How To Love Lit Podcast

George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion - Episode 1 - No One Is Safe From The Acerbic Wit Of GBS!

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us. 

And I am Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  This is our second week discussing the life of George Bernard Shaw as well as his most famous piece, Pygmalion.  Last week, we introduced this Nobel prize winning author, as well as gave some background as to his life, personality, and controversial views.  We discussed the Greek myth, Pygmalion from which Shaw took the title.  We also introduced the characters as we meet them in Act 1.  Today, our goal is to get through acts 2 and 3 which will take us through the climax of the play.  I hadn’t realized the climax was in the 3rd Act by watching the movie or play production; I’d always thought of it as the ball or garden party like in the movie My Fair Lady.  I also didn’t know how dogmatic Shaw was about everyone wanting to change his ending not just of the play but even more so for the movie production that won him an Oscar for Best Screen Play. He has particularly choice words to say for it, as only he can choose them.   He, like Higgins, in Pygmalion is a loveable often foul-mouthed bully at times.  

Charles Poore commented on this in the New York Times on March 23 of 1949, “The Greatness of George Bernard Shaw has often been obscured by his own blinding and enthusiastic appreciation of it.”   

Wow!  That sounds exactly like something Shaw would say about himself.  The way Shaw took this obnoxious prophet persona called GBS and made it into a global brand GBS.  Without it he might have just an obscure Irish music critic, failed novelist, semi-successful playwright.  With it, he became legendary.