I am studying this play for A level and I have found it quite interesting, although there are a couple of ways in which I would criticise it. I find that David Hare's style leaves too little to the imagination, everything is made explicitly clear, and, although this is good in some ways, in others it is a little bland. I think, however that to fully appreciate such a play it needs to be performed, because that is what it is written for. I also find the ending a little unsubstantial, although I thik it is meant to be so, to keep the reader guessing and to allow them to have a little imagination. Overall, it is good play and t makes a hard hitting statement about the quality and state of our legal and policing system which is far from perfect.

The first time I glanced through the book I was able to conjure-up images that i'm Sure David Hare would want to portray in this play. This made me realise that it would be much better to watch it rather than read it. I like the way in which he plays with the readers emotions; for example at one point you would be rooting for Gerard to win his case but on the other-hand would feel sorry for Harry's lack of success. Altogether I think it was an extremely good read which got my mind thinking!

An excellent insight into the brain of David Hare, this book is a very honest account of his experiences as both playwright and performer on his most recent piece, Via Dolorosa, which played in London and on Broadway in 1999. Definitely worth a read, and an excellent present for anyone involved in theatre in any way - sure to provoke a response!

This book analyses accidents from an aviation psychology standpoint. It is clearly and logically written with a good portion of humor. The concept of Cockpit Resource Management, CRM, is discussed in detail. Highly recommended for any pilot or anyone interested in aviation.

This book most invites me to ask what has happened to David Young's poems? Is he the same poet who now edits anthologies? In this 1979 selection for the Pitt Poetry Series, he was nicely knitting unusual syntax with a Roethke and Goethe-like earthiness. Anglo-Saxon shades, Slavic tones, notes of violence and lyricism that remind one of the Brothers Grimm, and a beautiful long title poem prefaced by an old english poem by MS Digby (1272-1283) about all the names of the hare: "The cove-arise/ the make agrise/the wite-wombe/ the go-mit lombe/ the choumbe/ the chaulart." About 77 ways of saying hare in Old English. The poem has ten parts which make a kind of archipelago: old bones, the names of constellations, a portrait of Shakespeare, the ancient words themselves coming to the surface to lead one to meaning. All this culminating in the kind of final section that makes you love the ancient words that survived, and the newer words quick as a hare, or even a metaphor. From part four of the title poem: "And what's the rain's name?/ Certainly not cloudcurd, aireggs. A bear staggers through the raspberry canes,/a crow feather falls through a noontime pine,/a pail of yellow oil tips into a cistern./Rain walks down the gangplank, waving./Climbs windbreaks. Stipples windows. Freckles sand./The farmhands'faces glisten, yes that name is right. The one name. Rain." And from "The Day Nabokov Died" an elegy to the author not personally known: "1. I looked up from my weeding/and saw a butterfly, coal black,/floating across Plum Creek. Which facts/are laced with lies: it was another day,/it was a monarch -- if it was black,/it must have been incinerator fluff. A black hinge,opening and shutting." Fascinating, kinetic, without sacrificing meaning, human feeling.

[PLEASE R-E-M-O-V-E the two not-reviews-but letters-to-you you've put in as reviews, and PUT T-H-I-S in. THIS is the review. Thank you.] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is not "a book". It has two totally different parts. The first, "Via Dolorosa", Hare calls a "play". It seems to be merely a monologue, a description of the author's short, recent first visit to Israel and Palestine. Rather than presenting a broad picture presenting major challenges and problems in the area, the author relies mainly on his personal experiences in rather extreme, nonrepresentative situations. E.g., in Israel: he devotes space to a difference of opinion of settlers as to whether the sabbath began at 4:15 or at 4:16 PM, and then states that no one could tell him why males are "allowed an extra 18-minute window to go on doing irreligious things.... No one can tell me why". One wonders what are these "irreligious things", but no answer is given. Hare misinforms the reader with another meaningless description: "We cannot sample [a delicious-looking stew] because today they are eating meat and we have been eating dairy. If we were German, we might be able to, because Germans need only three hours to switch from one to another." "Germans" aside, Hare has his eye of the needle trying to slip through an elephant; his facts are the opposite of reality [meat and milk]. His British Jewish neighbours could have corrected this error. Near his conclusion, he states that "an unnamed Israeli military commander" told him that 20,000 Jews were killed "in the cause of setting up the state. 'Not that every death isn't a tragedy...but...20,000 to set up a whole country; that's not so bad, you know. Not bad, for a whole state.'" - If the point of Hare's "play" is to inform, to educate his readers, his subject matter throughout is scanty; often quite peripheral matters are presented, and even these are on occasion mistakenly described. - The second half of the book is his Eric Symes Abbot Memorial Lecture delivered in Westminster Abbey on 9 May 1996. I was much taken by his opening comments that he, "an obvious heathen", was invited to speak in memory of a man who was "marked out...by the power of his Christian faith and example". Hare states lucidly his positions, many in opposition to those of his hosts, such as "Is there anything firm about Christian teaching, which cannot be reasonably countered by someone anxious to swing the myth round to suit their own prejudices?" He explains the title of his lecture as the words of Seneca: "When shall we live, if not now?" - So, 2 stars for "Via Dolorosa", 5 stars for "When Shall we Live?" - and 2 stars overall, the sad "Via Dolorosa" being the determiner of rating.

