Hennepin County Library hardcover 153 pages
genre: play, realism? fantasy?
The copyright on the physical book I got from the library is 1906! The checkout sheet (see pic below) had dates from July 15, 1944 to June 16, 1947.
This was odd. I didn't really understand it. This is part of my desire to have a better handle on some of the cultural references I encounter (Citizen Kane, for example). I wanted to have a frame of reference when someone said "Peer Gynt." But I need to dig deeper than just reading the script for the play.
Peer comes across as a complete selfish jerk. Even his own mother is torn between wanting to protect him and wanting to hurt him in act one. He bedded someone else's bride, then the troll princess, then has Solveig wait for him for five decades or so. He was a slave trader and a liar. This was odd and confusing. I wonder if I'll ever go see it on stage.
From Wikipedia:
Ibsen wrote Peer Gynt in deliberate disregard of the limitations that the conventional stagecraft of the 19th century imposed on drama.[9] Its forty scenes move uninhibitedly in time and space and between consciousness and the unconscious, blending folkloric fantasy and unsentimental realism.[10]
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