Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (1994), Paperback, 112 pages
Description
'A man can't scrap his bloodline, can't snip the thread of immortality.' Such is the strength of Joe Saul's desperate longing for a child, that he feels as if a dark curse is upon him after three unfruitful years of marriage. Yet unbeknown to him, he is sterile. His beautiful, young, devoted wife loves him so much that she secretly conceives the child of another man. But when Joe discovers her deception, his anguish is greater than ever before... A powerful, tragic and deeply moving tale.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Acrackedportrait
It ends as a sloshed family melodrama and a doctrine on the unimportance of blood line, family and the like. Unfortunately, the string on which the entire melodrama unravells is too flimsy, too thin. And it does get to be a drag at the end. The only thing unpredicatble about the ending is Victor's
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murder - which can more easily justified as a means for ending the story rather than with its plausibilty. Potential largely goes to waste and Steinbeck's experiment leaves a lot wanting. Perhaps the play was better. Show Less
LibraryThing member SigmundFraud
Not major Steinbeck but a wonderful brief story in three "acts" so to speak. He writes splendidly even in his minor works. Worth a detour.
LibraryThing member edwinbcn
John Steinbeck's idea to rewrite drama into short novellas, in order to keep them available, and readable in an enjoyable format for the wider public, is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, Burning bright is a bad example. Uninteresting.
LibraryThing member jeffome
St. Barts 2012 #9 - An odd little book with an ending i did not expect......not too sure what i was supposed to get from this. I was certainly intrigued by the way the themes of this book were made universal by the changing setting. However, i was not intrigued by the somewhat shallow nature of
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some of the characters that led me not to care nearly as deeply for them as I am sure Steinbeck hoped. Show Less
LibraryThing member okupcu
a very different, creative love story with -as always- very powerfull imagery style of Steinbeck. A must read with its passion in it and unusual story which continues three different environment with same characters and without annoying or disturbing the reader even a bit. The book emphasizes the
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generosity of acceptance and humanity in it. Show Less
LibraryThing member RowanShield
I love this book so much - if anyone ever puts it on as a play i want to see it!
LibraryThing member RBeffa
Steinbeck was experimenting with this book. He tells the reader so in a foreword in which he explains that plays for the theater are rarely read by anyone other than the actors. Steinbeck wanted to create something more accessible to general readers and to keep alive the stories that are within
The result for me: I didn't really like this. Didn't hate it. It didn't feel like a Steinbeck novel. The story and characters couldn't get a hook in me. Lots of angst over achieving immortality by passing on one's bloodline. A man is going crazy about not fathering a child. Did I say this was heavy on the angst? The 4 characters here don't act like people. What I like about Steinbeck is the sense of place. Of course characters are important but Steinbeck had a skill with giving one a sense of the land the people in his stories were tied to, and that gets short shrift here. This short novel is a play/melodrama thing initially set in a circus then a farm, then the sea. I think I'll watch a Douglas Sirk film when I want 50's melodrama. Steinbeck was trying something different and this is different, and strange. Steinbeck is a bit clever here though, telling us the story in three different places and ways in the three acts. Unlike the play "Of Mice and Men" however, this just isn't very good. I'm not sorry I read this but I suspect this must be the weakest thing Steinbeck ever published.
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plays. He also thought that more description of characters within the format of a short novel/play would give actors a better base to work from. That's the theory here anyway. The story was published in 1950.The result for me: I didn't really like this. Didn't hate it. It didn't feel like a Steinbeck novel. The story and characters couldn't get a hook in me. Lots of angst over achieving immortality by passing on one's bloodline. A man is going crazy about not fathering a child. Did I say this was heavy on the angst? The 4 characters here don't act like people. What I like about Steinbeck is the sense of place. Of course characters are important but Steinbeck had a skill with giving one a sense of the land the people in his stories were tied to, and that gets short shrift here. This short novel is a play/melodrama thing initially set in a circus then a farm, then the sea. I think I'll watch a Douglas Sirk film when I want 50's melodrama. Steinbeck was trying something different and this is different, and strange. Steinbeck is a bit clever here though, telling us the story in three different places and ways in the three acts. Unlike the play "Of Mice and Men" however, this just isn't very good. I'm not sorry I read this but I suspect this must be the weakest thing Steinbeck ever published.
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LibraryThing member chrisblocker
John Steinbeck is universally known for his gritty tales of realism. Most people associate Steinbeck's name with The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. Some know the author's family epic, East of Eden, while others relish in his humorous tales of drunken exploits, Cannery Row, Tortilla Flat...
