Thornton Wilder Books

Excellent edition of the works of one of America's greatest writers and dramatists. Readable type, good paper, scholarly notes & introductory material.

I find the plays of Thornton Wilder to be a refreshing delight. While they have humor, satire, a freedom with the conventions of drama, and a telling use of the ordinary to make a deeper point, they also have scenes of emotional power and depth without ever becoming maudlin. Wilder never needs to make things "real" to make a real point. I can't think of any of his characters that need the psychological torture or a pathos built on a foundation of narcissism or the endless drumbeat of sex as the universal explanation for whatever one wants to conclude about life. Yep, I enjoy what Wilder provides and enjoy it very much.

The play that most people associate with Wilder is "Our Town", but they know it mostly from the 1940 movie. The play is sparer and Emily does not live. I think the play is better because her death makes its point about life more strongly than it does when she pulls through. This wonderful edition from the Library of America has articles by Wilder on the production of the play and a series of letters between Wilder and the producer, Sol Lesser, on the making of the movie version are quite interesting. This volume also has notes by Wilder on some of his other plays and on other theatrical topics.

What most people may not know is that the musical "Hello, Dolly" is based on Wilder's play called "The Matchmaker". The musical paid him sufficient royalties that made him financially secure for the remainder of his life. Wilder had based "The Matchmaker" on earlier works. It has a fairly long tradition because it is such a delightful topic.

The volume opens with a series of very short "plays" that are really literary pieces more meant to be read than produced. These were previously collected in a volume entitled "The Angel That Troubled The Waters".

Then come the longer and performable and even regularly performed one act plays. "The Long Christmas Dinner" is probably the best well known. The effect of the time compression of 90 years of Christmases (not every year) is such an interesting effect. The actors age on stage, are born, and die for four generations (a fifth being hinted at). The ordinary language and the way we observe these lives in "fast forward" tell us so much. Quite a fine achievement.

Then come the big plays. Wilder won three Pulitzers. One for his novel, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" in 1928. Another for "Our Town" in 1938, and then for the strangely wonderful "The Skin of Our Teeth" in 1943. "The Skin of Our Teeth" is said to be influenced by "Finnegan's Wake" and Wilder did love that book. It toys nearly every dramatic convention one can think of. The three acts aren't really related except by keeping the central characters. But they are not informed from the other acts. It is full of anachronisms such as mixing 20th Century New Jersey with an ice age. And not only do the characters talk to the audience (a Wilder trademark), they do so out of character as if the actor himself or herself is speaking. But they are playing a role there, too.

The volume also includes a number of Wilder's "uncollected plays" and which are quite enjoyable and valuable.

The book also includes a very informative chronology of Wilder's life and very good notes on the texts.

Strongly recommended for those who love drama and American letters.

The most comprehensive one-volume edition of dramatist Thornton Wilder's work published to date, Thornton Wilder Collected Plays & Writings on Theater is an 800+ page compendium of plays Wilder wrote throughout his career, essays that reveal Wilder's reflections on his own plays, an epistolary account of the film adaptation of the classic play "Our Town", a chronology, notes, and much more. Of special interest to literati is material that has never before been published: scenes from "The Emporium", an ambitious yet unfinished play that evolved out of Wilder's involvement with existentialist philosophy in his postwar years, as well as the complete screenplay that Wilder wrote for Alfred Hitchcock's movie "Shadow of a Doubt" just prior to reporting for military service in 1942. Like all Library of America editions, Thornton Wilder Collected Plays & Writings on Theater features a sturdy hardcover binding, a compact, relatively lightweight design, and an inset ribbon bookmark. A "must" for classic theater shelves, and recommended for college and public library collections.

The master anthologist J D McClatchy does it again with this superb edition of Thornton Wilder's plays and associated writing for the theater.

In the SF Chronicle the other day, a reviewer gave this volume horrible marks, he didn't like one thing about it. He said THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH is labored claptrap, and that was about the nicest thing he said.

