Bookworm Blurbs

Cecily Cardew and Gwendolen Fairfax are both in love with the same mythical suitor. Jack Worthing has wooed Gewndolen as Ernest while Algernon has also posed as Ernest to win the heart of Jack's ward, Cecily. When all four arrive at Jack's country home on the same weekend the "rivals" to fight for Ernest s undivided attention and the "Ernests" to claim their beloveds pandemonium breaks loose. Only a senile nursemaid and an old, discarded hand-bag can save the day! (source)

I first encountered The Importance of Being Earnest as a senior in high school. As I recall, it was one of the only pieces of literature that we read in my English class that year that I actually enjoyed (the other was Cyrano de Bergerac). I was thrilled when my book club decided that we would read it together this year - it's hard for me to believe that the last time I read this was five years ago, because I feel like I recently finished it for the first time. Well, I finally got my chance to re-read it (everyone else in our club read this way back in January), and it was every bit as good as I'd remembered!

What I adore about this play is that it's just so funny, in my opinion. It's very silly humor, but I think that Oscar Wilde's play on words is really clever. He has some of the most idiotic characters, but their commentary on society is, in my opinion, genius, even though the irony is lost on them. As a student, I appreciated that it wasn't necessary to rack one's brain to understand what Wilde was trying to convey. His commentary is fairly obvious, but insightful nonetheless, and I think that his transparency makes it much more likely that his audience will actually absorb the points that he makes - I know this was certainly the case for me! 

I don't really have too much more to say about this work; it's very brief so I think it's fitting that my review is, as well. I'll just leave this by saying that this is definitely one of my favorite plays that I've read and it's leaving me wanting to explore more of Wilde's work, much as I wanted to during my senior year of high school. I never did get around to doing that, but hopefully one of these days I will... just one more thing to add to my post-grad school TBR list! If you haven't read The Importance of Being Earnest, I highly recommend that you give it a try!