Arthur Schnitzler
Paperback | Pages: 108 pages Rating: 3.69 | 1100 Users | 57 Reviews
Particularize Out Of Books La Ronde
| Title | : | La Ronde |
| Author | : | Arthur Schnitzler |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 108 pages |
| Published | : | January 1st 1982 by Methuen Publishing (first published 1903) |
| Categories | : | Plays. Drama. Classics. European Literature. German Literature. Theatre. Fiction |
Description Toward Books La Ronde
To today's reader, The Round will pass for a series of more or less funny and uninteresting sketches. However, if the dialogues do not blow to the ceiling, we can quickly detect the main motif of the piece: a taboo-free social critique of Viennese society at the end of the 19th century - even if the vein is essentially comic. And in the case of The Round, the context of the piece is at least as important as the piece itself. The round - of which you may be familiar with the film adaptation of Max Ophuls - is organized in ten sketches, each featuring two characters, a woman and a man, in a different district of Vienna each time. The characters turn around, the woman usually pretends to repel the man's advances - but it may be the other way around - and they end up sleeping together. The thing is symbolically represented by a dashed line, which inevitably reminds us of a censored text. And censored, this one was, and not just a little! In short, after this line of dashes summarizing the sexual act, the dialogue between the two characters resumes, then they leave. the reader understands without difficulty that all this will be without consequences and that the two people, love protests (who often come back) or not, will not see each other again (except the married couple) and will move on. Saynese: we keep one of the two characters of the past sketch, another appears, and everything starts again: we turn around, we play the fierce, or layer together, we promise to see each other again, and hop, next sketch, on the same pattern. In ten variations in total. You will understand that it is the form that Schnitzler gave to the piece that makes it effective and interesting. For all these characters exchange their roles and texts constantly, while travelling through all the districts of the city, from the most unfamed to the richest: the social partitioning perfectly in place in Vienna in 1896 (the date of writing of the play) flies to pieces. The geography imposing the separation of classes is undermined, women do or say the same thing as men, prostitutes the same as bourgeois or aristocrats, using dialogues that constantly repeat, in a loop, the same words "I'm not the type to do this," "Do you love me?", "Yes, I love you," You remind me of someone," "Let's see each other very soon," etc. It is these repetitions and constant exchanges that make this piece a social critique, more overtly comic than acerbic. However, we do not bend with laughter when reading it, especially since today it has lost part of its satirical effectiveness. Yet... when it was written in 1896-97, it was downright unthinkable to have it played and even to have it edited, and Schnitzler had it published for his friends in 1900 on an author's account in 200 copies. Not even intended to be sold, it was already blithely appalled, and then again in 1903 when it was officially published. Then it was banned in 1904. Let's not even talk about the premiere in Berlin in 1921, which triggered many anti-Semitic slurs and two trials, the second of which ended with an autodafé. Vienna was more lenient with a simple ban on representation for a year... This proves that what may seem at first glance a simple adornment says many things about his time and that it would be a shame to miss out. But we will certainly talk about it with the biography of a famous Viennese painter...List Books In Favor Of La Ronde
| Original Title: | Reigen - Zehn Dialogue |
| ISBN: | 0413495302 (ISBN13: 9780413495303) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Austria |
Rating Out Of Books La Ronde
Ratings: 3.69 From 1100 Users | 57 ReviewsAssess Out Of Books La Ronde
With ten different love affairs documented here, I thought there would be greater variation in the scenes. These felt drearily repetitious. Provocative in 1915, the characters and dialogue also seem overly conventional to a modern reader, and I found this a bore. Maybe it would be better seen onstage. What an odd play to have gotten as a wedding reception favor!To today's reader, The Round will pass for a series of more or less funny and uninteresting sketches. However, if the dialogues do not blow to the ceiling, we can quickly detect the main motif of the piece: a taboo-free social critique of Viennese society at the end of the 19th century - even if the vein is essentially comic. And in the case of The Round, the context of the piece is at least as important as the piece itself. The round - of which you may be familiar with the film adaptation of
A sequence of ten scenarios each with a different pair of lovers.
This has potential as a performance but it could also be a disaster. The story is interesting with some imagination.
I stopped because I didn't understand it very good. I hope to read it again and that I get it then. Maybe in a year or two.
The apocryphal saying "Everything in the world is about sex, except sex, sex is about power" could stand as a review for Arthur Schnitzler's Reigen. No wonder this was seen as quite scandalous in early 20th century Vienna! And the scandal is not the sex and the symmetry of the partner change, with characters acting out the sex act (conveniently covered in a line of dashes in each scene) in dance moves until the cycle of sex closes and we meet the first character again in the last scene.The
My reviewArthur Schnitzlers play La Ronde (Reigen in German), written in 1897 but not performed until the winter of 1920/21, looks at a chain of ten sexual encounters. While known by several names depending on the language of translation, the title, named after a circular dance, often goes by La Ronde since France was the one country Schnitzler allowed the play to be performed after the initial riots and complaints in Berlin and Vienna. An English version, translated as Hands Around, can be
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