the course of public education or personal reading, but if you haven't then you should at least give them a chance and take a look. Plays aren't everyone's idea of pleasure reading, but this collection of Wilder's best-known three are among the best-known one-act plays in the American collection. Drawing at will upon the comic and the tragic -- often in the same breath -- Wilder's plays might have prompted the slogan of the recent (and acclaimed) "American Beauty", which implored viewers to "look closer." These three plays are good discussion pieces, palatable introductions to American theater, and insightful explorations into the potential of the theatrical medium.

A little more info on two of the three:

OUR TOWN happens to have been one of the first plays I ever actually studied in a drama class, and I have particularly fond memories of blustering through the part of Mr. Webb in our dramatic reading. The play, which focuses on the lives of the simple townsfolk in Grovers' Corner, New Hampshire, a dry New England town, begins with an observation of the daily lives of the townsfolk. In the second act, it goes on to portray the romance which develops between George Gibbs and Emily Webb, the young lovers who consummate their feelings in marriage at the end of the act. And in the third act, after Emily dies, she finds herself among the mourners at her own wake. Taken as a whole, Our Town shows the reactions of the austere New Englanders to all possible situations -- they are brought to life, portrayed in times of happiness, grief, and peaceful quiet. In addition, Wilder uses the play to make a statement about the futility of living in the past, and forcing the audience to deal with the concept that just like a show, life must go on. In the end, he says, truth can only be found in the future, which it is still in our power to influence and change. Our lives are our own to live, and we must learn to set our own course while we still can. (Of particular interest in this script is the role of the "Stage Manager", who both interacts with the characters and serves as a quasi-omniscient narrator. I think the idea of having a character exist on multiple planes might have been a Thornton first, at least in some regards.)

THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH is a little bit stranger and more avant garde. In a script unlike anything else that Wilder has ever written (to the best of my knowledge), the audience is presented with a detached look at man's natural reaction to crisis and stress. The play focuses around the Antrobus family, simple representatives of the every family, but with a few significant quirks -- the characters seem to be updated (or perhaps reincarnated) versions of the first family -- Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel -- and refuse to establish a consistent setting. Simultaneously set in the prehistoric Ice Age and on the boardwalks of Atlantic City (and by simultaneously I mean that there is no differentiation between the two), and paying no particular attention to the linear laws of time or space, the play draws upon so many stage and literary devices that it eventually makes the head spin. In a particularly powerful conclusion, the play comes entirely round circle, ending with the same lines on which it began, and implying that the entire cycle is about to repeat itself. And that is exactly the point Wilder was getting at in this bizarre and avant garde production -- no matter how much we change, as we evolve from cave-dwellers to farmers to civilized ladies and gentlemen, the more we stay the same. Our features change, but our natures do not. Both a confusing and intensely powerful piece of dramatic scripting, this play is worth reading at least twice. (To the credit of this script, I remember getting chills just reading it to myself for the first time, during certain climactic scenes.)

As for THE MATCHMAKER... I'm not as familiar with it, but I know it's a popular comic script for amateur theater troupes, and served as the basis for the musical comedy "Hello Dolly", in which a widowed matchmaker decides to take a second husband, and tricks him into proposing to her by making a show out of setting him up with another woman. Clever, but not as experimental as the other two...

All in all, this is a collection of plays that should be read at least once, if only so that you can say you didn't care for them. There's a lot here, and Wilder was a master of the short script, and a pioneer in American theater. Give it a shot -- check it out from your library if you're dubious about purchasing scripts you haven't read -- and see what you think,

Don't Read.......2000-06-22

This book is another one of those someone else is in control of you books. If you are forced to read it I have mercy on your soul because you will die the same fate I did. Spend your time doing better things go see Titan A.E.

Please read slowly.......2000-05-14

Probably the most misread work since the Bible.

These are great little plays, but for some reason anything that gets so thoroughly co-opted into popular culture (as these oft performed plays are) loses all literary value.

I highly recommend that anyone who hasn't seen the Kirk Cameron/ Growing Pains production of Our Town already to read these.

This collection is a wonderful exposition on the human condition. I was giddy for a week after first reading it.