I'm here to refute that opinion. To me Wilder is a great god of the theater and the shame is that some of his very best work has rarely or never been staged. Over the past ten years, as the different episodes of his two cycles have been given to us by Gallup and others, it's been one enchanting masterpiece after another! I had no idea how protean his imagination was, nor how everything had to be different from one another. What a shame he didn't finish the 7 ages of man, but the episodes we have, "Infancy," "Childhood," "Youth" and especially the new "The Rivers Under the Earth" are pretty spectacular, And as for THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS, what can I say, I don't believe any other author could have pulled it off. "A Ringing of Doorbells" gets sort of into Tennessee Williams country, but Williams lacked the control Wilder had in spades.

OK, I wasn't crazy about "In Shakespeare and the Bible," but I probably just don't understand it. I can't decide if Katy did the right thing, nor what the point was about her having changed her name from Mildred, nor what agreement is made by the other two more worldly characters, her fiancee and her aunt, after Katy makes her exit. "Bernice" and "The Wreck on the Five Twenty Five" are beyond praise and I wish I could step into a time machine and see Ethel Waters and Lillian Gish act in them in Berlin or wherever their fugitive premiere was. We don't usually think of Wilder as being interested in civil rights, and the famous plays we know by him deal with almost totally white worlds, but "Bernice" is all about a sort of Frantz Fanon liberation and empowerment after enslavement, just brilliant.

And the two "extra" (non cycle) plays are cute too, "The Marriage we Deplore" has a surprise ending, and "The Unerring Instinct" has a device I think John Waters would love -- or has he used it already?

The EMPORIUM grows in power and eerie knowledge every time I read more of it. Someday I hope to read the manuscripts for the whole thing, no matter how chaotic they are.

For many the great plus of this McClatchy-edited volume will be the screenplay for SHADOW OF A DOUBT. It is remarkable how much of it Hitchcock used! And yet while the editorial apparatus tut tuts the contributions made to the screenplay by NEW YORKER hack Sally Benson, I think she helped. She wasn't the carpetbagger some have made her out to be. Her writing is always good, and a thorough study of her work on the final screenplay of SHADOW OF A DOUBT must be undertaken at once. Is Benson still alive? Somebody must know. In the meantime we have this fantastic book will console us.

THE CABALA is an unusual novel by a writer noted for the unusual. It is a modern story of good and evil, of the last struggles of paganism to survive in the world of today - seen through the eyes of a young American of Puritan background living in Rome in the 1920's. Its title comes from the name Thornton Wilder gave to his group of present-day pagans, talented and wealthy aristocrats, clever esoterics, who have mysterious influences in affairs of Church and State.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 - December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. His best known work is his play Our Town.

I performed as Harriet from Pullman Car Hiawatha in State Competition for one-acts, and we won! It is quite moving if done right, and is a lot like Our Town - on a shorter and more eccentric verson.

El Puente de San Luis Rey. Thorton Wilder.

Mas, hasta cuando estaba hablando, otros pensamientos pasaban detrás de su mente. " Hasta ahora---pensó---casi nadie a no ser yo, recuerda a Esteban y a Pepita. Solo Camila recuerda a su Tío Pío y a su hijo; esta mujer, a su madre. Pero pronto moriremos y con nosotras todo el recuerdo de aquellos cinco que dejaron la tierra, y a nosotras mismas nos amaran un poco de tiempo y nos olvidarán. Mas el amor habrá bastado; y todos los impulsos de amor retornaran al amor de donde vinieron. Ni siquiera el recuerdo es necesario para el amor. Hay una tierra de vivos y una de muertos, y el puente que las une es el amor, lo único que sobrevive, lo único que tiene sentido."

P 123.

