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    Burning Bright: A Play in Story Form
    Unavailable
    Burning Bright: A Play in Story Form
    Unavailable
    Burning Bright: A Play in Story Form
    Audiobook2 hours

    Burning Bright: A Play in Story Form

    Written by John Steinbeck

    Narrated by Richard Poe

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The last of John Steinbeck's play-novelettes, Burning Bright was the author's final attempt after 1937's Of Mice and Men and 1942's The Moon is Down to create what he saw as a new, experimental literary form.  Four scenes, four people: the husband who yearns for a son, ignorant of his own sterility; the wife who commits adultery to fulfill her husband's wish; the father of the child; and the outsider whose actions will affect them all. In this turn on a medieval morality play, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck casts an unwavering light on these four intertwined lives, revealing in their finely drawn circumstances the universal contours of vulnerability and passion, desperation and desire. This edition features an introduction and notes for further reading by Steinbeck scholar John Ditsky. 

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 8, 2015
    ISBN9780698159907
    Unavailable
    Burning Bright: A Play in Story Form
    Author

    John Steinbeck

    John Steinbeck (Salinas, 1902 - Nueva York, 1968). Narrador y dramaturgo estadounidense. Estudió en la Universidad de Stanford, pero desde muy joven tuvo que trabajar duramente como albañil, jornalero rural, agrimensor o empleado de tienda. En la década de 1930 describió la pobreza que acompañó a la Depresión económica y tuvo su primer reconocimiento crítico con la novela Tortilla Flat, en 1935. Sus novelas se sitúan dentro de la corriente naturalista o del realismo social americano. Su estilo, heredero del naturalismo y próximo al periodismo, se sustenta sin embargo en una gran carga de emotividad en los argumentos y en el simbolismo presente en las situaciones y personajes que crea, como ocurre en sus obras mayores: De ratones y hombres (1937), Las uvas de la ira (1939) y Al este del Edén (1952). Obtuvo el premio Nobel en 1962.

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    Reviews for Burning Bright

    3.5/5

    71 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I love this book so much - if anyone ever puts it on as a play i want to see it!
    • 2/5
      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 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.
    • 4/5
      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... 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 apologyI 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.
    • 4/5
      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 generosity of acceptance and humanity in it.
    • 3/5
      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 some of the characters that led me not to care nearly as deeply for them as I am sure Steinbeck hoped.
    • 1/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      Burning Bright By John Steinbeck.My thoughts and comments:Burning Bright is one of three play-novelettes, (a genre created by Steinbeck), to be written by him. The first was Of Mice and Men and then The Moon is Down."Burning Bright" is written in a very unusual manner and this is the first time I have come across it. It is written in three parts. All three parts are written about the same characters: Joe Saul, Friend Ed, Mordeen (Joe Saul's wife) and Victor, but takes place in a different setting.The first part takes place in a circus environment and the characters are part of the circus. Their lives intertwine as Friend Ed is Joe Saul's best friend and would do anything for him. Mordeen is very much in love with her husband, who unknowingly is sterile, and Victor is the man of many talents and master of none. Victor falls in love with the lovely Mordeen and of course complications arise. She cares not a whit for him. In fact she despises him.The thing that Joe Saul wanted more than anything in this world is to be a father. Mordeen thinks she knows how to accomplish this for him and very wise Friend Ed is savvy and knows all.The second part takes place on a ranch or farm with the same characters in the same roles but as farm people. Mordeen is feeling a little lackadaisical and is taking life a bit easy these days. Friend Ed and Joe Saul are having coffee and Joe Saul has cooked breakfast for them. Joe Saul offers breakfast to Mordeen and she declines. He asks if she is all right and she says: "Yes...the doctor told me to take it a little easy for a while." Joe Saul wants again to know if she is all right and she responds: "Joe Saul, I'm going to have a baby. We are going to have a baby."Joe Saul is so overcome, he begins to weep. Then he gets so happy he begins to dance around the house and they decide to have a little party. Joe Saul wants Friend Ed to go to town with him to get the goods for the party and leave Victor, the hired hand, with Mordeen. Friend Ed doesn't think this is a good idea but Joe Saul insists. Friend Ed gives Mordeen the look for he is wise and very savvy and knows all.The third part has the same characters but takes part on a boat. Friend Ed has his vessel and Joe Saul and Mordeen have one with Victor as their hand. Mordeen is close to her term."Burning Bright" is probably the least favorite work of John Steinbeck's that I have read to date. It was still good but I would probably only recommend it to true Steinbeck aficionados.
    • 3/5
      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 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.