Theophilus North (A Cass Canfield Book)
Average customer rating:

Delightful tale of a 'benevolent meddler'

A NICE READ, BUT POINTLESS

It creeps into your heart

Goody Two-Shoes

Spend a delightful summer in Newport, RI

Theophilus North (A Cass Canfield Book)
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060146362

Book Description

<blockquote> Marking the thirtieth anniversary of Theophilus North, this beautiful new edition features Wilder's unpublished notes for the novel and other illuminating documentary material, all of which is included in a new Afterword by Tappan Wilder. </blockquote>

The last of Wilder's works published during his lifetime, this novel is part autobiographical and part the imagined adventure of his twin brother who died at birth. Setting out to see the world in the summer of 1926, Theophilus North gets as far as Newport, Rhode Island, before his car breaks down. To support himself, Theophilus takes jobs in the elegant mansions along Ocean Drive, just as Wilder himself did in the same decade. Soon the young man finds himself playing the roles of tutor, spy, confidant, lover, friend, and enemy as he becomes entangled in the intrigues of both upstairs and downstairs in a glittering society dominated by leisure.

Narrated by the elderly North from a distance of fifty years, Theophilus North is a fascinating commentary on youth and education from the vantage point of age, and deftly displays Wilder's trademark wit juxtaposed with his lively and timeless ruminations on what really matters about life, love, and work at the end of the day -- even after a visit to Newport.

Customer Reviews:

Delightful tale of a 'benevolent meddler'.......2005-10-23

I've lived long enough to be able to judge novels by how many times I'm willing to re-read them. I've read Theophilus North about 20 times...

If it's not my favorite novel of all time, then it's definitely within the top five. The main character really appeals to me, a supremely independent, intelligent, well educated soul, who repeatedly, almost against his will, gets entangled in the lives of those with whom he comes in contact while on a summer vacation in Newport - always to the benefit of those fortunate enough to to be a target for his 'meddling'.

I know this is a fable, not a true story... but, oh, how I wish there were people like this in the world...

A NICE READ, BUT POINTLESS.......2000-06-24

this author, which has written books so beatiful, has given the world this one which is also beatiful, but pointless, i guess that the main character is himself. the book does not have a plot or at least is not going anywhere, but it is not boring, and it is a good read. i just loved it, even though when i finished i had the sensation of not being told anything new. the book has gone into oblivion and will propably stay there, the one i read i took it from the library and i was the only one who got it from the shelf in more than a decade, i guess it is there in the shelf at the library, waiting for another ten years until some reader will take it down, and write another pointless review about it....

LUIS MENDEZ luismendez@codetel.net.do

It creeps into your heart.......2000-06-21

I read this book more than 20 years ago as a college student and I still find myself thinking about it now. I was a persnickety English student and I wouldn't have imagined the book was making much of an impression on me at the time. Maybe I needed to age considerably before I could appreciate Wilder's idea that you do get everything you wish for -- just not on your schedule, and seldom packaged as you may have hoped or expected.

Goody Two-Shoes.......2000-05-22

At once a nice travelogue of Newport, Rhode Island, in the 1920's and a novel of human interaction, "Theophilus North" is a well-written and engaging (at first) book. It's just hard to understand why Wilder wrote it. There is so little of it in the way of dramatic or comic invention. The protagonist is a bodhisatva (a saint on earth) who spends his days doing good. All the time. You keep expecting some rising action - after 100 pages you yearn for it - but it never comes. Just one good deed after another. It isn't a bad read, and it might even be a good thing to put into the hands of teenagers (if you can get them to sit still for it). But there's no inner struggle going on in this first person narrative. And that makes ultimately for a weak plot. The book was something of a hit when it first came out, but it has since sunk to the obscurity it probably deserves. That saddens me, because I thought the author's "Our Town" and "Skin of Our Teeth" to be some of the finest writing this side of Heaven.

Spend a delightful summer in Newport, RI.......1999-06-07

This novel of a young man just leaving a teaching position and heading "who knows where" is really a Walter Mitty story: this is how I would be if I were as wonderful as I want to be. Purported to be autobiographical, the hero is detective, psychologist and always friend to his acquaintances of all social classes. He cleverly and compassionately resolves all their problems and his own. Not containing the depth of other novels such as Bridge at San Luis Rey, this book is for pleasure.

Average customer rating:

George Brush, American
Misunderstood in the Mid West
Solid, quietly funny
Coming of age

Heaven's My Destination: A Novel
Thornton Wilder
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060088893
Release Date: 2003-09-16

Book Description

Drawing on such unique sources as the author's unpublished letters, business records, and obscure family recollections, Tappan Wilder's Afterword adds a special dimension to the reissue of this hilarious tale about goodness in a fallen world.