Junipero, un franciscano que presencio la caída del puente de San Luis Rey se embarca en la misión de establecer el significado de la vida de esas cinco personas que en ese momento perecieron. La historia de esas cinco vidas es una tarea demasiado copiosa para el religioso y al final su obra es quemada junto con él, quien es acusado de herejía, cuando lo único que trataba de hacer era demostrar que Dios tiene un plan para cada ser humano y que el fin de esas vidas iba de acuerdo a Su Plan.
Esta historia, situada en el mítico Perú de 1714, podría estar situada en cualquier país y en cualquier tiempo remoto, es mas una alegoría, una disección de la vida de los personajes hasta el momento en que sus vidas se ven cortadas por la caída del puente. Al final solo nos quedan sus recuerdos, como son recordados por las personas quienes los amaban. Pero como dice el autor, el amor vuelve al amor y eso es lo único que importa.
La obra esta escrita de la forma hermosa a las que nos tiene acostumbrado el autor. Para los que no han tenido la oportunidad de leer a Wilder, les diré que es un escritor en quien lo poético se realza por encima de la obra contada, llegando en ocasiones a escribir obras de hermoso virtuosismo literario, pero carentes de sentido o dirección, como en el caso de Teophilus North. En este caso, El Puente de San Luis Rey, la novela tiene sentido, se mueve. La vida de los personajes es intensa, como en el caso de la Marquesa de Montemayor, solitaria, como en el caso de los gemelos y aun naciente como en el caso del hijo de Micaela.
¿Quién nos recuerda?Al morir solo las personas que nos aman y que aun viven. Después de su muerte, morimos la segunda muerte, la del olvido de nuestras cualidades que se tornan difusas y después se olvidan para siempre. ¿Acaso no tiene sentido la vida y el esfuerzo, cuando la muerte y el olvido nos borran? ¿Acaso volvemos después en otra vida y en otro tiempo, o acaso hay un plan maestro del cual somos meras piezas? No estamos destinados a saberlo y el autor en lugar de caer en pesimismos nos da una obra bella que realza el amor como sentimiento que no se elimina con la muerte y el olvido sino que retorna a sí mismo y crece.

Luis Méndez.

Thornton Wilder wrote so beautifully for the stage, and left his own personal, private life, such a blank page, that I don't envy the biographer who has to make something real out of the tatters and postcards he left behind. And yet Gilbert Harrison does a fine job. I didn't think the book told enough when it came out in 1983, but maybe I was expecting more than I should have, for on re-reading this book this past week I was struck over and over by how much indeed Harrison brings to live his evanescent, elusive subject.

Wilder's admirers were always pained, during his lifetime, about how little he actually produced. Why, oh why, did it take him so long to write his three famous plays, and why so little other work? It wasn't as though he was a busy family doctor like William Carlos Williams, or needed to hold down a manual job to make money, for family circumstances seemed comfortable; although Harrison pulls back the curtain and reveals some of the details of Wilder's financial life, in a way more clouded than his sexual history. And we see, just about for the first time, the extent to which Wilder was always writing, always, but he was such a perfectionist that his experiments hardly ever pleased him! Such an oddity, for the plays that came out after his death were just as good as the ones he had produced, and I think as time goes by the magnificent LIFE IN THE SUN will become better and better known, it is totally beautiful; while the short play cycles, including the SEVEN DEADLY SINS and the SEVEN AGES OF MAN, are simply wonderful and everyone should have the two newish compliations of COLLECTED SHORT PLAYS at their bedside. He seemed to know everything about human life, not just the sunny, heartwarming OUR TOWN moments, but also about the chill and the pall that, say, we love reading Auden for, or Sartre's NO EXIT. He was scary, as he proved in the devastatingly nihilistic speeches he gave "Uncle Charlie" in the script he wrote for Alfred Hitchcock, SHADOW OF A DOUBT. Did he hold back on the remaining one act plays (and THE EMPORIUM) because they were possibly too bleak? If so, we now have them to treasure. Did he fail to find happiness in his private life due to homophobia, or perhaps to a crippling shyness which led him to abdicate from the body's demands? Harrison is good at all of these lines of inquiry, but most of all he gives us the sense of a life rich in a hundred ways besides the usual, including the generosity some called saint-like but which, as the wise know, is nothing but a sublimated form of curiosity. The giver wants to see the reaction of those to whom he gives. That's all Dolly Levi really wants, to see real life from the angle of the donor.

