Book Review: "The Good Woman of Setzuan" by Bertolt Brecht

The one problem I have always had with Bertolt Brecht was the fact that all of his books are just him shoving his head so far up his own arse when it comes to his philosophical bullshit that there is really no entertainment there. I feel like the only people who read Brecht belong to one of two groups:

people who already know what the story is about

people who have never even heard of this guy

I am part of the first but really wish I was part of the second because when I started reading Brecht the only thing I noticed was how much I did not enjoy reading him in comparison to similar writers of the same period. Now, don't get me wrong - I respect all he did for the industry of theatre, I just don't think that when it comes to a mass audience that he will draw in numbers like the playwrights, Henrik Ibsen, Tennessee Williams, Harold Pinter, Peter Shaffer and many more.

Though this play would be for the mass majority, difficult to understand it is easy to breakdown the story. This is about a woman who keeps getting trodden on and walked all over because of her good nature. She decides to open her own business and then it happens again, she finds her good nature being taken advantage of but then, she decides to disguise herself as a man. When she does this, she all of a sudden wakes a deep and violent side to her personality. What happens next is far too much of a spoiler for me to say here.

But the two and a half marks are actually for the fact that there are some quotations that need adoring and I am going to show them to you here:

"I sell water her in the city of Setzuan. It isn't easy. When water is scarce, I have long distances to go in search of it, and when it is plentiful, I have no income. But in our part of the world there is nothing unusual about poverty. Many people think only the gods can save the situation. And I hear from a cattle merchant - who travels a lot - that some of the highest gods are on their way here at this very moment. Informed sources have it that heaven is quite disturbed at all the complaining. I've been coming out here to the city gates for three days now to bid these gods welcome. I want to be the first to greet them. What about those fellows over there? No, no, they work. And that one there has ink on his fingers, he's no god, he must be a clerk from the cement factory. Those two are another story. They look as though they'd like to beat you. But gods don't need to beat you, do they?"

The quotations are beautifully interwoven with religion and integrity, purpose and absolutely no purpose whatsoever. I love the opening quotation about selling water. But it does not stop there. In fact there are a couple more great quotations that are worth the two and a half points:

"How wonderful to see Setzuan in the early morning. I always used to stay in bed with my dirty blanket over my head afraid to wake up. This morning I saw the newspapers being delivered by little boys, the streets being washed by strong men and fresh vegetables coming in from the country on ox carts. It's a long walk from where Yang Sun lives but I feel lighter at every step. They say you walk on air when you're in love but it's even better walking on the rough earth, on the hard cement. In the early morning, the old city looks like a great heap of rubbish. Nice though, with all its little lights. And the sky, so pink, so transparent, if you never see your city rising from its slumbers like an honest craftsman pumping his lungs full of air and reaching for his tools, as the poet says. Good morning everyone, here's your rice..."

Though the language of this book is thematically polished, I think you can tell that for a mass audience on a mass scale, this book is just a little bit pointless.