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I must admit that I have read only a handful of plays but I have loved each of them. (A Man for All Seasons is highly recommended.) Pygmalion is wonderfully paced, with memorable characters, and some of the sharpest, witty writing I have ever read. I laughed out loud on several occasions. I was delighted to Pygmalion and I imagine you will be too.
Pygmalion and Three Other Plays by George Bernard Shaw –Pygmalion -- So I picked this book up in a used bookstore for Pygmalion because I loved it in high school. I’m not sure why class struggles become humorous when GBS gets a hold of them, but Pyg manages to be both insightful and funny. If have seen the stage play of My Fair Lady or the movie version with Audrey Hepburn, the ending of the original throws you just a bit. Wading through the accents is the best part! Happy Reading!Major Barbara
This was an easy read that bore some serious hidden treasure. (view spoiler)[ I appreciated the surprises despite how I did not like any of the characters. Well, I liked them in the post-text, when they lived as a family that was crazy modern for the time.(view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] (hide spoiler)]
Major Barbara was my favorite at 4 stars. Shaw’s writing in this play reminded me of Oscar Wilde’s wit but with less self-satisfaction. The Doctor’s Dilemma and Heartbreak House were 3 stars. I didn’t enjoy Pygmalion that much. My Fair Lady scenes kept popping into my head and frustrating me. Higgins was also just insufferable and unpleasant to read.
I was twelve, turning thirteen when I was taught this in english literature by a fabulous teacher.I've always liked work that portrays social conflicts and stigmas. Because it moves the readers foward, even if in the tiniest ways but irreversibly. I also like plots that are simple but they hold meaning. Eliza was a normal girl, outclassed on the hands of a professor. Outclassed because she became unable to fit in the upper class, or the upper middle class, middle class or the lower class and all...
Read Pygmalion in high school and because it is the source of "My Fair Lady" - i absolutely love this book. "My Fair Lady" was my first musical in which the movie, a record and eventually a CD was purchased - oh the memories! George Bernard Shaw named it after the Greek mythological story because the concept of 'making someone' was how this play recreated Eliza Doolittle. The storyline is sort of like "The Princess Diaries" in modern times...(which is funny since Julie Andrews, the original Lond...
George Bernard Shaw: “a Tolstoy with jokes” Categories: Mark Jabbour Aging, Books, Conversation, Coronavirus Effect, Entertainment, free thinking, human nature, Humor, Irony, Society, War, White privilege It’s true! Or a David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest 100 years ‘prior to’.I was introduced to Shaw’s play Pygmalion (1914) sixty some years ago. When my mother took me by the hand and made me accompany her to My Fair Lady, a modern version of the theater performance, staring Julie Andrews and R...
choclits and taxis and gold and diamonds!!!i'm a good girl i am!!
Being a big fan of My Fair Lady, I was eager to read the original play on which the musical is based. But while I enjoyed the clever lines, I walked away understanding that for GBS, Higgins is the hero of the story. Frankly, I have a hard time swallowing that as I think Higgins's faults actually outweight his merits. Also, the author's preface, and a long sort of epilogue he wrote after the last stage action of the play were both somewhat bewildering. It may come down to the tremendous ambiguity...
Read Pygmalion before a trip to London. My comments on the review follow. It follows the adventures of phonetics professor Henry Higgins as he attempts to transform cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle (great depiction!) into a refined lady. The scene in which Eliza appears in high society with the correct accent but no notion of polite conversation is considered one of the funniest in English drama (I agree). Like most of Shaw’s work, Pygmalion wins over audiences with wit, a taut morality, and
I haven't read an actual play for many years, ever since I left high school, where we were force fed Shakespeare on an annual basis. I did have the opportunity to be acquainted with at least one of George Bernard Shaw's plays, Major Barbara, which I recalled vaguely as having something to do with the Salvation Army and a munitions factory. Major Barbara is included in this collection.And so I embarked on this volume, entitled Pygmalion and Three Other plays by George Bernard Shaw with a degree o...
I first encountered Shaw through my eighth grade teacher, bless her, Shaw is such a great read! Years later, I found this book sitting on the shelf of B&N and HAD to buy it! Went home and straight away went at it! This edition includes Pygmalion (obviously) along with Major Barbara, The Doctor's Dilemma, and Heartbreak House. Happy reading!
this review is on Pygmalion. the book also contains three other plays. i like Eliza's will to change and improve, and be regarded as a lady. she continuously says she's a 'good girl', and deserves the same respect as everyone else. i especially like act two where her, and Higgins interact for the first time, at his house. the way she points out to everyone that she arrived in a taxi, "did you tell them that?' she asks the housekeeper. and the way she confronts Higgins about he accepting money fo...
These plays have their moments, but are a bit few and far between.
Pygmalion:- This is the original play that the very famous and popular "My fair Lady" is based on, except that was more of a sweet version, and this retains the original English, perhaps British or even Irish, taste - not sweet, not sour, not bitter or hot, but a little salt and some of that sixth taste that is called "kasaila" or "kashaaya" which means tea in the old medicinal sense.Here at the end there is a very well written epilogue that explains why the professor does not propose to any wom...
I have to say that as confusing and entangled as the characters in Shaw's plays were (especially in "Heartbreak House"), once I got all the characters' relationships to one another straight, I could really appreciate how Shaw sets up his conflicts. Whether it's the conflict between Salvation Army Major Barbara Undershaft and her conscience after her branch accepts money from her war profiteer father, or the conflict of conscience when Doctor Ridgeon decides to sentence the ill artist Louis Dube
Review title: SledgehammerGeorge Bernard Shaw writes with the direct impact of a sledgehammer to the side of the head. Make no mistake, these aren't cute little social comedies.I read this collection based on the recommendation from Jacques Barzun's amazing From Dawn to Decadence, and on the strength of G.K. Chesterton's friendship with Shaw at the same time that he was diametrically, violently, exactly 180-degree opposed to Shaw's ideas. I don't often read plays and never gave much thought to w...
Great CatherineThe Amusing GB Shaw- “I had a wonderful time, only not this time”Who is really funny and witty…Only not this time ( Groucho Marx sometimes joked, when leaving a party:- “I had a wonderful time, only not this time”In conclusion, I would say the same thing about the Great Catherine- great play, only not this oneThis seems a farce….Or a parody, perhaps both?Maugham writes in The Summing Up about Shaw. Shaw benefited from a favorable timingYoung people were rebelling against the conse...
Shaw definitely missed his true calling. He should have been a philosopher or essayist rather than a playwright. He clearly preferred that. His "introductions" are far too wordy as are the openings to the plays. That much description is not necessary. "Major Barbara" is a tight, concise, and unintelligible play.Shaw with his closing summary in "Pygmalion" took the route of huge cop out rather than finishing the play as a play. If I had read the play first there's nothing that would motivate me t...