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Reader discussion: The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
Public reader discussion about The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People in the WeRead Catalog by Oscar Wilde.
Discussion: The Importance of Being Earnest
By CalmDesk
Hey everyone. I read The Importance of Being Earnest back in mid January and kept waiting for the discussion to pop up, but I didn’t notice one until today. If it’s alright, I’d like to start it here.
I ended up relating to this book a lot, and the thing that stood out most to me was how the beauty in life seems to come from not really knowing what’s coming.
I also have an Asian name and I’m living in the US right now, so I usually tell people I prefer to go by an American-sounding name because it feels more like it helps me blend in. There are still biases here against people with foreign-sounding names, whether people want to admit it or not.
One part that felt a little odd to me was the romance between Dr. Chasuable and Ms. Prism, since it kind of felt like it came out of nowhere.
I’d be really interested to hear what everyone else thought, especially since it was such a short book.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
By hiddenhammer746
Hello!
This was only the fourth book I’ve finished this year, and I thought it was really great. It’s basically Victorian silliness at its peak. I’ve seen people say Wilde was a big influence on things like Monty Python, and yeah, I can totally believe that. It’s over the top, goofy, and never trying to be serious, and I was laughing a lot. Just really solid stuff. Wilde is amazing.
What it’s “about” is kind of funny, because it both is and isn’t about being earnest, and mostly circles around the name itself. I don’t want to get too far into the plot and ruin the chaos, but this feels like Wilde at his smartest and most playful. He really did create his own kind of wit. It’s very clearly taking aim at Victorian upper-class life, and it doesn’t exactly hide that everyone and everything is ridiculous. That ridiculousness feels weirdly familiar, especially around romance, flirting, marriage, and even church stuff. Jack and Algernon are basically scrambling through layers of made-up identities to keep up their secret little schemes and still win over the women they want. Pretty much everybody is awful and shallow, but I still found myself rooting for them anyway, except Lady Bracknell, who is just horrifying. And somehow these idiots are often incredibly funny. There are lines all through it that made me laugh and think at the same time.
The Importance of Being Earnest
By MemorySilver18
By the end, do Algernon and Cecily end up getting married? It feels like they probably will, since Lady Bracknell really shouldn’t have any problem with Gwendolen and Ernest. But would Algernon need to change his name before they actually do?
The Importance of Being Earnest - Similar works?
By Hidden-Cougar
I really liked Wilde, and now I’m trying to figure out what else feels similar. Tristram Shandy is the first thing I think of, but I’m also wondering if there’s anyone today doing this kind of modern, realistic satire. I know somebody’s probably going to bring up Hitchhiker’s, but I feel like that’s a bit of a different thing. Is this sort of satire mostly stuck in comic strips now? Where do you still see that Earnest kind of humor showing up?
The Importance of Being Earnest review — Stephen Fry drowns in camp
By EpilogueHorse
Did anybody end up going?
The Importance of Being Earnest
By folio-needle
I’m slowly tracking down the quotes in P’s pages, but is there any way to tell which page each one comes from? Or am I really stuck having to get a physical copy?
The Importance of Being Earnest; Favorite Quotes
By paperbackgreen
Oscar Wilde is famous for being super quotable, and while I’m reading I keep coming across little jokes and random lines that are just great on their own, even out of context. This is a spot to point out some of your favorite bits from the text, and for people to share a laugh and chat about them.
The Importance of Being Earnest; First Impressions
By crimsonriver1999
I’ve just gotten into our Gutenberg book and figured I’d toss out my thoughts on the opening section. One thing I thought was funny is that a lot of the Oscar Wilde lines I’ve seen people quote seriously seem to come from Algernon, who is pretty openly hypocritical. Makes me wonder if people’s idea of Wilde gets skewed because they miss that a lot of it is satire.
Also, basically everyone so far seems pretty awful, maybe except Gwendolyn. Oddly, that doesn’t really turn me off. It’s not like Catcher in the Rye, where the point is that the character is unlikeable but still kind of relatable. Here they feel more like exaggerated little cartoon people. They’re funny less because they’re actually doing funny stuff and more because they’re so ridiculous while acting like they’re being completely serious.
Curious what everyone else is thinking. What stood out to you in the first few chapters? How do you feel about the characters so far?
Some of The Picture of Dorian Grey is intended to be darkly funny, right?
By martenepilogue
I was talking about *The Picture of Dorian Grey* with someone the other day, just briefly while we were in a queue. I said I actually found it funnier than I was expecting, and she gave me this look like “uh, okay…?” which made me feel a bit awkward.
We didn’t have much time to carry on, but she basically said that with a modern lens a lot of the classics can come off badly written. That’s fair I guess, but I didn’t mean it was badly written. I just assumed the whole point was that it was mocking vanity—like Dorian is kind of a caricature of that nineteenth-century aristocratic type, not someone you’re meant to take 100% seriously as this totally believable narcissistic murderer.
I know people say it’s really quotable, and I still think that’s true, but I also felt like Lord Henry’s little lines—especially early on—were meant more like snappy jokes about society than actual “advice” you should take to heart. So if it wasn’t supposed to be funny, then maybe it does read kind of melodramatic and unreal. But to me, the book never felt like it was treating itself or the characters super seriously. More like a deliberately exaggerated satire with wit.
Anyway, her reaction has me doubting myself now—did I misunderstand the whole thing?
(Also, I’m not helping myself here because I did an audiobook, so maybe the way it was performed made it feel funnier than it would on the page.)