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The Square Root of Wonderful: A Play in Three Acts
A three act play follows Phillip Lovejoy and his ex-wife Mollie Lovejoy over a ten day period in a small town outside New York City in the 1950s.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1958
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About the author
Carson McCullers
182 books3,160 followersCarson McCullers was an American novelist, short-story writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts in a small town of the Southern United States. Her other novels have similar themes. Most are set in the Deep South.
McCullers's work is often described as Southern Gothic and indicative of her Southern roots. Critics also describe her writing and eccentric characters as universal in scope. Her stories have been adapted to stage and film. A stage adaptation of her novel The Member of the Wedding (1946), which captures a young girl's feelings at her brother's wedding, made a successful Broadway run in 1950–51.
McCullers's work is often described as Southern Gothic and indicative of her Southern roots. Critics also describe her writing and eccentric characters as universal in scope. Her stories have been adapted to stage and film. A stage adaptation of her novel The Member of the Wedding (1946), which captures a young girl's feelings at her brother's wedding, made a successful Broadway run in 1950–51.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 23, 2020
Video Review
This is the most autobiographical of all of Carson McCuller's writings, which I can say now because I have read them all.
In the foreword, she mentions how with this play she was trying to create memories of her mother and dead husband. It's important to realize because it explains why it's a tragicomedy. She's trying to write a play that matches how people get through real life tragedies, and so it's a tragicomedy not structured entirely around audience's enjoyment. Plays are normally abstract catharses, but she's attempting more of a dramatic soap opera. However, even still, it doesn't feel perfectly balanced. I mean, it seems contrived — everyone seems to want to talk about love all at once, and to narrate their memories in detail in the middle of a conversation. As a playwright, she wants to show too much to ensure the characters are real, but in doing so breaks the illusion of a fictional narrative. For this reason the play could be said to be a bit 'stilted', 'heavy-handed', 'clunky', 'predictable' and relies on caricatures and tropes. In her other novels and novellas, on the other hand, this similar style does not come off as much because the form of novels allows for this level of depth. On stage, however, every sentence must count, but above all must be natural. If the stage breaks, the characters become pedestrians.
It's a simple play, but raises really great questions too late and leaves them unanswered. And it's good that someone finally suggested that love triangles are as psychologically painful as they are perceived to be sinful regardless of whether the vertices are themselves religious. I think I also detected, perhaps the only time in her entire bibliography, a trace of meanness, in the way that Phillip really is depicted as 'crazy' when he walks in singing nursery rhymes. But I could be wrong about that.
It's kind of sad to finish Carson McCuller's bibliography. It's my first favourite author, finished. I still haven't read her other play adaptation of The Member of the Wedding. I think I'll wait to see it somewhere instead... And yeesh I'm picking all of the sad books at once by accident. Need to read something cheerful soon!
This is the most autobiographical of all of Carson McCuller's writings, which I can say now because I have read them all.
In the foreword, she mentions how with this play she was trying to create memories of her mother and dead husband. It's important to realize because it explains why it's a tragicomedy. She's trying to write a play that matches how people get through real life tragedies, and so it's a tragicomedy not structured entirely around audience's enjoyment. Plays are normally abstract catharses, but she's attempting more of a dramatic soap opera. However, even still, it doesn't feel perfectly balanced. I mean, it seems contrived — everyone seems to want to talk about love all at once, and to narrate their memories in detail in the middle of a conversation. As a playwright, she wants to show too much to ensure the characters are real, but in doing so breaks the illusion of a fictional narrative. For this reason the play could be said to be a bit 'stilted', 'heavy-handed', 'clunky', 'predictable' and relies on caricatures and tropes. In her other novels and novellas, on the other hand, this similar style does not come off as much because the form of novels allows for this level of depth. On stage, however, every sentence must count, but above all must be natural. If the stage breaks, the characters become pedestrians.
It's a simple play, but raises really great questions too late and leaves them unanswered. And it's good that someone finally suggested that love triangles are as psychologically painful as they are perceived to be sinful regardless of whether the vertices are themselves religious. I think I also detected, perhaps the only time in her entire bibliography, a trace of meanness, in the way that Phillip really is depicted as 'crazy' when he walks in singing nursery rhymes. But I could be wrong about that.
