Plays Of Near And Far
By Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett Baron Dunsany
Length3h 12m
About this audiobook
Sometimes one needs to indulge in the pastel whimsies of Dunsany. This mood overtakes me every so often. It happened recently, so I read this substantial book of his plays. I found each piece to be enchanting, humorous, witty at times, fairly clever and pleasingly ridiculous. The first and longest of the plays, entitled simply 'If', is the best and the most inventive. It's a time travel story that involves a wish and a chance to change one incident in the past and then endure all that follows from that change. It is also a story about travel to distant lands, to an implausible and theatrical Eastern kingdom in which the cliches of the Orient abound. It is also a story about change to one's personality, and how a mild mannered English businessman can be turned into a despot under the influence of a certain kind of mischievous and capricious woman. The other plays in the book are briefer and lesser but still entertaining. There is a play that tells the annual story of the bees in heroic fantasy terms. There is a play about how Shakespeare would be ignored if he was alive in Dunsany's era. There is a rather brilliant and prescient play about the dangers of processed food that is so cutting in its satire that it seems more like a work by Saki. Thinking about it more carefully, this latter play is probably the most important one in the book, and yet 'If' will always be the one that is best remembered, for its beauty, its languor, cleverness and daftness.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.8 (36)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing
GenreGeneral Fiction, Literary Classics
Length3 hrs 12 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 22, 2019
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Plays of Near & Far
5CHEEZO
2PREFACE
6A GOOD BARGAIN
3THE COMPROMISE OF THE KING OF THE GOLDEN ISLES
7IF SHAKESPEARE LIVED TO-DAY
4THE FLIGHT OF THE QUEEN
8FAME AND THE POET
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