Burning Bright may be the most strange remnant of Steinbeck's existing work. The story itself is fairly straight-forward, but the approach in setting and dialogue are experimental. In his hope to create a modern morality play, Steinbeck utilized language in a tone that bore similarity to the Greek tragedy. With a cast of only four characters, the play is simple, yet in an attempt to make the story universal (implied by Steinbeck's original title “Everyman”), these four characters are transplanted from the transient life of circus workers to a farm and then out to the sea. There is no explanation for these shifts, and though they are out of place, I don't think an explanation is needed.
As a play, particularly one written by John Steinbeck, produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein, enacted by a stellar cast briefly on Broadway, Burning Bright was a failure. Steinbeck was overambitious and this may have come across to many as pretentiousness. In no time after the play had opened and quickly folded, Steinbeck issued an apology in which he addressed the response the play garnered and expressed his own disappointment. He concludes the apology
I have had fun with my work and I shall insist on continuing to have fun with it. And it has been my great good fortune in the past, as I hope it will be in the future, to find enough people to go along with me to the extent of buying books, so that I may eat and continue to have fun. I do not believe that I can much endanger or embellish the great structure of English literature.
Indeed, there are those who were and continue to be disappointed with Steinbeck's desire to have fun; they want the serious author whose entire focus is on migrant workers. And there were and continue to be those who point to works such as Burning Bright and say, “Steinbeck was immensely overrated—look at this drivel!” Steinbeck, just wanted to have a little fun. And though the subject of Burning Bright is rather dark and dramatic, the presentation allowed the author certain freedoms that must have been amusing.
Burning Bright is clearly not Steinbeck's best moment, but it is not a bad work at all. Its ambitions and charm make up for its showy appearance. And yet, despite its exaggerated delivery, it is such a simple play, devoid of any extra ornamentation, which deals with questions of love and sacrifice. So that whether you're a circus clown, a farmer, or a ship's captain, you may be drawn into this universal and poetic tale.
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Few seem to recognize Steinbeck for his vast trove of work, not only in print, but on screen and on stage. Throughout his career, from beginning to end, Steinbeck refused to grow stagnant by merely reinventing his most famous work. From Cup of Gold and To a God Unknown, through Viva Zapata and The Wayward Bus, and concluding with The Winter of Our Discontent, Steinbeck dabbled in many styles and mediums. Although he was very frustrated with the outcomes of his work in film and theatre, he never gave up. In the middle of all this was one experimental play full of potential, but which flopped and has largely been forgotten.Burning Bright may be the most strange remnant of Steinbeck's existing work. The story itself is fairly straight-forward, but the approach in setting and dialogue are experimental. In his hope to create a modern morality play, Steinbeck utilized language in a tone that bore similarity to the Greek tragedy. With a cast of only four characters, the play is simple, yet in an attempt to make the story universal (implied by Steinbeck's original title “Everyman”), these four characters are transplanted from the transient life of circus workers to a farm and then out to the sea. There is no explanation for these shifts, and though they are out of place, I don't think an explanation is needed.
As a play, particularly one written by John Steinbeck, produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein, enacted by a stellar cast briefly on Broadway, Burning Bright was a failure. Steinbeck was overambitious and this may have come across to many as pretentiousness. In no time after the play had opened and quickly folded, Steinbeck issued an apology in which he addressed the response the play garnered and expressed his own disappointment. He concludes the apology
I have had fun with my work and I shall insist on continuing to have fun with it. And it has been my great good fortune in the past, as I hope it will be in the future, to find enough people to go along with me to the extent of buying books, so that I may eat and continue to have fun. I do not believe that I can much endanger or embellish the great structure of English literature.
Indeed, there are those who were and continue to be disappointed with Steinbeck's desire to have fun; they want the serious author whose entire focus is on migrant workers. And there were and continue to be those who point to works such as Burning Bright and say, “Steinbeck was immensely overrated—look at this drivel!” Steinbeck, just wanted to have a little fun. And though the subject of Burning Bright is rather dark and dramatic, the presentation allowed the author certain freedoms that must have been amusing.
Burning Bright is clearly not Steinbeck's best moment, but it is not a bad work at all. Its ambitions and charm make up for its showy appearance. And yet, despite its exaggerated delivery, it is such a simple play, devoid of any extra ornamentation, which deals with questions of love and sacrifice. So that whether you're a circus clown, a farmer, or a ship's captain, you may be drawn into this universal and poetic tale.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bobbybslax
An interesting textual experiment—the play-novelette. It only really differentiates itself from a plain novelette in one sequence where time passes very quickly all at once. I feel I’m probably of the same opinion as the detractors for this in that I’m not sure a morality play of this type
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and with this kind of elevated language really works in the 20th/21st century. It feels detached from character in a way where people aren’t people and there’s nothing really to engage with other than the All-Caps hammering of Progeny problems. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1951
Physical description
112 p.; 7.77 inches
ISBN
0140187421 / 9780140187427