My dear mother has introduced me to the genius of the American Playwright. A better start could not be made than Eugene O'Neil's Pulitzer Prize winning play. The major characters are a Mary, James Tyrone, Edmund, and Jamie. Mary struggles with a potent morphine addiction and violent mood swings, James Tyrone is a retired actor who had potential to be great, but settled for a second hand acting position in an unfulfilling play. He is frugal--almost to a fault. Jamie is the failed elder son, who lives a life of squander and debauchery. Edmund is poetic, thoughtful, sickly and suffering from consumption.
O'Neil paints a vivid portrait of a family striving with itself against a cascading anguish of denial, regret, and emotional trauma. Mary stands out most acutely for her morphine addiction and heart wrenching mood swings, she is somehow with them but very distant. Her poignant ending words: "I married James Tyrone and was happy for a time..." ache with a pathos that finds love out of human frailty. Only the best actors could pull off a play like this which relies so much on dialogue and very little action.
The most vivid character is Edmund who must represent Eugene himself in this nearly autobiographical portrayal of his own family. The most moving line of the play comes before it in the introduction:
For Carlotta, on our 12th Wedding Anniversary. Dearest: I give you the original script of this play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood. A sadly inappropriate gift, it would seem, for a day celebrating happiness. But you will understand. I mean it as a tribute to our love and tenderness which gave me the faith in love that enabled me to face my dead at last and write this play--write it with deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones....These twelve years have been a journey into light--into love. You know my gratitude. And my love!
Deep seated regret is a recurring theme in 20th century literature, and Eugene O'Neil brilliantly captures the mood of a family desperately trying to love in spite of itself.
I highly recommend this book.
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