Ignoring the conventions of time, this playful "message play" follows one family from the days of the glaciers and dinosaurs to a post-apocalyptic, modern world. George Antrobus, the inventor of the wheel, and Maggie, his wife, the inventor of the apron, have two children, Gladys and Henry (whose previous name was Cain). The bossy father, domestic and subservient mother, aggressive and dangerous son, and innocent daughter interact, often humorously, onstage and are also seen through the viewpoint of Sabina, the flirtatious maid. As the play progresses through the eras, Wilder raises questions about civilization and values. George, by Act II, is convinced that the world is made for pleasure and power, but by the final act, after a world cataclysm, the family confronts what is truly important in their lives.

A pet dinosaur and a wooly mammoth, the Boardwalk of New Jersey and the Miss America contest, the fraternal Order of Mammals (of which George is President), and the attempted seduction of George and his fellow Mammals by predatory women all add to the visual appeal of this production. Though the play pretends to be traditional in its dramatic structure, it takes liberties with the audience as the various actors step out of character to address the audience, as does the director. At one point Sabina refuses to play a scene, summarizing it for the audience as the director and George plead with her.

First produced in 1942, the play reflects Wilder's fear that the war then engulfing the world might truly be a war for the future of civilization. His conclusion, which highlights the values of western philosophers, such as Spinoza, Aristotle, and Plato, also reflects his religious beliefs and his belief in the enduring values of (western) literature. "We've come a long way--we're learning," he says, hopefully, but he also reminds us that "the end of this play isn't written yet." Creative and original in its day, the play represents a major moment in American theater. Less innovative now, more than sixty years later, it still offers food for thought in its reminder of enduring values and its questions about what we value and would save from our own lives in a similar cataclysm. Mary Whipple

In The Eight Day, Thorton Wilder tackles life's great question: is there a design to existence, or is it all an accident? Is there some structure to the cosmos and the human place within it, or is it some universal happenstance? Wilder, near the end, seems to come down on the side of design with the ruminations of the old Indian leader of the "cult" above Coaltown. But he seems unable to hold this vision. On page 145 one character ruminates: "Life affords no second chances... Is this what growing older is - seeing always more clearly the things we failed to see?" And this gem later on: "His parents were both forty when he was ten - that is to say they were beginning to be resigned to the knowledge that life was disappointing and basically meaningless." No matter how hard a person holds onto the desire for order, the pull toward disorder is stronger. Wilder creates a novel with characters of a type, etched in the fictional equivalent of stone. They are contending with mighty destinies, against a backdrop which marks them for greatness and flux. In this way the novel gets its great strength and weakness. It is a monumental achievement, but lacks the reality of real life experience. Wilder here is testing ideas rather than fleshing a living fictional reality.

Majestic! Wilder came closer than most to writing The Great American Novel. "The Eighth Day" appears to be the template for the novels of John Irving.

There is a poor John mine is southern Illinois in Coaltown. The mine mechanic is charged with and convicted of the murder of the general manager. The two leading families in the town had been those of the general manager and the mine mechanic. The better man of the two was the mechanic. He had worked with the manager and had given him credit for things he accomplished.

The mechanic is sentenced to death but escapes through the work of an unknown group of men. One of the daughters decides that in order to carry on she and her family must run a boarding house. At the time people feared being relegated to the poor house.

The hopeful find nourishment in marvels. Eventually John Ashley, the condemned man, makes his way to Chile to work in the copper mines. The root of avarice is the fear of what circumstances might bring. Ashley had tried to live in a manner opposite that of his father who was a miser.

After the crisis and while the boarding house was being started, John Ashley's son Roger, age seventeen, moved to Chicago. In the beginning he was a dishwasher. Quickly he moved through jobs as a hotel clerk and an orderly. Roger met some journalists and resolved to become a newspaper man.

