Arcadia: A Play by Tom Stoppard Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Arcadia: A Play
Book Review: I am Septimus Hodge!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you pride yourself on knowing great literature, especially within the realm of theatre, this play is excellent. Humorous and incredibly smart. Don't let the whole thermodynamics thing freak you out. You don't have to be a scholar to read this play, just a person with interesting taste.Book Review: I'd like to give this book 6 stars.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the 3 best books I have ever read and also one of the 5 best theatre peaces I have ever read. And I read quite a lot.Book Review: It's about the second law of thermodynamics
Summary: 4 Stars
Stoppard again weaves philosophy, science, history and literature into a drama. Although the play is really about the second law of thermodynamics (which says that the universe is gradually becoming more, not less, diffuse and chaotic), we get a merry dose of literature (Byron). There is an oblique nod to Lady Ada Lovelace, Byron's daughter, who worked with mathematician Charles Babbage in developing the theory of the programmable computer. That nod is manifest as the budding genius Thomasina, who works out theromodynamics and chaos theory (in the early 19th Century!) as the landscape gardeners outside gradually follow romanticism and turn her mother's manicured garden into a more natural (read chaotic) environment. The real surprise comes when the the early 19th century scene is invaded by 20th century characters who are trying to piece together exactly what happened here nearly 200 years previously. A doomed enterprise, Thomasina could have told them. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says you cannot recapture the past.
Book Review: Make of it what you will.
Summary: 5 Stars
Very witty, very thought provoking, myriads of possible meanings and themes, the stuff the literary departments of colleges and universities worldwide base their livelihoods on -- and Stoppard gave it all the middle finger. I was a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania in '95-'96 when Tom Stoppard graciously attended a small discussion group with 20 or so engineering students, headed by a professor from the literature department. The subject was "Arcadia," his recent 1993 masterpiece about the pursuit of science, math, and ribaled sexual escapades. The presenting faculty member was laying on question after question about the hidden meanings and whether this or that was the true intent behind his wordsmithing wizadry. I'll never forget his appearance. Messy mane of gray hair, tall and skinny, the lackadaisical expression on his face, slumped back in his chair arms and legs crossed -- he just couldn't care less. He'd give very curt replies to the effect of "that's your interpretation, make of it what you will." He was extremely uninterested in being drawn in to the microscopic dissection of his work. This went on for a painful half-hour or so. He just seemed so sick of people trying to analyze every syllable, instead of just enjoying his plays as the fanciful, thought-provoking diversions that they were. I certainly enjoyed it. Thank you, Stoppard, for putting "art" in its rightful place.Book Review: Man and Superwoman
Summary: 5 Stars
Arcadia should have been popular 10 years ago.
Today it is more important that it be performed.
It may be too late 10 years from now.
Tom Stoppard writes like George Bernard Shaw were still alive.
That came as a surprise to me.
I looked into it: He wrote my favorite movie "Shakespeare in Love".
To me Arcadia asks the question: " Can Chaos theory and fractals
bring back the days of reason and the greatness of the British Empire?"
To which I answer:" No. but that is no reason for us not to believe
that we can fight for a future where we control the rabbits and not the rabbits control us."
How can we believe in a genius named Thomasina or a fellow who grouses about grouses?
Arcadia was written while the history was very much in flux;
before Per Bak became the modern Darwin and gave nature a method for a purpose.
A monkey biting a man and a girl in ashes...this play should be made into a movie.
It's time travel sequences demand more than the stage can give.