The Importance of Being Earnest

 

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
It was The Spider's Web by Philip Purser-Hallard, a Sherlock Holmes novel borrowing a few of Wilde's characters, which shamed me into acknowledging that I actually know bugger all about Oscar - despite it having been my nickname at work. The realisation unfortunately obliged me to acknowledge myself as equivalent to a fan of The Confessions of Dorian Gray, a series of seemingly pointless Big Finish audio things wherein Wilde's celebrated creation has spooky yet thought provoking adventures in time and space just like Doctor Who! Brilliant! They're reviewed on Goodreads despite not actually being books, with at least a few of those reviews focussing on what a sexy voice the guy playing Dorian apparently has, which seems to me like another clue as to whether or not said Confessions should be considered books, or are perhaps something else altogether - something which isn't a fucking book, you sad c***s.

Anyway…

It seemed like time I gave the lad a go, so to speak. I found Earnest initially impenetrable, if you'll pardon the expression, and concluded that the time simply wasn't right. Six months later, I come back to the thing and it clicks immediately. Plays were written to be performed and experienced in real time, and I've never found reading them entirely satisfactory, which is presumably why it took me a while to get around to this one; because, just like those Big Finish CDs or downloads or whatever the hell they are, The Importance of Being Earnest isn't really a book.

Nevertheless, trying to read it as a book, I'm struck by both the absurdity of the characters and the powerfully artificial cadence of their discourse and the situations into which they launch themselves. It's hugely entertaining and, in one respect, arguably a precursor to Hancock's Half Hour, amongst many, many others which have made use of this sort of contrarian wit. However, Earnest is significant in striving to avoid realism, instead pursuing an aesthetic of the artificial, and of the ornate social construct as an end in itself as part of the decadent tendency then sweeping Europe; and foreshadowing the exaggeration and absurdity of Jarry's Ubu Roi as performed in Paris just one year later. It's all surface, which is entirely the point, namely that the medium is the message, or at least a demonstration thereof. It's serious about failing to take itself seriously, hence the gag barely concealed by the title.

Above all, The Importance of Being Earnest is still very, very funny, with a voice so distinctive as to inspire me to a certain loathing for those attempting to duplicate the humour whilst inevitably getting it wrong, having reduced the wit to a mathematical formula - looking at you, Douglas Adams.

I think I probably need to see this on a stage.