tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post6493894896245051734..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: George Bernard ShawAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-46073581371763220812017-03-18T14:25:00.561-04:002017-03-18T14:25:00.561-04:00I remember enjoying Arms & the Man as a youth,...I remember enjoying <i>Arms & the Man</i> as a youth, although it also grinds the axe: war is not a joyous adventure, romantic notions are always pretensions, the wise and practical businessman is infinitely preferable to the soldier. <br /><br />Still, it was performed in 1894. Those notions became tired and hackneyed after WWI, and especially so after Vietnam. In 1894, it might have been a message that genuinely had reason to be conveyed. It's only a partial truth, but it is nevertheless an important part of the truth. Where it was absent, it was worth saying. Grimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07543082562999855432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-8578665083249957662017-03-17T22:45:43.687-04:002017-03-17T22:45:43.687-04:00I confess to a fondness for Caesar and Cleopatra. ...I confess to a fondness for Caesar and Cleopatra. I found the collected plays when I was about 16, and plowed through them all (back in my mis-spent youth when I finished a book if I started it). They seemed (mostly) lively enough, but quite a few smelled so strongly of ground axe that I've never been tempted to re-read them. Or watch them, which would take even longer. And his fascination with life-force, or whatever it was he called it, seemed so silly that those plays sounded much more comic than he intended.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Gilbert_K_Chesterton/Heretics/Mr_Bernard_Shaw_p1.html" rel="nofollow">The whole force and triumph of Mr. Bernard Shaw lie in the fact that he is a thoroughly consistent man."</a>jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.com