He was starved for food of the spirit. Once he was given a ticket to FIDELIO. After being in Chicago eighteen months he became a reporter. Roger met his sister, the musician of the family, in Chicago. His sister Lily's friend, the Maestro, told Roger that works of art are the only satisfactory productions of civilization.

Roger and his sister hit upon a plan to use their real extravagant middle names and last names in their newspaper work and singing respectively to enable their father to contact them. John Ashley had gone to engineering school in Hoboken. He met his wife Beata Kellerman there. Beata had been formed by her parents' best principles, but her parents did not recognize them. All young people secrete idealism.

In the end the child who started the boarding house and saved the family broke down and ended up in the poor house. Everyone else was successful and the mystery of the murder of the general manager was solved.

Thornton Wilder employs many myths drawn from history of the settlement of the west, including the settlement by unusual religious communities. This work resembles the novels of Willa Cather. It is excellent.

Set in a dismal Illinois coal town around the turn of the twentieth century, resident John Ashley is accused of killing Breckenridge Lansing, the money-grubbing, incompetent owner of the coal mine; he is found guilty and sentenced to be executed. But on his way to prison, he is suddenly rescued by six unidentified men and set free. He makes his way to Chile, puts his engineering background and love of mathematics to good use, and eventually makes his way back to the US. Ashley becomes a "man of faith," that faith being defined as a belief in a better, more caring, American community. (A new beginning = the Eighth Day.) One character says, "The [human] race is undergoing its education. What is education? It is the bridge man crosses from the self-enclosed, self-favoring life into a consciousness of the entire community of mankind." The "heroes" of the novel are those who defy the conventions that would keep them from crossing that bridge (Lily Ashley pursues a career as a singer, defying Victorian conventions) and those who wash their hands of the filthy pursuit of materialistic well-being (Roger Ashley becomes a muckraking journalist in Chicago eager to help the poor). The truth of John Ashley's innocence of the crime is revealed at the end (though Wilder tells us he's innocent in the Prologue). An annoying feature of the book is Wilder's blunt moralizing, especially near the end; characters are forced to make these little speeches about "false hopes" and "people changing" that make them suddenly appear remote and snobbish. (I'm not criticizing the message here, only Wilder's methods.) Wilder holds out a great deal of hope for the future of America, though he believes the road ahead is perilous with lots of false turns possible. This is his most ambitious novel, and it won the National Book Award in 1968.

I was wonderfully surprised by Wilder's writing style. This was the first novel of his that I read and found myself moved by his ever present ideologies regarding life, death, family etc. The book doesn't use dramatic crescendo's to keep the reader's attention, instead it's Wilder's ability to make the each character's daily struggle very human or common.

I would recommend this book to reader's who enjoy books that are more intellectual, filled with philosophical insight, perhaps similar to that of Rand.

I think this wonderful epistolary novel deserves to better known. Even though it is critically acclaimed and by a famous American writer, I, a huge fan of quality historical fiction set in Rome, never heard of it for years.

Using letters, journals, and excerpts from other "documents," Wilder tells the story of Caesar in the days leading up to his assassination. We already know what will happen of course, and our attention is sustained by the subtle way Wilder sets the scene and coyly circles around as he approaches his climax. This is not linear narration; I think an author attempting just to "novelize" the historical account the old-fashioned, chronological way would end up writing the type of simplistic, melodramatic "reads like a made-for-TV movie" type of historical fiction that makes me so wary about the genre.

Some readers, perhaps accustomed to being entertained by everything these days, including their history and documentaries, etc., may find this book a little dry. In this, the work reminds me of Graves' "I, Claudius," and "Claudius, the God," which also purposefully uses a drier prose style to achieve a certain effect. I thought "The Ides of March" was especially engrossing for the very reason that it eschews over the top dramatization, but I would not be suprised if did not appeal to many readers' tastes.

