Jason Furman's Reviews > The Bungler

My excitement at seeing a newly published Richard Wilbur translation of a Moliere play I hadn't heard of was tempered slightly by the worry it was just a different title for a play I had already read. (This recently happened to me with Bulgakov's A Dead Man's Memoir, and years ago I was excited to read Camus' The Outsider -- only to figure out pretty quickly it was just a different translation of The Stranger.)

According to the introductory notes, this was Moliere's first major play and the first play in verse. It is a Commedia Dell Arte that tells a stock farce plot of a bungling young man, Lelie, and his resourceful valet as they attempt to get a woman, currently held as a slave and also pursued by another young man. Every time the valet has a new scheme it gets thwarted by Lelie's bungling. It is a testament to the play that I found myself laughing just as hard the twelfth or so time the formula of valet devises a seemingly fool-proof plan to get the girl, and the fool ruins it.

Nowhere near Moliere's later plays in depth, complexity, psychological insight and development, plot etc. But Wilbur's verse translation is as witty and enjoyable as the best of Moliere -- as I suspect the original French is as well.