Mamet presents the reader with a rather rambling mixture of politics, life, and art.

It is evident that the text is in desperate need of an editor to bring more coherence and structure. However, within this chaos, the flights of thought that manage to interlink these diverse topics do possess a certain sense of balance.

Nevertheless, this work, or at least a compilation of its best quotations and a summary of its salient points, should be read by writers of all stripes.

Particularly, it holds great value for those who are involved in the theatre or screen.

These writers can gain unique insights and inspiration from Mamet's musings, which may help them to enhance their own creative works and bring a new perspective to their storytelling.

Despite its flaws, there is something to be learned from this rambling yet thought-provoking piece.

Goodreads gives us half-stars in our ratings, which is both a blessing and a curse.

On one hand, it allows for a more nuanced evaluation of books. We can now rate a book as, say, 3.5 stars instead of being forced to choose between a 3 or a 4. This gives a more accurate reflection of our thoughts and feelings about a particular work.

However, when it comes to David Mamet's writing, the use of half-stars doesn't seem to help much. I really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately, it was a struggle. While there are indeed some good ideas present, they are buried beneath Mamet's nearly unforgivable bloviating. His writing is so deeply self-indulgent and overwritten that it becomes a chore to read. The sentences are laughably obtuse, and there's a dash of the tired old trope that "the information age has made us all into drooling zombies watching the nightly news, MAN" thrown in for good measure.

In the end, I'm left with a sense of disappointment. I had high hopes for this book, but Mamet's writing style just didn't work for me. Maybe if he had toned down the bloviating and focused more on getting his ideas across clearly, I would have had a different opinion. But as it stands, I can only give this book a mediocre rating.

This book, which is less than 90 pages long, has truly provided me with a great deal to ponder upon.

Essentially, it serves as a profound treatise on the purpose and craft of drama, as expounded by one of America's most prominent dramatists.

I could clearly sense that Mamet has dedicated countless hours to deeply dwell on and grapple with the matters he is discussing.

Mamet frequently makes references to various stories and situations, especially those from ancient drama, in an attempt to clarify his points. However, this approach sometimes left me a bit confused.

At certain moments, I simply wished he would cut to the chase and get straight to the point.

Despite this minor drawback, I still regarded it as an interesting and at times thought-provoking read about an endlessly captivating subject.

Not to mention, it has one of the best book titles I have ever encountered.

Overall, this concise yet impactful book offers valuable insights into the world of drama.

Very opaque. His three main chapters are meta structured to thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and three act structure. However, this structuring by no means confuses more so than illuminate. It is not a beginners book for story structure. Instead, it is more of a philosophical rumination on the purpose of story. It delves deep into the fundamental questions about why we tell stories and what they mean. The author explores different aspects of story structure through the lens of these philosophical concepts. Each chapter builds upon the previous one, leading the reader on a journey of discovery. While it may be challenging for those new to the subject, it offers valuable insights for those who are willing to engage with it on a deeper level. Overall, it is a thought-provoking work that encourages readers to think beyond the surface of story structure and consider its broader implications.

There was some interesting trivia in this book. However, overall, I found it to be rather rambling and incoherent.

The second section, in particular, was so jumbled that it vividly reminded me of the paragraphs that are randomly generated by the predictive texting game on a smartphone.

It seemed as if the author had thrown together a bunch of ideas without any clear structure or logical flow.

While the presence of interesting trivia was a plus, the lack of coherence made it difficult to fully engage with the content.

It was a bit of a disappointment, as I had initially expected a more organized and engaging read.

Perhaps with some editorial work and a tighter focus, the book could have been much more enjoyable and valuable.

As it stands, though, it remains a somewhat chaotic and disjointed piece of writing.

This book is extremely interesting and, at the same time, strange. Mamet does not present a linear, concatenated exposition. Certainly, he is not a Cartesian thinker - he is obscure and to a certain extent Byzantine in many moments. But this doesn't matter because, if we pay a little attention, we will see that we are facing a long argument from beginning to end. Mamet basically deals with the dramatic structure, the three acts, the beginning, middle, and end present in every narrative structure - and this, in a way, structures and coheres the book, functioning as a framework.

