2/18/16 The Importance Of Being Earnest? (Book)

    I kind of forgot to do my review of the latest book I read, The Importance Of Being Earnest last week.  After reading The Picture Of Dorian Grey, I am a big Oscar Wilde fan.  Oscar grew up at the wrong time.  Because he was gay, he ended up spending time in jail (about two years), and his life was probably shortened by the fact that this ruined him financially.  He died penniless, even though he was working on a good library of stories and plays that were generally liked by society.
    The Lucifer Principle, the other book that distracted me so much from reading more light hearted material had a section on Oscar Wilde.  It stated that as England started sliding down from being ranked number 1 in the world, people looked for a scapegoat, much like happened here in the 80s, when the ignorant religious masses started blaming Heavy Metal as devil music affecting the youth, Oscar Wilde was used as the face of homosexuality and the decay of morality.  In truth, England started to fall behind technologically, the US had far superior steel for ship building.  In the same way, we started falling behind the Japanese, because they work harder and their kids spend more time studying.
    Anyways, the story starts out in the city, two close friends are discussing their days, and one lets on he has a fictional persona who he uses to go out and get away from his country existence.  The city guy then admits he does the same, he calls his alter ego Bunbury, then makes it a verb, saying he goes bunburying when he chooses to use the alter ego.  The country fellow is smitten with the city fellow's cousin and then later the city fellow follows the country guy to his estate and falls for his ward,  a naïve but I assume pretty girl.
    It is a fairly short play, about 100 pages long in the book.  The book appears much larger, but there are three or four more plays included in the book.  Mr. Wilde does a great job with the conversations, making everyone appear clever.  After coming clean about his name and the city guy's gal insisting that Earnest is the only name of the man she plans on marrying, well a long explanation and some clearing of the air, in the end, the name he has been using about town to escape his country life, is in fact his real name, since he was named after his father, Earnest.
    In the end, everyone is happy, as the city guy, although belonging to high society by birth and behavior, is poor, but Earnest's ward is to get a great sum of money once she prepares for marriage, Earnest is a wealthy man, and thus is fit to marry the other man's cousin, which mother approves once she hears of his earnings and visits his estate in the country.
    The story is in play form, but I found it very easy to read, and almost preferred the name of the person saying this and that to know who was carrying on the conversation.  I look forward to reading the rest of his plays in the book.