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Street: A Play
A two act farce about a pair of young lovers who live in an English village on opposite sides of a heavily trafficked superhighway.
79 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
About the author
Joan Aiken
335 books607 followersJoan Aiken was a much loved English writer who received the MBE for services to Children's Literature. She was known as a writer of wild fantasy, Gothic novels and short stories.
She was born in Rye, East Sussex, into a family of writers, including her father, Conrad Aiken (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry), and her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge. She worked for the United Nations Information Office during the second world war, and then as an editor and freelance on Argosy magazine before she started writing full time, mainly children's books and thrillers. For her books she received the Guardian Award (1969) and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972).
Her most popular series, the "Wolves Chronicles" which began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, was set in an elaborate alternate period of history in a Britain in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution,and so supporters of the House of Hanover continually plot to overthrow the Stuart Kings. These books also feature cockney urchin heroine Dido Twite and her adventures and travels all over the world.
Another series of children's books about Arabel and her raven Mortimer are illustrated by Quentin Blake, and have been shown on the BBC as Jackanory and drama series. Others including the much loved Necklace of Raindrops and award winning Kingdom Under the Sea are illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski.
Her many novels for adults include several that continue or complement novels by Jane Austen. These include Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax.
Aiken was a lifelong fan of ghost stories. She set her adult supernatural novel The Haunting of Lamb House at Lamb House in Rye (now a National Trust property). This ghost story recounts in fictional form an alleged haunting experienced by two former residents of the house, Henry James and E. F. Benson, both of whom also wrote ghost stories. Aiken's father, Conrad Aiken, also authored a small number of notable ghost stories.
She was born in Rye, East Sussex, into a family of writers, including her father, Conrad Aiken (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry), and her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge. She worked for the United Nations Information Office during the second world war, and then as an editor and freelance on Argosy magazine before she started writing full time, mainly children's books and thrillers. For her books she received the Guardian Award (1969) and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972).
Her most popular series, the "Wolves Chronicles" which began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, was set in an elaborate alternate period of history in a Britain in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution,and so supporters of the House of Hanover continually plot to overthrow the Stuart Kings. These books also feature cockney urchin heroine Dido Twite and her adventures and travels all over the world.
Another series of children's books about Arabel and her raven Mortimer are illustrated by Quentin Blake, and have been shown on the BBC as Jackanory and drama series. Others including the much loved Necklace of Raindrops and award winning Kingdom Under the Sea are illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski.
Her many novels for adults include several that continue or complement novels by Jane Austen. These include Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax.
Aiken was a lifelong fan of ghost stories. She set her adult supernatural novel The Haunting of Lamb House at Lamb House in Rye (now a National Trust property). This ghost story recounts in fictional form an alleged haunting experienced by two former residents of the house, Henry James and E. F. Benson, both of whom also wrote ghost stories. Aiken's father, Conrad Aiken, also authored a small number of notable ghost stories.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 11, 2019
Ah the utter brilliance that is "Street"!
I discovered this play when I was fairly young, and came fresh from "Nightbirds on Nantucket" and thought that Joan Aiken was absolutely amazing. I still carry some of that sense of awe and wonder for the author, but in reading this play again...it is hard to express just what I feel.
Simply put, it's not as amazing as I remembered, which is a sad statement of fact. I have read so many more things since Street, and revisiting it now, I see a story with strong characters (which is good) and a somewhat strange convoluted plot (which is OK and very Joan Aiken) and a hint of wonder.
Yet I recoiled from the ending, and was really quite disturbed at the callousness throughout regarding loss of life and limb, which is perhaps, the point.
Ah, there is still a strong statement here, a sentiment worth pondering on deeper themes involving selfishness and prejudice and how we deal with the expectations that others place on us. But I cannot, for the life of me, recapture the wonder I felt so long ago when I first read that, and that makes me sad.
I wish I could define what led me to feel such glowing excitement when I found this book the other day. I truly do. Maybe it's not fair that I am dropping my review down to four stars for that reason when I would have given it five on the strength of the memory, but there you have it. I am jaded and cynical and growing older. Perhaps I am a snob.