I first saw this piece performed by David Hare himself as a monologue. As with all plays, a certain amount of drama and charm is lost when the printed edition is the only version experienced. I saw the language and sarcasm as simultaneously refreshing, especially for those who are pessimistic about the Middle East situation, and poetic, often illustrating and describing scenes and people with warmth and edge.
I would highly recommend finding the dramatic staging of this piece, but this edition is still a beautiful essay.

Fortunately i had the luck to actually see David Hare perform Via Dolorosa on Broadway, not once, but twice this past spring. In fact, I was able to see nearly 30 plays in five months as part of a Duke University program taught in Manhattan. My three favorite straight plays were 1. Amy's View, 2. Death of a Salesman, 3. Via Dolorosa. What I appreciated most about Hare's two plays was his ability to reveal the complexity, stubborness, and nobility, closely bordering stoicism, that pervades the human condition.

As an agnostic and an American I was overcome by the honest critique offered by Hare. Here is someone who has wrestled with the moral and ethical dillemas and subsequently infused them into his work. I excuse his humor, because, sometimes things are so horrible all we can do is laugh, and if we cannot, then it is truly a sad thing. Stones or ideas? When shall we live? So what if you don't like all his answers, at least he's raising the right questions.

I do not expect, nor do I particularily want Hare to moderate a Palestinian/Isreali debate. What I do want is for him to dig out and contextualize the emotional elements that ground this tragic situation. As a Westerner, I understand how this passion can captivate someone from a culture in desperate need of something to live for besides material wealth. Hare accomplished exactly what he set out to do, and we are in his debt for it.

M.C. Turtle and the Hip Hop Hare by David Vozar, with illustrations by Betsy Lewin, is a blatant attempt to capitalize on the sucess of hip-hop music by recasting the classic children's tale of the tortoise and the hare in hip-hop language, using aspects of hip-hop culture. This book fails for several reasons.

It fundamentally fails as a children's book because it adds nothing to this classic tale; there's no reason children would enjoy this book over more traditional tellings of the tale. "Hip-hop" kids will be disappointed with the book's awkward, lame rhymes (an example: "Way out in front, the big-ear guy hops. He's getting bored and wants to stop. He's looking 'round for a place to chill. When he spots something and, oh what a thrill."). And children in general will find nothing delightful about either the illustrations or the words. The pictures look like half-completed sketches by a first-time drawing student, and the words are not creative, unique or fun in any way.

It also fails as a "hip-hop children's book," because there are no indications that the author knows anything at all about hip-hop. Not only are the rhymes stilted, but he uses out-of-date slang words like "def" in completely the wrong way, and delivers no sign that he knows anything about the history or current state of either hip-hop music or the culture that goes along with it. I don't get the impression that Vozar and Lewin are trying in any honest way to communicate to kids who love hip-hop on a level that they would understand. Instead, the entire book feels like a marketing technique, like someone decided a "hip-hop children's book" would sell, and went for the big bucks. Apparantly this follows up a commercially successful first attempt at such a book, "Yo, Hungry Wolf!" I don't know what's more depressing, that someone without any obvious knowledge of hip-hop would use it as the basis for a book, or the fact that this lame book and its predecessor have, at least to some extent, succeeded at winning over some children and their parents.

I first fell in love with David Vozar with Yo, Hungry Wolf. Children love David Vozar. I have worked with children for 7 years and I haven't found a child yet who hasn't been entranced by his nursery raps. Children love to rhythm and sing and his books help to encouarge that. As an educational tool these books also teaches those just starting to read what words rhythm and the better grasp a child has on that the more they are going to excel in reading. I feel his books not only provides entertainment but also is an excellent learning tool. You will be able to read this to your child starting from 2-3 years of age through second or third grade where they can then take over reading them themselves. I don't give many books a thumbs up but David Vozar has mine!!!

"Plenty" by David Hare is a fascinating portrait of a woman searching for happiness and stimulation after a secret, thrilling youth working for the French Resistance. Susan is perhaps David Hare's most interesting character ever. This play is one of the most unpredictable that I have read lately. I highly recommend it, particularly for David Hare lovers.

Every scene of this play ends with Susan's making some sort of decision that may or may not have been the right thing to do. That Hare offers no judgment for the heroine of his play is a testament to the piece's maturity and multi-faceted nature. Susan is a character that we can and cannot relate to, that we do and do not sympathize with, and at the end of the piece we might have come to no conclusion on what sort of person she is. What we have learned, however, is how idealism in a post-war society is not only dangerous but absurd.