The Importance of Being Earnest comes to a conclusion, and I enjoyed how it turned out. It made me rethink Oscar Wilde's writing style -- just not in any earth-shattering way; ironically, the story certainly wasn't as earnest as the other book of his that I've read, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
What made the Importance of Being Earnest an interesting read was its word-by-word richness: Although the story is quite short, Wilde seemingly does not waste a word. He's also an expert at dialogue (as any good playwright should be) and endows his characters with a colorful yet concise vocabulary with which to work.
The downright silliness of the characters -- and of Algernon in particular -- creates a comedic tone that Wilde commits to throughout, creating irony in every possible situation. The primary way he instills this irony is in revealing conflicting motives of the characters, showing how they attempt to mask these motives, and what issues are created as a result of this contrast in points of view.
The Importance of Being Earnest is something of a snapshot, only around 60 pages long (in my Amazon Nook), and Wilde does brilliantly to cram as much irony and absurdity as possible in those pages. The brevity of the text only serves to illustrate Wilde's ability to self-restrain and trim his own work; I doubt that anyone would say that Wilde doesn't have the imaginative capacity to adapt this into the world's silliest novel. But perhaps the shortness of the story is indicative of his writing nous; the funniest T.V. shows today are 20 minutes long -- comedy is best suited for clever bursts. And after reading this, its hard not to say Wilde knows what he's doing.
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