It's kind of sad to finish Carson McCuller's bibliography. It's my first favourite author, finished. I still haven't read her other play adaptation of The Member of the Wedding. I think I'll wait to see it somewhere instead... And yeesh I'm picking all of the sad books at once by accident. Need to read something cheerful soon!
May 24, 2021
"It is rare that a writer is equally skilled as a novelist and a playwright. I don't want to open that can of beans, but I would say simply that the writer is compelled to write, and the form is determined by some veil inward need that perhaps the writer himself does not fully understand." -- Carson McCullers, A Personal Preface to The Square Root of Wonderful
It pains me to write this review as I have so much love and appreciation for Carson McCullers after reading all her other novels and stories, that writing these lines feels somewhat like sacrilege, but being dishonest about this book would feel similarly wrong.
The Square Root of Wonderful is a short play full of everything McCullers - loneliness, the pursuit or genius and happiness, restlessness and the complex connections between people. I didn't read the foreword to the book on purpose as I wanted to experience the play itself first and not be influenced by McCullers' introduction to it in advance thinking that a literary work should be able to stand its ground on its own without having to be explained in advance. And in a sense this play did stand its ground, but it was only a corner at the edge of McCullers-land which she has earned herself in world literature - this was McCullers territory where characters have strong and emotional, but dysfunctional connections with each other, where their loneliness and conflicting desires fill the air and where they can't seem to sit still. Even without reading the preface, you could feel that there is a lot of autobiography and a lot of personal writing in this play, especially if you know a bit about McCullers' life and marriage. But it also feels lacking substance and rushed, like when there is so much you would like to say and get off your chest all at once, that to an outsider it all seems insubstantial and incoherent while in the meantime it weighs so much on you that you feel you'd be crushed. Reading it I often felt the characters were disconnected and were often preoccupied with their own thoughts and world and did not work together with the other characters, which might have been intentional, but this disjointedness kept pulling me in different directions on each page. Had this been a different author, I probably wouldn't have finished this play, but it being McCullers and being familiar with what she is trying to say, I kept at it and this is why I would rather recommend this book to die-hard McCullers fans and not people who are just beginning to get acquainted with her work.
It pains me to write this review as I have so much love and appreciation for Carson McCullers after reading all her other novels and stories, that writing these lines feels somewhat like sacrilege, but being dishonest about this book would feel similarly wrong.
The Square Root of Wonderful is a short play full of everything McCullers - loneliness, the pursuit or genius and happiness, restlessness and the complex connections between people. I didn't read the foreword to the book on purpose as I wanted to experience the play itself first and not be influenced by McCullers' introduction to it in advance thinking that a literary work should be able to stand its ground on its own without having to be explained in advance. And in a sense this play did stand its ground, but it was only a corner at the edge of McCullers-land which she has earned herself in world literature - this was McCullers territory where characters have strong and emotional, but dysfunctional connections with each other, where their loneliness and conflicting desires fill the air and where they can't seem to sit still. Even without reading the preface, you could feel that there is a lot of autobiography and a lot of personal writing in this play, especially if you know a bit about McCullers' life and marriage. But it also feels lacking substance and rushed, like when there is so much you would like to say and get off your chest all at once, that to an outsider it all seems insubstantial and incoherent while in the meantime it weighs so much on you that you feel you'd be crushed. Reading it I often felt the characters were disconnected and were often preoccupied with their own thoughts and world and did not work together with the other characters, which might have been intentional, but this disjointedness kept pulling me in different directions on each page. Had this been a different author, I probably wouldn't have finished this play, but it being McCullers and being familiar with what she is trying to say, I kept at it and this is why I would rather recommend this book to die-hard McCullers fans and not people who are just beginning to get acquainted with her work.
May 13, 2012
Such a beautiful play! I am currently working on the show, so I'm probably a bit biased. But, as one of my favorite authors, Carson McCullers deals so beautifully with the complexities of love in this play. I feel it was way ahead of it's time in 1957 and that its poetic language, deeply interesting and complex characters and use of black humor makes it a classic.
