Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Lieber Brutus
Für wen es gedacht ist
For readers who love fairy tale mixed with grown-up sadness, and anyone who has ever wondered about the road not taken. It is also a good short way into Barrie beyond Peter Pan.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Dear Brutus is a play in three acts by J. M. Barrie, first staged in London in 1917, while the First World War was still being fought. Barrie is best known for Peter Pan, and here he lets magic into an English country house once more, but this time the magic is for grown-ups. The play is a comedy with a sore place at its heart. It asks a plain question. If you were given a second chance at your life, would you use it any better?
The title comes from Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, where Cassius tells Brutus that the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves. Barrie takes that line as his argument and builds a story around it. He gives you a midsummer night, a houseful of guests who each carry a regret, an odd old host, and a wood that has no business being there. In the next few minutes you will meet them, see what the wood offers, and hear what Barrie makes of fate, choice and the lives we never lived. First, the host and his strange invitations.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A odd host gathers regretful guestsFree
- 2Midsummer Eve brings a wood that should not exist
- 3In the wood, the guests become different people
- 4Dearth finds a daughter he never had
- 5The fault is in ourselves, not our stars
- 6A comedy with a fairy tale and a sting
Punkt 1 von 6
A odd host gathers regretful guests
The play opens in the house of Lob, a very old man with a puckish, fairy-like nature. His butler, Matey, is busy preparing for guests, and the two of them talk about the party in a teasing way. We learn that Lob has invited a group of people to stay for Midsummer Eve. Each of them was sent an invitation, and Barrie lets us feel that none of them quite knows why they came.
The guests are a mixed company. There is Mr. Dearth, a painter who has let his talent slide and drinks too much. There is his wife, and the two of them share a bitter marriage. There are Mr. Purdie and his wife Mabel, whose marriage has lost its warmth. There is Joanna Trout, and there is Lady Caroline Laney, an older society woman. Each is, in some quiet way, unhappy with how life has gone.
Barrie spends the first act on these people and their small cruelties and hopes. They chat, tease and show their faults in the way guests do when they are being polite. A listener soon sees that each has a private sorrow, a door in the past that was never opened, or opened and then shut again. The talk has a light surface, but it keeps pointing toward the same question about what might have been.
Lob himself is the odd one. He seems to know more than he says, and he treats his guests like a gardener looking at plants. He is tied to old stories about the little people, and Barrie never fully explains him. He is not a villain, but he is not a friend either. He sets the stage and waits, and you begin to feel that the house is about to do something unusual.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Lieber Brutus
What is Dear Brutus about?
It is about a group of unhappy guests at a country house on Midsummer Eve. A magic wood lets them live the lives they might have had, and the play asks whether a second chance would change them.
Where does the title Dear Brutus come from?
It comes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where Cassius says the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves. Barrie uses the idea as the play's main argument about choice and blame.
Who is Lob in Dear Brutus?
Lob is the old, puckish host of the house party. He is tied to fairy lore and seems to know about the magic wood, and he is the one who invites the guests.
When was Dear Brutus written and first performed?
J. M. Barrie's play was first staged in London in 1917, during the First World War. It is a work of fantasy, not a true story, though its feelings of regret were widely shared in its day.
Is Dear Brutus hard to read?
No. It is a short play in plain, witty English with charming stage directions. The story itself is easy to follow.