He very convincingly perceives that this structure is not arbitrary; on the contrary, it responds to the basic needs of the human psyche, in the sense of the way the latter deals with the world around it, and more precisely, how it organizes the stream of information received at every moment. This structure is indeed not arbitrary. And it not only responds to the basic needs of our psyche. It is, in reality, the very structure of human life, for what begins with a birth, with a coming to life, necessarily ends, that is, has a final point, a term, an end, which in our case is precisely death.
Therefore, drama reflects human existence; it is a natural, organic development of the very structure of our lives, of the very structure of human existence on earth. It is not by chance that Mamet asserts that “the conscious mind cannot create art”.
The book, as it could not but be, is divided into three parts, each dealing with one of the structures of drama that are precisely the structures of human life: the beginning, the middle, and the end; the presentation, the conflict, and the resolution.
In the chapter regarding the presentation, Mamet distinguishes true drama, authentic drama, from what he calls “problem play” or simply “false drama”. In authentic drama, the story concerns “(…) a person undergoing a test that he or she didn't choose (…) the hero of the tragedy has to fight the world, though powerless - and with no tools whatever except his will”. In the “problem play”, however, the hero “chooses” his challenge, so that, in the end, everything is just hubris, everything is just a fantasy of power: “we knew it was a false struggle, and we now must cast about for another opponent/another villain/another action film/another oppressed people to free, so we can reassure ourselves, again, of what we know to be untrue: that we are superior to circumstance (the we are, in effect, God)”.
In the second chapter, Mamet deals - as he could not but do - with the problem of the second act. The second act is problematic because it is neither the beginning of the journey - when the hero is confident in his mission, in his purpose -, nor the end of the story - when the hero has already lost all illusions, presenting himself naked before life and destiny. Robert McKee very aptly calls the second act a quagmire. Mamet turns to Joseph Campbell to say that the second act is the moment when the protagonist sinks into the belly of the beast (“the belly of the beast”): “(…) the time in which the artist and the protagonist doubt themselves and wish the journey had never begun. (…) the time in which the beggining goal is transmuted into a higher goal, in which the true nature of the struggle asserts itself”.
For Mamet, the struggle of the second act, its meaning, is the admission, on the part of the protagonist, of his weakness, of his vanity, in short, of his hubris. It is the confession that, when embarking on the journey, he had no idea, or had a wrong idea because of his vanity, of what he would encounter ahead. It is the recognition of his own misery and powerlessness - powerlessness, as Mamet says: “the true drama, and especially the tragedy, calls for the hero to exercise will, to create, in front of us, on the stage, his or her character, the strength to continue. It is her striving to understand, to correctly assess, to face her own character (in her choice of battles) that inspires us - and gives the drama power to cleanse and enrich our own character”.
Moreover, the point that Mamet raises about the artist is interesting. We always imagine the artist as someone endowed with extraordinary powers, as someone possessing a profound consciousness, possessing a vast horizon of consciousness, master and ruler of his art. The artist, then, would create with the purpose of achieving a very specific end, with the purpose of realizing an objective that, from the start, would already be very clear in his mind. But Mamet does not think so. Not only is the “conscious artist” a contradiction in terms, but also, in general, the artist does not intend, when creating his art, to achieve such or such a socially or politically valuable objective. The only purpose of the artist, of the true artist, when creating would be that of freeing himself - that of freeing himself from the miserable burden of the human condition: “artists don't wonder “what is it good for?” They aren't driven to “create art”, or to “help people”, or to “make money”. They are drive to lessen the burden of the unbearable disparity between their conscious and unconscious minds, and so to achieve peace. (…) Artists don't set out to bring anything to the audience or to anyone else. They set out, again, to cure a raging imbalance”.
Another point mentioned by Mamet concerns the periods of artistic flourishing. Different from what our common sense imagines, art, the artistic spirit, usually blossoms with energy and vigor, not in times of abundance and festivity, but in times of restriction, crisis, and scarcity. Art is not a utilitarianism, whatever the purpose of the latter; art is not, in fact, a kind of philanthropy. Art is an impulse, a force, an energy that springs from the deepest roots of the human spirit. And this impulse becomes more acute, more desperate, precisely in times of crisis, in times of imbalance and maladjustment. The artist's impulse is not to redeem the world, but to redeem himself, to find some kind of peace, not through the “solution” of the problem, but through the admission of our weakness, the admission of our misery, of our inability to understand, the admission of our most total and absolute impotence before becoming and inevitable disappearance.
To admit, in the most candid and sincere way possible, our impotence before existence which is a common property of all of us - this is the artistic impulse par excellence.
Mamet continues to develop this theme in the third chapter of the book which will deal - obviously - with the third act, that is, the resolution. It is here in this chapter that Mamet will write what, in my opinion, is the best passage of the book. He again addresses the question of what the purpose or end of art is - and the answer will be one in a strictly Aristotelian sense: the end of every work of art is to provide us with “cleansing awe”; in one word, catharsis.
Just as in the case of the religious ritual, of magic, of the operation of shamans and medicine men, the artist strives to free himself - and, consequently, the public - from imbalance, from maladjustment, from incompatibility with the world. In reality, not so much to free himself, but to accept, recognize, admit: “for the purpose of the prayer was not, finally to bring about intercession in the material world, but to lay down, for the time of the prayer, one's confusions and rage and sorrow at one's own powerlessness”. And, immediately after, the crucial passage: “so the purpose of the theater is not to fix the social fabric, not to incite the less perceptive to wake up and smell the coffee, not to preach to the converted about the delights (or the burdens) of a middle-class life. The purpose of theater, like magic, like religion - those three harness mates - is to inspire cleansing awe”.
It is, in the end, a matter of recognizing and admitting - of confessing, of course - our impotence before death; the impotence of reason before the fatality of our ultimate destiny: “in great drama we see this lesson learned by the hero. More important, we undergo the lesson ourselves, as we have our expectations raised only to be dashed, as we find that we have suggested ourselves the wrong conclusion and that, stripped of our intellectual arrogance, we must acknowledge our sinful, weak, impotent state - and that, having acknowledged it, we may find peace”.
More than talking about art and theater, Mamet talks about life, talks about the strangeness and incomprehensibility of life, and of how the artist is nothing more than a kind of pontiff who unites the two worlds, the world of the subjectivity of individuals and the external world of things and the cosmos - pontifex. And it is up to him, the artist, to confess, the confession of our weakness and impotence before the universe and the fatality of destiny. It is he, the artist, who proclaims loudly and clearly, before the technological and scientific society in which we live - Mamet considers it a new totalitarianism: the totalitarianism of information -, that “el sueño de la razón produce monstruos”.

