This is another of Brecht’s short plays that he referred to as Lehrstucke, or more precisely morality the plays, though this one is a little longer than the other three in the book. Anyway the play is about an unnamed merchant who is wandering across the desert to look at selling some oil that he has discovered. However he becomes lost and it appears that the water is running out. His guide, or more precisely the Coolie, had been given some extra water but decides to let the Merchant have some because if he survives and the merchant dies (or at least comes back a lot weaker than when he left) then the Coolie believes (quite correctly mind you) that he is going to get into serious trouble. However the Merchant is hallucinating at this time, believes that the Coolie actually has a rock, and then proceeds to shoot him.

Long story short, the merchant makes it back to civilisation and finds himself in court having to answer charges of murder, and also a suit that has been brought against him by the Coolie’s wife. The thing is that while we know what went on, the judge is only going by the evidence that has been brought before him, and the evidence is coming from two different avenues – the Innkeeper, who supports the merchant, and the Guide, who supports the murdered Coolie. Okay, we also have the Merchant, but the Merchant is always going to be a biased witness.

However, the problem is that I can’t say all that much more without basically giving away the end of the play (which would be a real bummer for somebody who actually wants to read it), but the thing is that based on the outline that I have given you, you can probably work this out anyway, particularly since Brecht is a communist. Mind you, I can sort of see this at work in our world anyway, especially if you happen to be rich and powerful. There are stories of newspaper moguls here in Australia committing outrageous acts of contempt of court (and parliament), yet getting away with it scot free. In a way this the what the title of the play is about – there are the exceptions and there are the rules.

What Brecht is getting at here is that while we may have a rule of law, there are always going to be exceptions to these rules, and the events in this play are clear in that regard. Well, it’s not so much an exception but rather a rule for one person, and a rule for everybody else. When the Merchant says that he was suffering from heat stroke, hallucinating, and acted irrationally because he was hallucinating, then it is accepted. However the Coolie is correct when he decides to be generous with his water because if he isn’t, and the merchant dies, then he is going to be brought to account. However the exception in the eyes of the judge is that the Coolie acted against his character by being generous – what is expected is that when the merchant is weak then the Coolie will take advantage of him, therefore the Merchant was well within his rights to act in self defence.

This brings me to the question of white privilege; or more particularly white male privilege. While there is a huge debate raging as to whether it exists or not, from my experience it does and the reason I say that is by looking at where I am. I am currently gainfully employed, have a university degree, and live a comfortable existence where I want for little, however if I was not white then it is unlikely that I would be in the same position that I am in now. However the catch is that in our society, at least in Australia, it isn’t so much a question of white privilege – if you are Southern European, Indian, or Asian, then no doubt you will be afforded the same privileges that I am. Sure, there are some extreme racists out there that will target people who are not white, but in general as long as you are not an indigenous Australian then you will pretty much be okay.

Yet there is also a question of money – somebody who grew up in one of the lower class suburbs in Australia is less likely to have the same opportunities than those who grew up in the more affluent suburbs. In fact I knew people that would specifically move into a suburb so that their children could go to a specific public school. Therefore I don’t necessarily believe that it is always a case of white privilege, until you realise that the proportion of Aboriginals in goal far outweighs those of the others. In fact it is more likely than not that indigenous Australians are going to find themselves living in areas where the socio-economic situation is much lower – and don’t even think that you are going to have an easy time getting a rental property in the upper class suburbs if you happen to be aboriginal – it is hard enough for middle class people to get rental properties.

What Brecht is on about is that there is human nature, and there are the exceptions to human nature. This comes about through racism, even if the person making the stereotype doesn’t come across as racist. It could be considered a form of racial profiling – such as indigenous Australians (and Americans) are nothing more than alcoholics that are so desperate that they will resort to drinking methylated spirits. In a way it is similar with Afro-Americans who are generally viewed as violent criminals. This is what Brecht is challenging us with here – the idea that we will categorise somebody of a certain race, and certain class, into a certain mould and will not let them break out of it.

I sort of wonder about the date that this play has been set because it seems that they have dated this play to the early part of the Peloponesian War indicating that it had only been raging for about five years up to this point, however some of the internal evidence in the play does seem to point to an earlier rather than a later setting for this play. What I can notice is some of the things that the play does not mention: namely Pericles and the plague that swept Athens in the early years of the war. However was it does indicate is the idea that it was the farmers that suffered the brunt of the war, particularly in the early years.

