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Rating: 
Summary: is there a hialmar ekdal fan club?
Review: Ibsen's philosophical "message" in this play disturbs me. I don't think I agree with Dr. Relling that each of us needs his own brand of self-deception to cope with life. Certainly Hialmar Ekdal is content enough, and hilariously funny as an lazy fool who thinks he's a creative genius in photograhy, a breadwinner to his wife and daughter, and a martyr to his father's scandalous past. Alas, his friend Gregers Werl points the way to the truth, that Hialmar is deceived about everything in his life. It would all be comical but for the fact that Hialmar's daugher Hedvig, who is probably not his daugther at all, shoots herself as proof of her love for Hialmar. So, Ibsen seems to say, here the truth has cost a young girl's life, an unbearable tragedy but for the fact that she was going blind. Well, no doubt there is cost in knowing the truth about oneself and about others, no doubt there are things we prefer not to know, and no doubt there are people like Hialmar who are impervious to truth. But there are also people like Hialmar's wife Gina, and Dr. Relling himself, who know the truth and who hold up nobly and well. For at least these, I think Ibsen should recommend truth in large doses, and perhaps he does.
Rating:
Summary: The Wild Duck We Know
Review: Many find Ibsen difficult to understand. I certainly did. However, by reading The Wild Duck, I was introduced to an entire new world of symbolism and creative writing. Like the master he was, Ibsen paints a portrait of a family, representing all of us, living on a lie. Cruelty in our midst, innocent victimes and pragmatists losing to the vindictive, it's all there. The touches of comedy and tragedy just increase the impression that it does concern us, that really, he's looked into our lives and seen our lies, although hopefully in a less extreme version. And don't we all know a Hedvig, a Gina, a Hjalmar and a Gregers? Maybe there's something of the all in all of us... The book sucks you in, creeps under your skin and stays there, along with the horror, the anger and the sympathy you feel while reading. In my opinion, one of the best examples of Ibsen's less romantic period of writing.
Rating:
Summary: a vast masterpiece
Review: so hilarious, so poignant, so daring, and so dense - teeming with life - the characters speaking their characterization - and such beautiful characters - and so wacko
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