Meet George Marvin Brush -- Don Quixote come to Main Street in the Great Depression, and one of Thornton Wilder's most memorable characters. George Brush, a traveling textbook salesman, is a fervent religious convert who is determined to lead a good life. With sad and sometimes hilarious consequences, his travels take him through smoking cars, bawdy houses, banks, and campgrounds from Texas to Illinois -- and into the soul of America itself.

Customer Reviews:

George Brush, American.......2005-09-17

George Brush, a traveling book salesman, is the American version of the Protestant saint: opinionated, narrowminded, selfless, literal-minded, priggish, and brave, Brush is the truly good man whom no one can stomach or ignore. Wilder's writing is strong, and his portrayal of Brush is very comical. The scene of his religious conversion in college, which is instantaneous after listening to a woman evangelist, who also happens to be a drug addict, is marvelous. Likewise his "marriage of convenience" (for him).

It's a fun book, though there are serious undertones throughout. George gets depressed and thinks the whole world is crazy except for him and wonders why God is "so slow in changing the world." Finally, Brush is not very smart, not very passionate, but he IS good, and perhaps, Wilder suggests, that's enough. One of Wilder's best novels.

Misunderstood in the Mid West.......2003-03-12

Say there, young man: Are you feeling Unfit for Society? Battling with Depression? Socially persecuted because of your ideals? Well, take heart because you are not alone! George Brush has walked down that lonely path in life himself.

Both as playwright and novelist, Thornton Wilder captures the essence of human nature--revealing its hesitant yearnings and poignant humiliations in the daily struggle for recognition in an indifferent world. Despite the almost humorous cover illustration (Bard Pbx) and occasional outbursts of wit, this story is more pathetic than comic. George Brush is a young man sure of salvation in the next world, but woefully ill-equipped to cope in this one. Fiercely determined to live a righteous life of voluntary poverty during the Depression, he manages to antagonize or frustrate most of his non-business contacts. Haunted by an unfortunate romantic incident in his recent past, he feels obligated to make reparations, yet pursues various female acquaintances with overzealous devotion.

George
is considered a success only by his employers, since he proves a competent traveling salesman for his textbooks company. So what is it about this unusal young man which turns normal folks off at first encounter? Is it his relentless religious discussions, his strict rules of self conduct, or his odd manner of viewing his own role in society? Somehow he just does not fit in with mainstram America of the 30's. His road travels are a series of bizarre circumstances and gross misunderstandings which result in brushes with the police and judges--even though he is honest to a fault. People can't figure out his motives, for it is difficult to put into practice the theories of Ghandhi in the "modern" mercenary world. The country was simply not ready to welcome this sincere but persistent young man as a regular member, even though he longed for his own hearth. Can a brutally honest fellow find happiness with the girl of his dreams in rugged, disillusioned America?

I found the style disjointd, with many loose threads instead of a clearly woven plot; this made the book hard for me to wade through. But the courtroom scene was a delightful section, cleverly plotted with witty remarks--Wilder in top comic form. How can poor George find justice in our plebian nation and personal happiness at home?

Solid, quietly funny.......2002-09-19

I was finished with this book before I really knew that I'd started it. It has a light, easy flow and a gentle sense of humor. It features George Brush, who is profoundly religious and tries his best to live up to the standards he sets for himself. What makes the story worth reading is that you always want to see what he is going to say next; despite his odd way of looking at the world, at heart George truly wants to help people and live a life of love and goodness. He speaks out against injustice and wrongdoing and is quick to defend his own traditionalist views. The fact that so many people are so quick to judge and misunderstand him, and that the people who do understand him benefit from knowing him, seems to be what the book is trying to get across. No matter how crazy or misguided he seems, he is a better person than the average Joe who never takes the time to think about his impact on the world.

There is a very subtle ironic humor pervading this book; it is impossible to miss, but Wilder never makes a clown out of his protagonist. Instead one is left with the feeling that George really does make the world a better place, though he has an eccentric way of accomplishing this goal. What I had thought was going to be a stinging kind of satire about an evangelical young man ended up being a wistful satire more about the people who judge such a man than about the man himself.

Coming of age.......1998-06-11

This is a story of one man finding himself amidst what he percieves as a world of coruption. It centers on a man that is compleatly absorbed by his religion but it is not nessasarly just a book about religion, though I believe many christians would enjoy this book for its christian flavor. As I am not what many would call a formal "Christian" I still believe that it has both power and meaning for those not of that faith. Heaven's My Destination is a story which one man's faith is tested. His beliefs are questioned and I believe that that story, no matter what it is he believes in, is something that all of us share at one time or another.

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