Arms and the Man by Bernard Shaw

Title: Arms and the Man (play)

Author: George Bernard Shaw (Irish, 1856-1950)
Originally published: 1894
Page count: 71

Dates read: 6/4/22-6/1/22

2022 book goal progress: 16 out of 21

Back to the Classics category: x

Mindful Readers' Family Bookclub 

genre/theme: July - Romance


Read my other book reviews for

my 2022 goals HERE.


Description on back of book:
One of Bernard Shaw's most glittering comedies, Arms and the Man is a burlesque of Victorian attitudes to heroism, war, and empire. In the contrast between Bluntschli, the mercenary soldier, and the brave leader, Sergius, the true nature of valor is revealed.

First line:
CATHERINE [entering hastily, full of good news] Raina! [She pronounces it Rah-eena, with the stress on the ee] Raina! [She goes to the bed, expecting to find Raina there]. Why, where - ? [Raina looks into the room]. Heavens child! are you out in the night air instead of in your bed? You'll catch your death. Louka told me you were asleep.

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 5/10 - ⭐⭐⭐/5
Characters      - 6
Atmosphere   - 5
Writing Style - 4
Plot                - 5
Intrigue          - 6
Logic             - 4
Enjoyment     - 5
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

Overall, I found this play to be meh. I didn't find it particularly funny, but maybe it'd be different if I saw it performed. I enjoyed the Don Quixote references. I tried reading the other 3 plays in Shaw's collection of Plays Pleasant, but I just couldn't get into them.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Shaw have the last words:

"He did it like an operatic tenor. A regular handsome fellow, with flashing eyes and lovely mustache, shouting his war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills. We did laugh."

The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton

Title: The Man Who Was Thursday

Author: GK Chesterton (English, 1874-1936)
Originally published: 1908
Page count: 181

Dates read: 6/15/22-6/30/22

2022 book goal progress: 15 out of 21

Back to the Classics category: Classic set in a place you'd like to visit. (London, England)

Mindful Readers' Family Bookclub 

genre/theme: June - Thriller


Read my other book reviews for my 2022 goals HERE.


Description on back of book:
The story centers around seven anarchists in turn-of-the-century London who call themselves by the days of the week. Fearing an impending act of terrorism, Gabriel Syme is sent by Scotland Yard to infiltrate their ranks by becoming "Thursday." Elected undercover into the Central European Council of Anarchists, Syme must avoid detection and save the world from future bombings.

First sentence:
"The suburb of Saffron Park lay on the sunset side of London, 

as red and ragged as a cloud of sunset."

Favorite quotes:
"The stranger who looked for the first time at the quaint red houses could only think how very oddly shaped the people must be who could fit into them. Nor when he met the people was he disappointed in this respect. The place was not only pleasant, but perfect, if once he could regard it not as a deception but rather as a dream. Even if the people were not 'artists,' the whole was nevertheless artistic... A man who stepped into its social atmosphere felt as if he had stepped into a written comedy."

"Through all this ordeal, his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one."

"Bad is so bad that we cannot but think good an accident; good is so good that we feel certain that evil could be explained."

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 5.1/10 - ⭐⭐⭐/5
Characters      - 8
Atmosphere   - 5
Writing Style - 7
Plot                - 6
Intrigue          - 4
Logic             - 2
Enjoyment     - 4
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

I was not impressed by this book. I found it very predictable, yet had an unexpected spiritual twist in the end, which felt forced and like it didn't belong with the rest of the book. The ending was strange and abrupt - and overall just didn't make sense. I did enjoy the dark humor in the book, but it didn't make it worth the read.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let GK Chesterton have the last words:

" 'My God!' said the colonel. 'Someone has shot at us.'

'It need not interrupt conversation,' said the gloomy Ratcliff. 'Pray resume your remarks, colonel. You were talking, I think, about the plain people of a peaceable French town.'

The staring colonel was long past minding satire. He rolled his eyes all around the street. 'It's extraordinary,' he said, 'most extraordinary.'

'A fastidious person,' said Syme, 'might even call it unpleasant.' "