About this title: Written around 1940, but not staged until 1956, this autobiographical work by the Nobel Prize-winning playwright recreates his own family experience, in an attempt to understand himself and those to whom he was tied by fate and love. This is the complete text, with a critical introduction.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Yale University Press
Date Published: 1956
ISBN-13:9780300001761ISBN:0300001762
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. stamped outer edges. price sticker. moderate rubbing/creases/edge wear both covers. no creases in spine. 176pgs. clean/white. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Yale University Press
Date Published: 1956
ISBN-13:9780300001761ISBN:0300001762
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Solid book with clean pages, previous owner's name on inside cover, minor crease on front cover, cover show wear & wear on edges. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Yale University Press
Date Published: 2000-03-31
ISBN-13:9780300001761ISBN:0300001762
Description: Fair. Format: Trade Paperback. Year: 1978. Split in middle of book in binding (book is still fully attached), otherwise would be VG Minus. read more
"From Act 1 Eugene O'Neill jerks away the patchwork veil from the face of a family to reveal the anatomy of the skin, every pustule, all the carbuncles, discoloration and scars, the embarrassing halitosis, wax and hairs-the attributes that, up close, make us ugly human beings. Long Day's Journey Into Night is a naked insight to the brutal, unyielding properties that trap families into dysfunctional, vengeful, malignant relations.
Guilt, criticism, paranoia, competition, blame, hate, distrust, addiction. This family is like all others! The play exposes a painful calculus between characters, alliances form then change, issues smolder, and rage and reaction to past events is way out of proportion to the origin and manner in which they occurred. The family-like yours or mine-is stuck in a ritual of manuevers around each other's accusations. Truths are distorted; responsibility shrugged; failures are indiscriminately attributed. O'Neill shows us one day, in a single room, the complex lives in a family. Like real life it's hard to uncover single events that started the cascades of destructive family behavior. It's the paradox of the chicken or the egg.
What originally infected the marriage? Was it James's miserliness or Mama's weakness to morphine? Was it James's drinking or Mama's nervousness? Was there, at first, moderation in James's drinking, or did Mama drive him to alcohol? Why did the second child die? Was it a jealous sibling, a frugal father, or a forgetful mother; betrayal, inaction or negligence? Who's the sucker? A tight-wad ninny that repeatedly falls for real estate scams, a neurotic mother that hides from neighbors, or a prodigal son who drops career for drink?
O'Neill uses 4 characters, 16 hours, and a parlor to compress the story. There's rising tension from page 1. The characters are trapped, and with years of pent up emotion and issues that perhaps can never be resolved, they become embroiled in a replay of the most painful and explosive vindiction. I think a normal person would have walked away in a shout. But no, the strength of the play is that O'Neill takes it farther. He explores the human threshhold and tries to discover an end, if there ever was such a thing. It takes the reader past a point of retreat, and plows into unknown places where we would never go in real life. This is more than a family fight. This is the brink. You don't come back from this place unchanged. There are charges that once delivered, can never be unsaid. Distilled to its essence, Long Days Journey Into Night says this: I hate you; I tried to kill you; we're all mucked up because of you and you and you; I no longer love you; you can die; you've destroyed my dreams.
After reading, I could only side with one character, Edmund, the youngest son, the least hateful, the least repugnant, the shortest in this life to really become mean. Yet, ironically, he'll most likely die from consumption. Perhaps the irony was O'Neill's construction. I'm left realizing that the most precious in life is fleeting. The world is hard, life is harsh. And yet, from this 23 year old I get the most beautiful image of life:
You've just told me some high spots in your memories. Want to hear mine? They're all connected with the sea. Here's one. When I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon of the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself--actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. James Tyrone-dad Mary-mom Jamie-son, 33 Edmund-son, 23 1912
"This was my favorite O'Neill play: it had his signature symbolism, i.e. a repetitive noise indicative of deteriorating sanity, in this case the fog horn. However the characters were more accessible and seemed much more real, less archetypes. Nothing sadder than a hop-head for a Mom though, those heart strings were really being pulled."
"There is a story that after Eugene O'Neill died, as they were cleaning out his room, they found the typewriter that he used to write this play. Its keys were worn down to the numb, numbs that were filled with dried blood.
The theory being that while O'Neill finished his last full realized (there were others discovered and published posthumously) and most personal play, he was chewing through his nails and pounding on the keys, a mere glimpse into the depth and pain which he so brilliantly revealed throughout his career.
Depth and pain that was obviously all too much as he instructed to have the play published 25 years after his death."
"Crushing, brilliant, so human, but not without hope. Long Day's Journey into Night is a masterpiece, and well deserving of that title. The story of a dysfunctional, substance-addicted family, it is a simple plot, it just follows them throughout the day, with the mother becoming more and more stoned as the day wears on. Perhaps the most haunting part of the play is the feeling that this day could be any given day, and that if the characters were to go to bed and wake up in the morning, a similar scene would present itself.
O'Neill has a gift for the details. Meticulously detailed descriptions of the books in the bookcases (all very representative, of course) add to the suffocating nature of the play: all is playing out so realistically, with the setting an accurate reflection of the characters.
The pauses in the drama are painfully and uncomfortably long, and simply reading the lines don't completely do it justice. What is not said is so vitally important in Long Day's Journey into Night, and O'Neill makes this so clear in many of the conversations, particularly when it's only the men on stage.
A wonderful classic, a must-read (and a must-see, for that matter) for everyone!"
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