Review of "The Caucasian Chalk Circle"

First thing first, I'm aware that the picture of this book is of startlingly appalling quality. However, as England has become a seat of darkness already this Winter, there's only a very small time period in which decent photos can be taken. As I'm really conscious at the moment of how long it's been since I've written something (over a week, whoops) I really wanted to get this out today, so we'll have to deal with the poor quality picture. Hey, at least it matches the battered copy my student loans graced me with right? 

Anyway, let's talk about the play. Although I should have already read some Brecht, my general lack of motivation (aka laziness) as a first-year student meant that I *cough* overlooked reading Mother Courage and Her Children. So, The Caucasian Chalk Circle is really my first experience of reading Brecht. I have to say, I massively enjoyed it. If you haven't read any, or really feel like reading something that will make you ask questions about modern life this play is brilliant.The quotation above is just a small sample of thought-provoking and often terrifyingly accurate analyses of modern life that the play contains.

The play itself tells you what's going to happen within the prologue, so I can't really spoiler anything, The Caucasian chalk circle, as narrated by Brecht, is a circle which is drawn around an infant when there is a dispute over who the mother is. The two women in question are asked to tug on the infant - whoever pulls him out of the circle hardest and fastest is the legitimate mother. However, there is a twist. Although the judge of the action states these rules, the real mother is in fact the one who lets go - she cares about the child enough to choose his safety over her emotional attachment to him.

The plot follows the story of Grusha, a servant girl working for a governor and his wife. There is a revolt in the city they live in. The governor is killed and the wife, in her haste to save her dresses, runs away and forgets their infant son, Michael. Grusha runs away with the baby, pursued by soldiers who want to kill him. She eventually reaches her brother's house, but her safety is not secured there....

The second half of the plot sees Azdak, a simple man, become a judge during a revolution. Almost like a Robin Hood-esque character, he has a distorted sense of justice, which for once doesn't help the rich and powerful!

There's so many things that could be said about this play that I'll just never be able to articulate. So, I'll just give a brief account on my thoughts, There is a really interesting interplay between the role of women in capitalist society and commodities. Grusha herself is set up to be a commodity from the start: she is a servant, whose sole worth in the mind of her employer is her ability to follow instructions and perform certain tasks with accuracy. She is then further commodified in her ability (or lack thereof) to produce milk for the infant. She views her breast as something that exists to produce milk, but it sadly serves as a reminder to the reader that she is unable to mother the baby on a physical as well as an emotional level. 

There are many provocative moments in the play. I'm not going to bore you, but some of the most potent aspects I found were the connection between the exchange of money and sexual acts/sexual presence, and the idealist understanding of socialist principles. 

What did you guys think? Have you read it?

Love and Light

Steph

Review of The Dubliners

Ashamedly I've avoided reading any James Joyce for as long as is feasibly possible whilst studying for an English Lit degree. My time was up this week, and I had to cave in the form of The Dubliners in order to get ahead with some module reading. Admittedly the book made me feel like a rather inadequate student - I knew there must be some meaning behind this quandary of characters and situations, but had few ideas as to what. So, after doing a bit of research and rereading over notes I took whilst reading the book (yes, I'm that type of lit student, urgh), I've come up with some ideas about my take on this book.

For the majority of the novel I had no clue as to what was going on. I felt like I was wandering in circles around this semi-fictional Dublin and couldn't escape from the inane repetition of reading about the lives of various seemingly insignificant characters. I actually got rather annoyed at this and in this way missed the point - I wasn't confused because I didn't understand Joyce, I was confused because Joyce wanted me to be. If that makes sense. He purposefully made the life of the key protagonist of each chapter seem mundane and repetitive because he was trying to make his readers realise that that is the nature of Dublin society. Take, for example, Eveline. She could escape her tragic, boring life to go to Argentina with her love. Yet she doesn't. And why? Like most middle class women living in Dublin at the time she is stuck in a rut of routine, and cannot escape without casting off all familial, traditional and supposedly moral ties to her formal life. 

All of the characters reside on the outskirts of middle class society, and in this way give a sort of overview of life in Dublin during this period. Thus, they don't really speak to the reader as individuals, but as a collective entity of different sub-sections of the middle class. We have the potentially violated young boy, the manipulative mother, the lover with lost hopes and the list goes on.

Now, as to whether I enjoyed it ... I can't say it's going to be in my top ten. or really anywhere near there to be honest. Although I appreciate the literary merit of the work as it was relatively important for the avant-garde movement, it wasn't something that I exactly lost the track of time with whilst reading. Saying that, it's Joyce, so it's obviously well written. It's also quite interesting because of the sheer range of lives that he provides perspective on.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Steph x