Very rarely is it that I laugh out loud at a book. Even rarer is when I can read the passage to a co-worker and have them laugh out loud as well (especially where I work). This is a great play that is chromatically split between the present day and centuries long past. It deals with a beautiful english estate that was originally populated by amateur writers and academics who interact in the most comically blunderous way to provoke great interest and plenty of laughter. Unfortuneately, I found that it stopped there. The cast for the present day are snobby researchers interested in Byron and other pompous fields that are centred in nationalistic or personal pride. It simply goes downhill from such a promising beginning. It is fully possible that I was too distracted by Stoppard's witicisms to notice the themes of the book, but if so, maybe he should have contructed his jokes more appropriately. That is not to say, however, that the play is entirely devoid of meaning in my point of view, neither is the book really that boring. To tell the truth though, once you got into the characters, the surprising jokes that were found in the intro, simply couldn't hold my interest as the play progressed. Nice short read that is fully worth investigating if only for those first jokes and some interesting tidbits about chaos theory and spoiled brats.
Adios
Andrew
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