Based on previous reviews, I discovered this little gem and found it unexpectedly great, yet not entirely unsurprising.

Mamet is truly a god in the theatre world. At least, that's how he was to me during my college days. His plays were not only my favorite to work on but also the most challenging. He is brilliant, and his work demands capable actors.

I initially thought this would be more of a playwriting clinic rather than a philosophical treatise on the nature, workings, and purpose of drama, or what makes a story great.

One of my biggest epiphanies while reading this book was realizing that to understand story and drama is to understand our own lives. I have been and continue to be fascinated by story for quite some time. This book truly helped me understand the reason behind it.

I also found it eerily prophetic, considering it was published in 1998. His commentary on politics and the Information Age is remarkably accurate, and reading this text 20 years after its publication validates his suppositions.

It's not for everyone, but if you consider yourself someone with a creative mind, enjoy connecting the dots, and are eager to learn more about what makes great art, then this is a must-read for you.

I discovered this to be extremely useful. Surprisingly, it is very dense considering its brevity. It is a profound rumination on what makes the three-act structure powerful or not. It also delves into the value of theatre and, by extension, art.

In part 2, it does take a bit of a political/ideological tangent, but otherwise, it is truly excellent.

There are some particularly outstanding ideas about writing that stems from thoughts rather than feelings. I also really liked the concept that a good writer is someone who retains what others would discard and discards what others would hold onto. This perspective offers a fresh and unique way of looking at the writing process and the qualities that distinguish a great writer.

Overall, this piece provides valuable insights and food for thought, making it a must-read for anyone interested in the art of writing, theatre, or art in general.

One of the absolute finest pieces of writing that I have ever had the privilege of laying my eyes upon. It is truly a remarkable work that combines the elements of a gripping drama, the cleverness of a well-crafted essay, and the thought-provoking nature of real art in the most fascinating way. The story unfolds with such intensity and drama that it keeps the reader on the edge of their seat, eager to know what will happen next. At the same time, the author's clever use of language and ideas makes it a truly engaging and intellectually stimulating read. However, like all great works of art, it leaves the reader with a sense of dissatisfaction, as if there is still more to discover and explore. This is what makes it so truly special and unforgettable.

From such a renowned theatrical figure as Mamet, I was initially anticipating a comprehensive how-to guide specifically tailored for playwrights and actors. However, upon reading, it became evident that it was not the case. Instead, the text read more like a memoir or a profound reflection on his experiences and thoughts within the theatrical realm.

Nonetheless, it must be said that Mamet's writing is incredibly engaging and masterful. His ability to craft sentences and tell a story in a captivating manner was truly remarkable. Each page held my attention firmly, drawing me deeper into his world and making me eager to uncover what lay ahead.

Although it may not have met my initial expectations as a practical guide, the book still offered valuable insights and perspectives that could be appreciated by anyone with an interest in theater or the creative process. It served as a reminder that sometimes, the most interesting and enlightening works are those that deviate from the norm and offer a unique perspective.

Good news is,

I don't need to read another David Mamet book.

I have had enough of his works, which I find to be filled with what I consider pretentious bullshit.

There are plenty of other sources from which I can obtain the kind of literary experience or intellectual stimulation that I desire.

I am not one to be confined to a single author or a particular style of writing.

I am open to exploring different genres, different voices, and different perspectives.

So, instead of delving into another Mamet book, I will venture out into the vast world of literature and see what else it has to offer.

Who knows, maybe I will discover a new favorite author or a new style of writing that will truly resonate with me.

For now, I am content to know that I have the freedom to choose and the opportunity to explore.

I picked up this work upon the suggestion of Steven Pressfield.

Undoubtedly, it is an interesting read. I took numerous notes that are applicable not only to drama but also to life in general.

Isn't that precisely the way life is? It presents various aspects and lessons that can be drawn and implemented in our daily existence.

The insights gained from this work have the potential to enhance our understanding of both the fictional world of drama and the real world we live in.

It offers a unique perspective that makes us reflect on our own experiences and behaviors.

Highly recommended…SLT.