I won't go into too many details with the beginning of the war with the exception that it had a lot to do with an alliance system that had developed in Greece after the defeat of the Persians. In a way this is quite reflective of the alliance system that had developed on the eve of World War I. Europe had effectively split into two camps, one headed by Britain and the other headed by Germany. Here we have a similar situation in that there was one group, the Delian league, headed up by Athens, and then a second, sort of non-aligned league, headed up by Sparta. In a sense it involved treaties that indicated that if one member of the alliance is attacked, then all of the members are attacked.

What we need to remember about the war is that it was Greek against Greek. Mind you there was still a lot of snobbery among the Greek states, and the Athenians were hardly the enlightened despots that we seem to think they are. Instead they are one of two superpowers, and if you allied with them you were expected to follow their rules. This was no pact of mutual co-operation and amity, but rather it was pretty much signing your sovereignty over to the superpower, and if you did things that the superpower did not like then you would be punished. In many ways nothing has changed in the last 2500 years, with the exception of the names. Some suggest that elections in the United States have no effect upon us in Australia, but the truth is that not only does it affect us, but it affects the rest of the world as well.

The war itself lasted about thirty years, and during much of that time it was a stalemate. Sparta was a land power and Athens was a sea power, and while Sparta pretty much dominated the Greek mainland, siege equipment was non-existent, and the Athenians were able to barricade themselves behind the Long Walls, and thumb their noses at the Spartans on the outside. However the people who were affected were the farmers whose livelihood existed outside of the walls of Athens. When the Spartans invaded Attica, they laid waste to the countryside and forced all of the farmers to take shelter in the city. Over time this led to overcrowding and in turn disease, which pretty much decimated the population (and as mentioned there is no mention of the disease in this play).

Understandably this play is about a farmer who has suffered more due to the war than have many of the city people, who seem to have the loudest voices in the assembly. The farmers have basically lost out, and since many of them were poor to begin with, only being able to survive on what they were able to grow as well as the excess that they are were to sell, while many of the city dwellers were able to sit back and relax and live off of their investments. Nothing has really changed in the nature of war, with the lower classes being the ones who fight the war while the upper classes are the ones who dictate the progress of the war from their mansions. However, this farmer decides that he has had enough, so he goes out and makes his own peace with the Spartans. Obviously he is fed up with all of this politicking because he knows that in the end he gets nothing out of it.

It is also interesting to see how nothing has really changed in relation to crudeness in the plays. We see base jokes here, we see base jokes in Shakespeare, and we see base jokes coming out of many of the movies that we watch these days. The interesting thing that I do note here, and in some of Aristophanes plays, is the issue of heterosexuality. I will probably say a bit more when I get to the Lysistrata, but it is interesting that many of us who know about the Ancient Athenian culture being orientated towards homosexual coupling see many heterosexual jokes in these plays, and in fact see mostly heterosexual jokes. In fact, it seems, that the Athenians did appreciate and enjoy heterosexual sex, though I also get the impression (and if you read between the lines with regards to the Megarian you will be horrified) that women are little more than pleasure machines with no voice whatsoever.

I understand the saying 'don't judge a book by its cover' but the only reason I decided to read this book was because of its cover. I suspect that the saying means that because if we don't like the cover then we shouldn't necessarily throw the book away, however I do not think it really applies when we like the cover and then want to read the book. Still, just because a book has a cool cover does not necessarily mean that it will be a cool book. This was a little different though (and the cover that I selected for Goodreads is the cover of the book that I read – yes that is a naked female robot fixing herself).

This is the first book in the apprentice adept series, a series of books set on two parallel worlds. The series is divided into two trilogies (plus a seventh book) and the link in the books has more to do with the worlds than with any specific characters (however these characters are present). The worlds are Proton and Phaze. Proton is a barren world of domed cities and is ruled by science while Phaze is a lush verdant world ruled by magic. Almost everybody on Proton has an opposite on Phaze, however if the opposite dies then it allows the person to cross between the two worlds.