Or maybe I just grew up. It's hard to say.
I discovered this play when I was fairly young, and came fresh from "Nightbirds on Nantucket" and thought that Joan Aiken was absolutely amazing. I still carry some of that sense of awe and wonder for the author, but in reading this play again...it is hard to express just what I feel.
Simply put, it's not as amazing as I remembered, which is a sad statement of fact. I have read so many more things since Street, and revisiting it now, I see a story with strong characters (which is good) and a somewhat strange convoluted plot (which is OK and very Joan Aiken) and a hint of wonder.
Yet I recoiled from the ending, and was really quite disturbed at the callousness throughout regarding loss of life and limb, which is perhaps, the point.
Ah, there is still a strong statement here, a sentiment worth pondering on deeper themes involving selfishness and prejudice and how we deal with the expectations that others place on us. But I cannot, for the life of me, recapture the wonder I felt so long ago when I first read that, and that makes me sad.
I wish I could define what led me to feel such glowing excitement when I found this book the other day. I truly do. Maybe it's not fair that I am dropping my review down to four stars for that reason when I would have given it five on the strength of the memory, but there you have it. I am jaded and cynical and growing older. Perhaps I am a snob.
Or maybe I just grew up. It's hard to say.
July 2, 2008
I can't quite believe it. I've just tracked down this book that has haunted me for 20 years! I found a first edition on Amazon for $10 and snatched it up.
This is one of those moments, when I finally feel vindicated for all those times when my mind would conjure up a connection between something I experienced, and this vague notion of this book called "Street" that I read when I was around 8 years old. I'd say to whoever was around at the time, "did you ever read a book called 'street' when you were a kid?" And I'd get blank stares.
I think I was in third grade, when I got an assignment from Mrs. Ryan that we had to find a play to read and write a review about it. Hmm... Maybe it was a summer reading assignment because I distinctly remember getting into a sun-warmed car and my Mom taking me to the New Dorp library in Staten Island to find a play. I have no idea why i chose this one- it had kind of an eerie cover (drab army green with a bull running down a street). Maybe the 8 year old version of me, first exploring a penchant for things a little bit dark and mysterious led to the choice of this book, which, like Harriet the Spy and the Chronicles of Narnia, was influential in creating those early stirrings of curiousness about the world beyond Staten Island.
This book was set in crowded neighborhood in London bisected by a superhighway. More than that I don't recall, only the intense sense of the other, of foreignness and dystopian reality that, having never been exposed to anything quite like it, I found really thrilling as a kid. I'm almost tempted to not read it when it finally comes in the mail and just keep it as a kind of holy grail. It might be one of those things better left seen only through a misty haze of memory, where there are no facts, only impressions, no characters, just dreamlike images that leave as fast as they came.
This is one of those moments, when I finally feel vindicated for all those times when my mind would conjure up a connection between something I experienced, and this vague notion of this book called "Street" that I read when I was around 8 years old. I'd say to whoever was around at the time, "did you ever read a book called 'street' when you were a kid?" And I'd get blank stares.
I think I was in third grade, when I got an assignment from Mrs. Ryan that we had to find a play to read and write a review about it. Hmm... Maybe it was a summer reading assignment because I distinctly remember getting into a sun-warmed car and my Mom taking me to the New Dorp library in Staten Island to find a play. I have no idea why i chose this one- it had kind of an eerie cover (drab army green with a bull running down a street). Maybe the 8 year old version of me, first exploring a penchant for things a little bit dark and mysterious led to the choice of this book, which, like Harriet the Spy and the Chronicles of Narnia, was influential in creating those early stirrings of curiousness about the world beyond Staten Island.
This book was set in crowded neighborhood in London bisected by a superhighway. More than that I don't recall, only the intense sense of the other, of foreignness and dystopian reality that, having never been exposed to anything quite like it, I found really thrilling as a kid. I'm almost tempted to not read it when it finally comes in the mail and just keep it as a kind of holy grail. It might be one of those things better left seen only through a misty haze of memory, where there are no facts, only impressions, no characters, just dreamlike images that leave as fast as they came.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews