Kate’s 2¢:”Miss Julie” by August Strindberg

”Miss Julie” by August Strindberg

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I think that if an author feels the need to justify what and why he’s writing his story, then, maybe he didn’t write it well.  This introduction really seems to feel the reader isn’t smart enough to figure out what has happened and why, so he expounds his reasons before we even read the piece.

   I’d prefer to read the piece, then, discuss it.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Strindberg was born on 22 January 1849 in Stockholm, Sweden, the third surviving son of Carl Oscar Strindberg (a shipping agent) and Eleonora Ulrika Norling (a serving-maid).[21] In his autobiographical novel The Son of a Servant, Strindberg describes a childhood affected by “emotional insecurity, poverty, religious fanaticism and neglect”.[22] When he was seven, Strindberg moved to Norrtullsgatan on the northern, almost-rural periphery of the city.[23] A year later the family moved near to Sabbatsberg, where they stayed for three years before returning to Norrtullsgatan.[24][25] He attended a harsh school in Klara for four years, an experience that haunted him in his adult life.[26] He was moved to the school in Jakob in 1860, which he found far more pleasant, though he remained there for only a year.[27] In the autumn of 1861, he was moved to the Stockholm Lyceum, a progressive private school for middle-class boys, where he remained for six years.[28] As a child he had a keen interest in natural science, photography, and religion (following his mother’s Pietism).[29] His mother, Strindberg recalled later with bitterness, always resented her son’s intelligence.[28] She died when he was thirteen, and although his grief lasted for only three months, in later life he came to feel a sense of loss and longing for an idealized maternal figure.[30] Less than a year after her death, his father married the children’s governess, Emilia Charlotta Pettersson.[31] According to his sisters, Strindberg came to regard them as his worst enemies.[30] He passed his graduation examination in May 1867 and enrolled at the Uppsala University, where he began on 13 September.[32]

Strindberg spent the next few years in Uppsala and Stockholm, alternately studying for examinations and trying his hand at non-academic pursuits. As a young student, Strindberg also worked as an assistant in a pharmacy in the university town of Lund in southern Sweden. He supported himself in between studies as a substitute primary-school teacher and as a tutor for the children of two well-known physicians in Stockholm.[33] He first left Uppsala in 1868 to work as a schoolteacher, but then studied chemistry for some time at the Institute of Technology in Stockholm in preparation for medical studies, later working as a private tutor before becoming an extra at the Royal Theatre in Stockholm. In May 1869, he failed his qualifying chemistry examination which in turn made him uninterested in schooling.

1870s[edit]

Strindberg returned to Uppsala University in January 1870 to study aesthetics and modern languages and to work on a number of plays.[34] It was at this time that he first learnt about the ideas of Charles Darwin.[35] He co-founded the Rune Society, a small literary club whose members adopted pseudonyms taken from runes of the ancient Teutonic alphabet – Strindberg called himself Frö (Seed), after the god of fertility.[36] After abandoning a draft of a play about Eric XIV of Sweden halfway through in the face of criticism from the Rune Society, on 30 March he completed a one-act comedy in verse called In Rome about Bertel Thorvaldsen, which he had begun the previous autumn.[37] The play was accepted by the Royal Theatre, where it premièred on 13 September 1870.[38][39] As he watched it performed, he realised that it was not good and felt like drowning himself, though the reviews published the following day were generally favourable.[40] That year he also first read works of Søren Kierkegaard and Georg Brandes, both of whom influenced him.[39][41]

I am a socialist, a nihilist, a republican, anything that is anti-reactionary!… I want to turn everything upside down to see what lies beneath; I believe we are so webbed, so horribly regimented, that no spring-cleaning is possible, everything must be burned, blown to bits, and then we can start afresh…[79]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Miss Julie DBC19710

Strindberg, August; Bjorkman, Edwin

Faye Herold A production of Minnesota State Services for the Blind, Communication Center.

Drama

Stage and Screen

In Miss Julie, a willful young aristocrat, whose perverse nature has already driven her fiance to break off their engagement, pursues and effectively seduces her father’s valet during the course of a Midsummer’s Eve celebration. The progress of that seduction and the play’s stunning denouement shocked Swedish audiences who first attended the play in 1889. Adult. Unrated.

Download Miss Julie DBC19710

Kate’s 2¢: “Forty Acres” by Dwayne Alexander Smith

“Forty Acres” by Dwayne Alexander Smith

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I wonder how many readers know the origin of ‘forty acres and a mule”?

   A few take-aways:

— Martin believed there was some truth to the old doctor’s “black noise”.

— Sometimes, in the presence of Caucasian men, he did feel something…a hint of self-consciousness.

— Kidnapping and enslaving innocent people because of ills committed by their fore-fathers seemed a greater crime than the original offense.

— Martin was proud to be a member of the black race, but first and fore-most, he was a member of the human race.

— Any rational man who so readily agree to enlist himself in such a drastic illegal conspiracy had to be lying or a fool.

   Andre Blake did a great job of reading this tory for NLS. I enjoyed it, although, various parts made me very uncomfortable. I sincerely hope this story is a pure work of fiction and that no one in his or her right mind would ever conceive of re-creating the slave plantations of the days of yore, neither with white masters and Black slaves nor Black masters and white slaves.

From the web:

Dwayne Alexander Smith is a 1-Time AALBC.com Bestselling Author

   Dwayne Alexander Smith was born in Harlem and raised in the South Bronx.

Smith decided to make movies after seeing Star Wars.  His mother bought him a Super 8 camera and he made an animated short titled SHOES which won him a scholarship to a summer long filmmaking camp.  He studied electrical engineering, in college, but dropped out, to pursue his dream of making movies. His first job in the industry was at Camera Service Center, a film equipment rental house in New York City.

   While he was making 16mm shorts in his spare time, he went on to work as a locations assistant on numerous feature films such as Money Train and HBO’s Subway Stories.  He also started writing screenplays in an attempt to earn enough money to finish Doomsday Stew, his first feature film. He never did finish the feature, but one of his screenplays, Joe’s Last Chance, sold to Intermedia. After that the doors in Hollywood swung wide open for Smith.

   He currently earns a living as a professional screenwriter and is represented by Resolution and Circle of Confusion.  He as have sold or optioned six spec screenplays and I have been hired by studios for numerous rewrites. Two films, Stuck and The Closet were released in 2014.

   About four years ago, between screenwriting jobs, he decided to write the novel Forty Acres. To his surprise and delight his very first novel won and NAACP Image Award for literature and became a Power List Bestseller.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Forty acres: a thriller DB107699

Smith, Dwayne. Reading time: 12 hours, 40 minutes.

Read by Andre Blake.

Suspense Fiction

Adventure

Martin Grey is a talented black lawyer working out of a storefront in Queens. He becomes friendly with a group of some of the most powerful, wealthy, and esteemed black men in America. When they invite him for a weekend away from families, cell phones, and work, he accepts. But their secret society threatens Martin’s life. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2014.

Downloaded: June 13, 2022

Download Forty acres: a thriller