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A Bit O' Love, by John Galsworthy.
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Galsworthy begins this play with a curate, desperately in love with his wife and trying his utmost to do good in a small village where most people (and not just women - and girls -), gossip, losing his wife to the love she had for another man, a doctor in a nearby small town.
Her plight is not different from what Galsworthy has dealt with in various works, caught as she is in a marriage without love that she tried to convince herself she could make work; it's his character that's different from the run-of-the-mill husband enforcing his will, trapping the wife in marriage, or at least insisting she stays away from her love or he would destroy the guy. Here the good curate lets her go, promising not to hurt them, however much in pain he is himself at the break.
What's even tougher than his devastation is the craziness of the reactions from most of the villagers, and even more so their actions. What's a saving grace is decency of the few.
Galsworthy attempts in this play to spell out the villagers' speech with its dialect. It's distracting when reading. Perhaps he could have made two versions, one properly spelt for reader and another for performance personnel.
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June 09, 2021 - June 10, 2021.
Purchased June 08, 2021.
Kindle Edition, 71 pages
Published May 17th 2012
(first published 1894)
ASIN:- B0084B3Y3W
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