Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and Henrik Ibsen - Audiobooks

In order to boost my Goodreads 2024 reading challenge, I decided to listen some audio books - its not really a task, since I regularly listen some podcasts on my way to work and back, in fact it was actually a pleasure. These three turned out to be completely different and I enjoyed all of them. In fact, one somehow lead to another.

I knew who was Patricia Highsmith but so far never read anything by her concretely - she was forever on my "to read" list. So now I decided to listen her famous debut "Strangers on a Train". Even though I remember the Hitchcock movie and it vaguely reminded me on recently read "The Postman Always Rings Twice", it was still a gripping story and I have resisted to peek at the end, I honestly had no idea where is the story going. This was so good that I decided to go on and listen another audio book.

"The Importance of Being Earnest" was just a delight. I forgot most about it so it was like approaching it for the first time - the recording I listened was done with John Gielgud and Edith Evans - I must admit that it made me laugh out loud on my way to work and I was just super excited with it, it was one of the funniest and wittiest things I have ever heard. Some quotes I still remember:

" I don’t play accurately—any one can play accurately—but I play with wonderful expression."

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.”

“To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

“I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”

“Never met such a Gorgon . . . I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair.”

"If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life."

This was so good that I continued with Henrik Ibsen and his classic play "A Doll's House" might be the best of them all - the story about middle-class family where superficiality and social status were more important than personal opinions and lives of Nora and her husband was actually genuinely interesting and I listened with greatest pleasure. the patronising husband was annoying as hell, but to some extent so was a Nora herself until she woke up from this lobotomised dream and realised it was all but a nightmare. I found it excellent and might continue with Ibsen and audio books.