Manolo 's book and film review

Book Review

BOOK TITLE: The Importance of Being Earnest.
AUTHOR: Oscar Wilde
PUBLISHER / YEAR: Penguin, 1955
BOOK TYPE: Comedy
PAGES: 78

SUMMARY: Algernon is a well-to-do middleclass fellow from London. Although he lives in the city he pays frequent visits to the country where he claims to visit an ill friend called Bunbury. Algernon ´s best friend, Jack, lives in the country but he often comes to enjoy the pleasures of London social life, pretending that he is visiting a fictitious sick brother called Ernest.

Jack wants to marry Gwendolen, Algernon ´s cousin, and Algernon wishes to marry Cecily, Jack ´s ward who lives in the country. Both of them, Algernon and Jack will run into a few problems before achieving their purpose.

The climax of the the play is reached when Algernon, pretending to be Jack ´s sick brother, visits Cecily under the name of Ernest. She immediately falls in love with him but as soon as Jack appears on the scene, a series of misunerstanding follows uncovering Algy ´s real identity. Things get worse when Gwendoleen and her mother, Lady Bracknell, get to know that Jack was adopted as a baby when he was found in a handbag at a railway station. Something which is under the social standard of her daughter.

OPINION: In my opinion it is one of the funniest and wittiest comedies written in English. It is not just the funny elements what makes readers laugh and enjoy the play, but also the ironical touch with which the author handles the matter of marriage and social relationships. To quote just some fragments: “To speak frankly I am not in favour of long engagement. They give people the possibility of finding out each other ´s character”.

LANGUAGE / STYLE:

Taking into account we are dealing with a classic comedy of English literature, the language used is quite formal. Although we are pesented everyday situations in the play, the setting of the play is the high middleclass society. For this reason the language style is very polite and within the semantic field of social relationships and marriage. For example words like: engagement, married households, demoralizing, to propose (in terms of marriage), divorces, bachelor, to dine with, to flirt with, elegible young men... As a result of this topic, most of the terms employed are abastract nouns. For instance: social responsability, moral tone, real motives, solid quialities... And the sentences are usually long and with a complex structure: “Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon, only people who can ´t get into it do that”. Rethorical devices are not frequent thorought the book, though we may highlight some puns, like for instance that in the very title: The importance of being Earnest. The author plays with the idea of being earnest in society in order to achieve a good reputation – in a ironical tone – and later the two main characters claimed to be called Ernest, which is a homophone of earnest. But the real thing is that they are not Ernest (serious) they feign to be Ernest.


FILM REVIEW:
FILM TITLE: Lolita
COUNTRY / YEAR : USA, 1997
DIRECTOR: Adryan Lyne
WRITING CREDITS: Vladimir Nabokov (novel)
Stephen Schiif (screenplay)

CAST: Jeremy Irons > Humbert Humbert
Melanie Griffieth > Charlotte Haze
Dominique Swain > Dolores ‘Lolita’ Haze
Frank Langella > Clare Quilty

SYNOPSYS : Humbert Humbert after a dramatic relationship in his adolescence feels unable to fall in love again. In his forties he leaves England for the USA with the hope to start a new life. There he works as a professor.He shares a house with a family and he will feel attracted to a 14- year-old girl, called Lolita. They will both undertake a journey throughout the country, hiding their true relationship. But they are followed by an strange man. Humbert grows jealous and ad with a strong sense of guilt from the forbidden love.

OPINION: Often categorized as an erotic film ‘Lolita’ explores a whole range of emotions and hidden feelings. A traumatized teenager profoundly shocked by the sudden death of his first love feels unable to fall in love for a second time. Twenty years later, in his thirties, he comes across a young fourteen -year -old girl in whom he recreates the love of his youth. How strong can emotions be to push a man into such follies! To marry a woman in order to have acces to his daughter, to quit his job, to travel around the States with no direction ... They are just some to name but a few. There are many scenes that appeal to the senses, to see a man shattered, broken by an impossible that is leading to a tragical ending.

TYPES OF LANGUAGE: The language used in this film is American English. On the one hand we can find a colloquial and informal language which can be categorized as youth slang and which is employed by ‘Lolita’. On the other hand, we see a more formal and educated style in Humbert, the professor.

CONCLUSION: Leaving aside those who condemn the film simplifying it as amoral and indecent, and listening to those who take it seriously, Lolita is a painfully beautiful movie about a love realationship that can not end happily. Starred by a faultless Jeremy Irons where every look and every move that he makes is completely convincing and moving. On the other side, Dominique Swain, in spite of her inexperience and age, perfomes a character full of energy and credibility. We can claim that Stephen Chiif adaption of Vladimir Nabokov ´s novel maintains his literacy and coherence.