I've just finished listening to an audio play of Alan Bennett's 'The History Boys'. This work has shocking resonance to my life. It reminds me of my music class, the UCAS struggle, and the angst between being really bright and full of potential, with being let down by yourself in life. Listening to this play has given me a fondness of those memories of when I was a 17 year old boy. I was an interesting person, I was a very different person to how I am now. I am probably a disappointment to the person that had so much potential. I'm a little bit saddend by the ending. The characters all had underwhelming lives, or lived filthily rich. A couple made it good. But the ones you expected, didn't. I have a sympathy for the teacher Irwin, and Posner. Posner is insecure and a minority of many kinds (gay, jewish etc). Posner becomes the one that internalises all the lessons of Irwin and then becomes an underwhelming failure. Wikipedia quotes:
Mrs Lintott describes Posner as living a lonely life with several breakdowns, living off an allotment, keeping "a scrapbook of the achievements of his one-time classmates" and having "a host of friends... though only on the internet, and none in his right name or even gender". She concludes by saying "He has long since stopped asking himself where it went wrong".
This sounds scary. The final lines of the play: Pass it on boys, that's the name of the game. Pass it on.
I dont think i've really been touched by anything lately as strongly as this. Maybe that episode of house when he finally got cuddy, but that's lowbrow by comparison. It's given me much to reflect: being a 25 year old, or a 17 year old, 8 years on...
No comments:
Post a Comment