An engaging lyrical tale

I dare say everyone knows Peer Gynt, but through Grieg's music rather than Ibsen's play. You just can't live on Earth and not have heard Morning Mood or In the Hall of the Mountain King. So I was keen to read the play, which was always designed to be more of a dramatic poem, rather hard to stage with its many scene changes, and cast of dozens, many of them creatures of folklore. If I were still in university, I would be tempted to write a paper comparing Peer and Hamlet, both characters who delay their own deaths because of hubris, but Peer is the less noble. The enduring image I have of the play is that of a reindeer caught in a jump, but never landing. Such is life (and by the time we get to the last act, we find that's what Ibsen is in fact dramatizing, with unlimited scope). We're always kind of in the middle of it, and leave things unfinished. Peer is all ambition and no real result, and those results he gets, he dismisses. He's not the only character who contradicts himself at every turn (I found his mother quite funny and touching for it), but he spends much of the play saying he wants something, then renouncing it, lying about who he is and what he's done, but absolutely insisting he has been true to himself (on which I would hang my Hamlet connection). He's not a likable sort, and the first half of the play jumps around so much, it's hard to get your bearings. But it's all foregrounding for the final acts which are so profound, they can be read and reread and never give up the same meaning. So what IS truly being yourself? Don't ask me, I plan to argue with Death and the Devil too, when my reckoning comes.

It is a pretty interesting play written by a Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. The story is based on a famous Norwegian fairy tale and comprises the folklore of the country. However, the play which is, to say, written in verse is far from traditional fairy tales. Henrik Ibsen converted the national fairy tale into a satire where he pictured a typical Norwegian of that time. The protagonists of the folklore are presented as vicious and hideous creatures, the peasants are mean and rude.
Many prominent writers of that time, especially H.C.Andersen joined a widespread hostility and called the play meaningless. Who would have thought that in less than a century the whole world would admire this Ibsen's work.

PEER: I will not die! I must ashore!
THE PASSENGER: Oh, as for that, be reassured;- one dies not midmost of Act Five. (Glides away.)

I read this book since we were studying the Peer Gynt Suites in Art History this year, and I figured it would be fun to listen to them after having read the play they were based off of.

When my teacher said this book was really weird, strangely funny, and somehow, serious, I didn't get it. Now, I do.

Peer Gynt is about a boy who gets into my more trouble and causes more problems then he's worth. Yet somehow, at times, he's likable. But at other times, you wish to thwack him upside the head with a blunt object.

This book is a midget, a little under 140 pages, but manages to pack the same amount of action, character development, and emotion as a 300 page book.

I'd definitely recommend it to fans of comedy, questionably moral characters, plays, and books where you truly have no idea what's going to happen next.

Interesting story. Had some good things to say. Gynt was, as they say, an ultimately likeable character who had made some mistakes, but sometimes you did just want to shake him for the decisions he made. I loved some of the commentary Ibsen made on the world, and I loved how the story was so fanciful and spanned so much time and so many places. I am not a big fan of absurdism, though, and some of it trod dangerously along that line. But it was definitely readable and enjoyable enough.

What a tricksy scamp!

Mehr als in den Bühnenfassungen, die ich gesehen habe, viel Tolles aber auch viel Merkwürdiges. Und das Ende habe ich früher auch anders erlebt.

3.5 stars

Henrik Ibsenin klassikkonäytelmä Peer Gynt on tullut itselleni tutuksi lähinnä Edvard Griegin säveltämänä musiikkina. Olinkin sen vuoksi hieman pettynyt siihen, millainen hahmo Peer Gynt oikeasti on. Odotin nimittäin jotain J.R.R. Tolkienin Hobitin tyyppistä: enemmän seikkailua, peikkoja ja vuoria.

Peer Gynt yllätti minut toistuvasti, välillä kielenkäytöllään, välillä moderniudellaan. Peer on kova naistenmies eikä hän kauaa yhden naisen perässä jaksa olla, vaan himojen kohde vaihtuu usein. Poikkeuksen tekee itämainen Anitra, joka huijaa Peeriltä rikkaudet ja hylkää miehen autiomaahan - mikä ihanan moderni ja itsepäinen naishahmo!

En myöskään osannut varautua siihen, kuinka Peer näytelmän aikana käy läpi useita ikävaiheita. Alussa hän on ehkä parikymppinen miehenalku, keskivaiheilla viittäkymmentä lähentelevä Gatsby - tyyppinen liikemies ja lopussa kotiin tuhjaalapoikamaisesti palaava hopeahiuksinen vanhus. Peer on kuin Game of Thronesin Tyrion: hänen onnistuu aina puhua itsensä pois mitä kiperimmistä tilanteista.

Päälimmäinen tunne lukukokemuksen jälkeen on varsin mitäänsanomaton. Pari hyvää kohtaa teoksesta löytyy: seikkailu vuorenpeikon luona, aavikolla ja hullujen huoneella, mutta muutoin en paljoa tästä irti saanut. Ja lopussa homma meneekin sitten vallan erikoiseksi valukauhoineen kaikkineen. Mutta kuten sanottua, onpas tullut luettua taas yksi klassikko ja sivistettyä itseään.