The structure of this novel, made up of letters written by different persons, allows us to examine Julius Caesar from multiple points of view. Undoubtedly a man of enormous energy, ambition, intelligence and the will to exercise power, Caesar is different things to different observers. Dictator, traitor, military genius, great politician, depraved soul. Who exactly is Caesar? Through family and political gossip, a tight web is being formed around this titan of history, until the final stabbing in the Senate. A fascinating counterfactual question is: What would have happened had Caesar survived the attack? But he didn't and civil war ensued, ending with the death of the Roman Republic and the beginning of Empire. Some of the best parts of the novel are Caesar's own letters, especially those adressed to Lucius Mamillius Turrinus, where Caesar develops his views on politics, power, and government, as observed by a natural born leader, a ruler of soldiers and politicians; a vain and authoritarian man, but also extremely conscious of his mortal human nature -he was exasperated by omens and superstition- as well as of the immense responsaibility that power brings upon rulers. Jumping in time, this novel takes us by the hand towards the tragic end of one of the most important and enigmatic characters of history.

This excellent novel, Wilder's masterpiece, is set during the last 17 years in the life of Julius Caesar in Rome. In it he attempts to answer the following: "What sort of person was Caesar and why was he assassinated?" Told mainly through letters and documents of people who knew him, from the famous - Cleopatra, Catallus, Cicero, Brutus - to the lesser known - Cytheris, an actress; Turrinus, a friend; Cornelius Nepos, a political observer - and including such sources as Caesar's commonplace book and journal, broadsides, and various official memoranda, Wilder creates a brilliant picture of the man and the people who surround him. We learn of Caesar's great love for Rome, but his disdain for those who populate her. In a magnificent observation by his physician Sosthenes, he says, "Caesar does not love, nor does he inspire love. He diffuses an equable glow of ordered good will, a passionless energy that creates without fever, and which expands itself without self-examination or self-doubt....I could not love him and I never leave his presence without relief." Those few sentences speak volumes. We see in Caesar's own (private) letters how different the public figure (lofty, dictatorial, the great warrior) is from the private man (amused by human folly, lonely, sensitive to those who have been injured by life's cruelties). Yet the book is not just a history lesson, despite its appearance, but a moving novel that builds masterfully to a stunning climax on the Ides of March with his murder. The book is truly magnificent, filled with much insight into human motivation and observation. Definitely worth looking into.

The year? 44BC. The secret police are rifling through an artist's dresser. An emperor's mistress from the Middle East has come to pay him a visit in Rome. Soldiers are mobilizing for another assault on Persia. Senators are plotting against Caesar. His scatterbrained wife is worried about dresses while the great Cleopatra plays her for a fool. Poetry, assaults, poisonings, decadant parties, price fixing, and intregue. We all already know about ancient Rome. The question is, how could Thornton Wilder predict 2006. Ah, the more things change... the more they stay the same. What a fun read for the average guy, like me!

I think most people know the story of Julius Caesar's death: stabbed 23 times on March 15th during a session of the Senate. What Thornton Wilder has done with his novel is to give the reader a glimpse in to the human side of Caesar, through journal entries and correspondence from him and those surrounding him. We learn of the statesman, who tries his best to govern his people; of his "divinity" and his tolerance of the belief in gods and goddesses; of the family man living in a tepid marriage with his wife Pompeia; and of his attraction to intellectuals, whether if be the poet Catullus, whose poetry he highly regards even if it mocks him, and the beautfiul Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, whom he considers almost an equal in terms of ability to rule. Wilder also lets us in on public opinion concerning the Dictator, as Caesar was also known, through intercepted correspondence of Clodia Pulcher and others. Caesar becomes more of a human figure in the hands of Wilder. He has his foibles and his share of indecisions, just like any other person. He also tries to do what he believes to be the right thing in terms of treating others. A unique historical novel.

