The Happy Hypocrite: A Fairy Tale For Tired Men


Read by David Wales

(4.5 stars; 20 reviews)

Sir Henry Maximilian "Max" Beerbohm was an English essayist, parodist, and caricaturist. The Happy Hypocrite: A Fairy Tale for Tired Men is a short story with moral implications. Beerbohm's tale is a lighter, more humorous version of Oscar Wilde's classic tale of moral degeneration, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Happy Hypocrite tells the story of a man who deceives a woman with a mask in order to marry her. (Summary from Wikipedia) (1 hr 11 min)

Chapters

Chapter 1 22:15 Read by David Wales
Chapter 2 15:19 Read by David Wales
Chapter 3 16:21 Read by David Wales
Chapter 4 5:47 Read by David Wales
Chapter 5 11:38 Read by David Wales

Reviews

Max is Oscar's Equal...—and then some?


(5 stars)

Hmmm. Max was not gay, and therefore tended to distance himself personally from Oscar, but Max is my favourite character artist from the period. His famous cartoon of Oscar and Bosie having dinner together has kept me laughing for years. Particularly, since Max captured Bosie's systemic evil so poignantly Max's Novella/short story, Enoch Soames. SOARS above most writing of the period. In fact, most of Max's writing is the equal of Oscars in every way, and once in a while Max bested Oscar Wilde. Of course Oscar's true form was the West-End play and associated dialogue. While, I am confident that Bernard Shaw bested Wilde in play writing, somehow Wilde remains THE most talked about writer of his age. Plus, Wilde had only about 5 years in which to do his play-writing (his natural talent). When people make up those make-believe dinner guest lists, Oscar is chosen more than any other writer in history! I have often wondered how Groucho Marx and Oscar would have sallied forth at a dinner party... There would have been NO winner and a LOT of losers!