6/5/2023 0 Comments Bunny a novel by mona awadA kind of wisdom only won by time spent in the shadows." Where others see Helen as delusional and cunning, Miranda believes that "it takes a depth of soul to understand her. She's in her second act as a tenureless assistant professor in the dying theater department of a small New England college, where she clings to directing All's Well That Ends Well as her last chance at agency. Miranda - an actress whose literal fall off the stage ended her career and resulted in constant pain and a painkiller dependency - is hell-bent on staging a production of the maligned play. Bertram refuses to consummate the marriage, so Helen fools him into sleeping with her in a "bed trick." In the end, in one line, Bertram seems to suddenly love Helen back.Įarly in Mona Awad's new novel All's Well, protagonist Miranda Fitch calls the play "neither a tragedy nor a comedy, something in between." That's also an apt description of Awad's book - a surreal exploration of chronic pain, women's believability and visibility, and desperation that straddles the line between comedy and horror. She cuts a deal with a king to magically heal him in exchange for compelling Bertram to marry her. The gist: Orphaned Helen, a "poor unlearned virgin," is desperately in love with noble Bertram, who is kind of a jerk. A so-called " problem play" that explores questions of morality, its ambiguous tone, unlikeable characters, and confusing ending have rendered it unpopular. William Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well is rarely staged.
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