There are a few book in my life which I never stop reading--"Walden" is one, "The Little Prince" is one, and "Our Town", also by Mr. Wilder, is another. The observations in these books,the lessons from these books, the spirit of these books. . .are ever fresh, ever pertinent.
"Theophilus North" is not one of these books. It is an entertaining read, however. A busybody--Teddie North--visits Newport, RI for a summer and changes the town. He is loved by some; hated by others. There's charm in the book and fun and sex, but not much wisdom.
So it is time for me to shelf this book; it is time for me to return to "Our Town".

this author, which has written books so beatiful, has given the world this one which is also beatiful, but pointless, i guess that the main character is himself. the book does not have a plot or at least is not going anywhere, but it is not boring, and it is a good read. i just loved it, even though when i finished i had the sensation of not being told anything new. the book has gone into oblivion and will propably stay there, the one i read i took it from the library and i was the only one who got it from the shelf in more than a decade, i guess it is there in the shelf at the library, waiting for another ten years until some reader will take it down, and write another pointless review about it....

LUIS MENDEZ luismendez@codetel.net.do

At once a nice travelogue of Newport, Rhode Island, in the 1920's and a novel of human interaction, "Theophilus North" is a well-written and engaging (at first) book. It's just hard to understand why Wilder wrote it. There is so little of it in the way of dramatic or comic invention. The protagonist is a bodhisatva (a saint on earth) who spends his days doing good. All the time. You keep expecting some rising action - after 100 pages you yearn for it - but it never comes. Just one good deed after another. It isn't a bad read, and it might even be a good thing to put into the hands of teenagers (if you can get them to sit still for it). But there's no inner struggle going on in this first person narrative. And that makes ultimately for a weak plot. The book was something of a hit when it first came out, but it has since sunk to the obscurity it probably deserves. That saddens me, because I thought the author's "Our Town" and "Skin of Our Teeth" to be some of the finest writing this side of Heaven.

I've lived long enough to be able to judge novels by how many times I'm willing to re-read them. I've read Theophilus North about 20 times...

If it's not my favorite novel of all time, then it's definitely within the top five. The main character really appeals to me, a supremely independent, intelligent, well educated soul, who repeatedly, almost against his will, gets entangled in the lives of those with whom he comes in contact while on a summer vacation in Newport - always to the benefit of those fortunate enough to to be a target for his 'meddling'.

I know this is a fable, not a true story... but, oh, how I wish there were people like this in the world...

I read this book more than 20 years ago as a college student and I still find myself thinking about it now. I was a persnickety English student and I wouldn't have imagined the book was making much of an impression on me at the time. Maybe I needed to age considerably before I could appreciate Wilder's idea that you do get everything you wish for -- just not on your schedule, and seldom packaged as you may have hoped or expected.

If you've ever been young, travelled while young, and met memorable characters in exotic places, here is a wonderful book from one of the masters. Wilder is always the observer, (as he is in his last, great book, Theopholis North). Great Summer reading!

