Pastors And Masters: Ivy Compton Burnett

[poliphilo]

Compton-Burnett has a reputation for difficulty which would disappear if her texts were acted. Pastors and Masters appears to be a novel, but what it really is- with its very brief sketches of character and its reliance on dialogue- is a script. Not a film script- it's too wordy for that- but a radio script, or- even better- a TV script.. She's writing for a medium that hasn't been invented yet. Her people are lively, witty and preposterous and a gift to the acting profession. Has she ever been televised? I don't believe so.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Interesting point. I adore her books, and can certainly hear them being done on Radio 4. Television, I'm not so sure about. Her precocious youngsters in particular might come across as rather twee - but perhaps it could be done.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This was my first sampling of her work. I'll be going back for more. I didn't know what to expect- certainly not that she'd be so funny.

Pastors and Masters is mercifully free of precocious brats. The kids- though there's a school full of them- have very little to say. They exist to be bullied and harassed and whined at by the adults.