I was disappointed with this book. Although it gives a good overview of Shaw's political activities and influences, and a thorough timeline of his sex-capades, the books and plays seem to pop up out of nowhere with no explication of his craft although the biographer does deal with political and social themes in his plays at length.Don't come here for any insight into Shaw's writing technique.
And politically, Shaw is a mixed bag. Although Shaw spent time as a Mussolini and Hitler apologist at the beginning of World War II, before all the mass killings, he did come to his senses before the end…but mostly because he was not an anti-semite. He didn't seem to be against fascism itself. A lifelong socialist, he also became mislead by Stalin. Dictators seemed to be his achilles heel.
That said, he had some interesting things to say about democracy and the ills of capitalism. In his will, he also called for a new English phonetic alphabet that didn't come immediately to fruition, but since come to exist through the use of shortened text messaging phrases like "I luv u" and "Wd u plz."
And early on he had a refreshing life view. The Shavian credo:
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; and being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little cod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
The author A.M Gibbs also provides a list of works by writers who dealt with the theme of apocalypse due to the new horrors of World War I:
- 1916, D.H. Lawrence, Woman in Love
- 1916-17, George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House
- 1919, William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
- 1922, T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
Who couldn't use some apocalyptic reading about now?
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