I became aquainted with this novel shortly after reading Wilder's later and more famous novel "The Bridge of San Luis Rey". That is also well worth reading by the way. ...Initially I simply liked it but shortly before reaching the middle of the book I became 100% entranced. And I think you will too! Bur there are things that you will have to be ready for.
Basically this is a book for people who love to admire literary construction. If you are a DEVOUT Hemingway person this will not please you. Wilder writes long and descriptive paragraphs and describes his characters down to the tiniest detail. The reason I love this is because he so obviously cared about what he was writing. If you're like me and tired of the stream-lined effect of much of "modern" writing you will love this. Even if this jewel-like prose is not your cup of tea perhaps you can still appreciate what I find a forgotten masterpiece.
So what is it about? Well to begin with it concerns a young, unnamed American student who is pursuing his Archeological/Classical studies in Rome between the wars. Here he runs into a strange group of people known locally as the Cabala. They are made up mainly of aristocrats and have great prestige if little real power. "Samuele" (as the student is called by one of the Cabalists) proceeds to chronicle this group's last exploits. Last because the group begins to drift apart right in front of "Samuele". What is the book really about? Well I for one am still figuring that out. The Cabalists are to a certain extent symbolic of decadent and dying but still important and lovely Europe while "Samuele" represents the "new Rome" America. But Wilder goes far deeper than that. I really don't want to spoil anything but certain themes that are raised are acceptance (of change, death, etc.), unrequited love, the reasons behind love, loss of faith and the nature of a civilization's construction. That sounds like alot but Wilder manages to ballance it brilliantly and create a huge number of great characters and interweaving storylines.
All of this is expressed in some of the most lovely prose I've ever read. You can just loose yourself in the warm sea of Wilder's writing. Sample: "As a mere girl, if I may presume to reconstruct the growth of her personality, she sensed the fact that there was something that a little prevented her from making friends, namely intelligence. The few intelligent people who truly wish to be liked soon learn, among the disappointments of the heart, to conceal their brilliance." This is the start of a charachter's description. All of which in this book are magical. Wilder creates people who are real yet we truly love with all our hearts. That is the key to some of this book's greatness. Much of the love thrown around in this book is un-earned and yet it is love all the same. Why do we love some people and not others? Why do we love people who don't deserve it? There are no answers in words but this book SHOWS us how and why that happens. This could only be done by an author who had a truly mature and yet warm heart. "Samuele" and Wilder pull no punches in pointing out flaws yet they do so with deep and profound love and understanding. This leads to lines that can simply pierce the heart: "They dreamed of one of those long conversations that one never has on earth, but which one projects so clearly at midnight, alone and wise; words are not rich enough nor kisses sufficiently compelling to repair all our havoc." Those words define both the futility and the absolute necessity of forgiveness and reconciliation. Wilder also knows history, music, literature and art FAR better than most writers and with that at his fingertips he can often rise to an amazing quiet eloquence: "Nay, I have heard of your city. It's foundations have knocked upon our roof and the towers have cast a shadow across the sandals of the angels." I could go on forever and ever but I'll just mention the amazing, breathtaking end a little. One thing: it features an cameo that you won't soon forget! Find this book, read it and make it a part of your life. You will not regret it!

Lots of people took great pleasure in lambasting Thornton Wilder's inclusion on the Modern Library list of the 100 greatest novels of the twentieth century. Setting aside that publicity stunt, Wilder is an underrated writer, whose finest books, such as THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY and the wonderful THEOPHILUS NORTH, mingle shrewd observation, fine and wistful writing, and profound insight into the human heart.

THE CABALA was Wilder's first novel, written when he was in his late twenties and appearing the year before his most famous book THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY. It chronicles a young man's sojourn in Rome and his involvement with a mysterious group of eccentric and charming individuals who are known as the Cabala. In many ways, THE CABALA presages THEOPHILUS NORTH -- in its sharply observed yet movingly nostalgic depiction of its setting (Rome), in its affectionate yet shrewd portraits of the men and women who make up the Cabala, and in its deft storytelling of each of the linked incidents into which Wilder's narrator finds himself drawn as he gets to know the Cabala more and more intimately. The indescribable last chapter presages magic realism -- and, for my money, is better than any of the more ponderous and better-known recent examples of the genre.

In sum, this early novel by a fine yet under-appreciated writer is well worth reading and may well (and should) spur the reader to explore more of Wilder's works.

When Samuele, a student and writer, goes to Rome with his friend James Blair, Blair introduces him to a group of strange people known as the Cabalists. As he gets to know them Samuele gets more involved with their activities, and on the surface they seem very mysterious and odd: a priest who doesn't believe in prayer, a 16-yearold boy who commits suicide after committing incest with his sister, and a girl who believes she is the god Mercury. In fact, she reveals who the Cabalists really are to Samuele: they are the pagan gods of ancient Rome, grown old and useless now, thanks mainly to their human-like weaknesses. Just before sailing back to America, Samuele has a "conversation" with Virgil (or at least his spirit), a rather sophomoric complaint by Virgil against Milton and Shakespeare for not "honoring" him enough. It's part of Wilder's satire, but that particular scene is unfortunately weak. The importance of the book goes beyond the storyline and the characters, neither of which seem that compelling or memorable, and rests on Wilder's attention to style and form, which is as classic and formal as the ancients themselves.