Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I must make up my mind which is right – society or I”

Et dukkehjem (A Doll's House) by Henrik Ibsen

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I don’t know if a spoiler warning for a nearly 150-year-old play is necessary – but I will be revealing significant plot points when writing about this historical drama, so if you want to remain unspoiled, go read the play (it’s only three acts, it’s a relatively quick read) or watch a dramatisation, and come back when you’re done. Nora and Torvald Helmer are a middle-class couple living in Christiania (what Oslo was named for a few centuries in the before times) in the late […]

Henrik Ibsen Plays

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen

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Hedda Gabler – It’s funny to read Hedda Gabler after re-reading A Doll’s House because you go from thinking that Henrik Ibsen is a great feminist to thinking he might just hate women. In truth, I tend to recommend to not look for motives in the creation of characters, because you might otherwise miss great characters. Hedda is a young woman who has recently married Jorgen Tessman, a research academic who is poised to received an appointment at the university. This coming money inspires in […]

Women behaving badly, 19th century Norwegian realism edition

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

Hedda Gabler by Herik Ibsen

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Last year I took note of the Chancellor’s review of A Doll’s House, and realized that I had never actually read the drama, in spite of my admiration for Ibsen (An Enemy of the People was a high school favorite of mine). Wanting to rectify that, and thinking it would be interesting to also revisit Hedda Gabler, I decided to read both plays back to back and see what themes they have in common. My conclusion is that a repressed woman in the 19th century […]

Fake News-1890’s Edition

An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

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An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen My rating: 3 of 5 stars “An Enemy of the People” is a story of a man, Dr. Stockman, who finds out that the town’s spa is using bad water. As he is the spa’s doctor, he’s noticed that those who use the spa are contracting diseases associated with tainted water. He puts together his report and prepares to publish it. Problem is he’s not as politically astute as he is medically. The spa has brought the […]

Who is the Doll and What is the House?

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

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A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen My rating: 4 of 5 stars “A Doll’s House” is the story of a family that seems perfect on the outside. Helmer is a successful lawyer. Nora, his dutiful wife. Their three nameless children. They are all preparing for Christmas when things start to come undone. Through dramatic irony we learn that Nora has a secret she’s kept from her husband and only two other people are aware of this secret. While her secret has helped her husband be […]

Resonating for the last 135 years

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I first read An Enemy of the People when I was in high school and I can recall being quite moved by it. Since the phrase “enemy of the people” has been bandied about in the news lately, I thought this would be an excellent time to revisit the play. Would it be as poignant as I remembered, or would I discover that the brain of a teenager is too unsophisticated to appreciate Norwegian drama and that I’d missed the nuance? The plot is pretty much as […]



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