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March 5, 2010Strangely warped and beautiful. Like some sort of twisted tree.
September 3, 2017
3.5 stars
There's a short story version of this play, written right after this play was first drafted, but it's so totally different that it might as well be considered a different side to the same coin. In that case, this play is Carson McCullers' only play based on original material (her glorious The Member of the Wedding was based on her novel of the same name). I wanted to absolutely love it and eat it up like a greedy pigeon, but such is unfortunately not the case. It's quite long-winded and not as poignant as the best of her other writings, and ultimately I wasn't convinced. It all seems a bit much.
On the other hand, I got the impression that a brilliant staging of the play could probably surpass the satisfaction I got upon merely reading it (admittedly on busy trains and at lunchtime restaurants at times).
I really wish she'd written more plays. And more stories. And more novels. And more nani nani nani nani...
There's a short story version of this play, written right after this play was first drafted, but it's so totally different that it might as well be considered a different side to the same coin. In that case, this play is Carson McCullers' only play based on original material (her glorious The Member of the Wedding was based on her novel of the same name). I wanted to absolutely love it and eat it up like a greedy pigeon, but such is unfortunately not the case. It's quite long-winded and not as poignant as the best of her other writings, and ultimately I wasn't convinced. It all seems a bit much.
On the other hand, I got the impression that a brilliant staging of the play could probably surpass the satisfaction I got upon merely reading it (admittedly on busy trains and at lunchtime restaurants at times).
I really wish she'd written more plays. And more stories. And more novels. And more nani nani nani nani...
February 10, 2021
A depressing read to be honest. Not necessarily horribly written, just a horrible theme, with horrible lines and characters that are even more so horrible. I felt so uncomfortable and teeming with negative emotion throughout this read... perhaps that was the meaning of the play?
The characters are not badly written per say, they are just so unlikeable that you cannot seem to focus on the plot, because you are still angry about the last line that you read. The only character that seems somewhat normal/likeable is the one we see the least of... It is not that I mind it; it is just so exhausting to pull through. Very human characters, but also very fucking stupid and infantile behaviour they portray.
If you like tragedies that focus mostly on a sociopathic, self-conceited, self-loathing, golden child syndrome man-child, and characters even worse than that, then this is for you.
The characters are not badly written per say, they are just so unlikeable that you cannot seem to focus on the plot, because you are still angry about the last line that you read. The only character that seems somewhat normal/likeable is the one we see the least of... It is not that I mind it; it is just so exhausting to pull through. Very human characters, but also very fucking stupid and infantile behaviour they portray.
If you like tragedies that focus mostly on a sociopathic, self-conceited, self-loathing, golden child syndrome man-child, and characters even worse than that, then this is for you.
August 30, 2022
Whilst not amongst her best work, this was unfairly critiqued on Broadway, where it had a very short run. Taught yet dreamy dialogue and a depiction of a damaged love affair, linked to her own doomed marriage. Some influence of Tennessee Williams here, but very much her own work. Would be intrigued to see a performance as not often revised.
February 3, 2022
Suna Pekuysal, Erol Günaydın ve birkaç tanıdık sanatçının daha seslendirdiği radyo tiyatrosunda dinledim. Felsefik diyaloglar söz konusu. Biraz iç karartıcı olmakla birlikte diyalogların tuhaflığı sahneleri komik kılmamış değil. Konusu sıradan ancak replikler sebebiyle ilginç bir oyundu.
August 4, 2021
Some beautiful language. But the doomed characters make bizarre decisions out of nowhere. I understand why it had a short run on Broadway.
April 3, 2025
It's so funny to me that she wrote a short story about this same concept and it was, like, way better.
February 28, 2015
Phillips character was interesting to read near the end, but I felt that the author kept on force feeding the audience the story instead of letting the characters become real people. The events that happen through out the play felt rushed. Lots of "it just happens" moments. Overall, the play to me seem quite obvious and predictable.
August 8, 2014
Somber tale of spiritual isolation.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews