Authors Electric

I  love browsing round other people’s houses - particularly writers’ houses.   From the Wordsworths’ Dove Cottage to Stephen King’s billionaire penthouse, I’d be happy to put my hand in my pocket for a glimpse.  So, on a visit to Oslo, I couldn’t resist the temptation to have a wander round the home of Henrik Ibsen - one of Europe’s most influential writers, purveyor of dramatic doom and gloom on an industrial scale, but also a proto-feminist whose plays are good  illustrations of the struggle that women had to gain equality. The Dolls’ House , Hedda Gabler, Ghosts - I’ve harrowed my way through all of them. Ibsen is highly political.  This is the man who wrote that ‘the majority never has right on its side’. An Enemy of the People has a very contemporary plot - a doctor discovers that a tannery in a Spa town is contaminating the water supply and spreading disease to its visitors.  Instead of applauding his revelation, the residents ostracise him, ...