Thursday, March 5, 2009

The 306 Greatest Books #82 - Our Town

Note - This review was originally published on my other site "The Geology P.A.G.E." but due to the content I have moved it here and backdated the post.

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Our Town by Thorton Wilder. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.



While reading Our Town, I found that the play makes a whole lot more sense if you read the preface in addition to reading/watching it. From the outside, the play appears to be about a normal American family, but if you read the preface you would know that there is more than that. The family is meant to be timeless, which is a thing that was not known around Wilder's time. All the concurrent plays were grounded in specific eras, whereas Wilder removed all props and set pieces to give the play a timeless quality. Our Town is about any town in America, and about any family. And although it still feels a little dated, it actually has remained quite timeless. The plot was fairly simple and easy to follow;  about a family growing up, loving, and dying, in a small American town. However, upon finishing the play I had this feeling that I was missing something. I'm still not quite sure what that was, but I did enjoy it.

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