The main focus of the first trilogy is on Style, a serf on Proton. Anthony has created an interesting culture on Proton as it is a rigid class structure with limited ability to move from being a serf to a citizen (I will deal with Phaze in the next book). This is the one aspect of these books that stuck in my mind and I believe has parallels in our world. The main thing about serfs is that they are denied clothes (among other things). This is the most interesting aspect because some see that our ability to chose what we wish to wear to be a reflection of freedom in our society. Normally the matter works in the opposite: a denial of freedom works in hand with dress codes. We take pre-war Afghanistan for instance, where freedom was limited to a fundamentalist religious government, and this is reflected in the requirement for women to wear full faced coverings. Or for instance the corporate world, where employees have a specific dress code, and in some cases, a very specific dress code (such as a uniform). Where the work place requires business attire, at least there is freedom to chose what form of business attire to wear, however in other places, not only is a uniform required, but also very detailed grooming (as a friend of mine discovered recently).

Another aspect of this story is about upward movement and in some cultures this simply does not exist. Take modern Hindu culture which has a very strict class structure. While one can be tossed down classes, it is impossible to move upwards. Entry into a specific class is through birth. Quite a few Indians have found a way around this though, namely by changing religions (usually to Christianity or Buddhism), but this is actually really frowned upon and generally turns one into an outcast. On Proton the only way to move from being a serf to being a citizen is to win a tournament, of which only one is held every year. This means only one serf per year has the opportunity of becoming a citizen.

I find it very interesting that a planet ruled by science like Proton has such an unenlightened political system where in effect slavery still exists, and entry into the ruling class is difficult if not impossible for most. That does not necessarily mean that Phaze is any better, though Style finds out that because he is actually an adept in Phaze that this is not necessarily the case for him. In fact it appears that while he is in effect a nobody on Proton, he is actually a very important person on Phaze. I note that Anthony does like doing this in his stories - raising a nobody to become a somebody (he does this in Bio of a Space Tyrant as well), and I guess this is to show that while people in the position of his protagonists are able to make something of their lives in much more restricted world, we who live in relative freedom have the potential as well.

I really did not like this play, and now that I have read Pygmalion, the play upon which this play must have been based, I dislike it even more. However, it does not run like Pygmalion: there is no bet and the play does not end unpleasantly for Rita. However, like Pygmalion, it is a play about education and how education works to empower people. It was because of this theme that my English teacher loved it because he had returned to school at a later time and become educated, and our class had also chosen to return to school and he wanted us to see how education empowers us. Personally, I would have chosen Pygmalion, but I did not know that that play existed at that time.

What I did not like about this play though are the characters. The lecturer is a drunkard and Rita walks out on her husband because she has become educated. Maybe that is an indictment on the English class system (something which we do not see as much here in Australia, but it still exists). I guess the issue with Rita and her husband was that as Rita became educated a gap between her and her husband began to develop, and as such he began to fear her orderer her that she was no longer to attend the class.

However, with me, walking out on a marriage never sits comfortably with me, and further, when it is portrayed in the media (and the theatre forms part of the media) as something normal and part of life, it simply angers me. Okay, there are many reasons as to why relationships break down, and granted Rita was probably right to walk out on hers (especially since her husband seemed to be the controlling type – or worse) but marriage breakdowns that occur because the relationship simply doesn't suit the participants any more, to me, reeks out the disposable nature of our society.

The entire play is set in the lecturer's office and the dialogue exists only between Rita and the lecturer as he teaches her English literature. Literature is wonderful because not only does it force you to think, by reading it enables you to think about the world in which we live. Obviously, being a Christian, the only book that I give any weight to is the Bible, however that does not mean that we should discard any of the other books that are widely available. However the problem is being able to sort out the rubbish from the classics. As a friend of mine once said, those of us who appreciate literature generally do not read the books that we see everybody else reading on the bus. That is a good starting point, but it does not necessarily encompass a good book. My English teacher hated Stephen King, but a lot of King's earlier works (such as Carrie, Firestarter, and Christine) I would consider literature as the character flaws and the world in which they are set speak about a lot of the prejudices that we face. While it may be desirable to melt the minds of all our enemies, such actions, in the end, generally do not solve anything.

However, I've fallen off track here, but I guess it is because there is little that I want to write about the play itself and would rather rant and rave about the difference between a classic and rubbish. I now know what my English teacher meant by 'airport trash' (while not necessarily agreeing with him). Back then he spoke of Stephen King, these days (if he is still around) he is probably ranting and raving against Harry Potter and the Girl With a Dragon Tattoo.