Thomas, Dylan "Under Milk Wood"

Thomas, Dylan "Under Milk Wood" - 1954

I read this for the "1954 Club".

This book challenge takes place twice a year and concentrates on one year and one year only. I call it "Read theYear Club". This time, 1954 was picked. For more information, see Simon @ Stuck in a Book.

I had already read "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding and "I am Legend" by Richard Matheson but there are always books in every year that I still want to read.

There were a few books that would have interested me and I might pick up a few of them in future:
Amis, Kingsley "Lucky Jim"
Rose, Reginal "Twelve Angry Men"
Murdoch, Iris "Under the Net"
Mishima, Yukio "The Sound of Waves"
Remarque, Erich Maria "A Time to Love and a Time to Die" (GE: Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben)
Wodehouse, P.B. "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit"
Frisch, Max "I'm not Stiller" (GE: Stiller)

But I chose this one, "Under Milk Wood". Somehow, I always thought it was an adaptation from a novel and I thought the title sounded interesting. However, it is a play and it doesn't really have a plot. I mean, yes, the subject is "thoughts of people in a fictional village" but I couldn't follow them or make any sense of it let alone combine different thoughts from different people. Nor did I find any humour in this. Sometimes, a book is described as funny but I don't think it is but I can still like it (e.g. "Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" by Marina Lewycka), sometimes I am just bored ("Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons). This one belongs to the latter category. I mean, I love British humour, this has nothing to do with it. Thank goodness it wasn't that long.

From the back cover:

"Commissioned by the BBC, and described by Dylan Thomas as 'a play for voices', 'Under Milk Wood' takes the form of an emotive and hilarious account of a spring day in the fictional Welsh seaside village of Llareggub. We learn of the inhabitants' dreams and desires, their loves and regrets. The play introduces us to characters such as Captain Cat who dreams of his drowned former seafellows and Nogood Boyo who dreams of nothing at all. It is a unique and touching depiction of a village that has 'fallen head over bells in love'. The First Voice narration reveals the ordinary world of daily happenings and events, while the Second Voice conveys the intimate, innermost thoughts of the fascinating folk of Llareggub. There have been myriad productions of 'Under Milk Wood' over the years and Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, Elizabeth Taylor, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Tom Jones have all starred in radio, stage or film adaptations."

And here is Simon's list with all the books from 1954 other bloggers read.