more focus, miss mori

Pirandello has a way of writing that feels as if the reader is intruding on his own personal turmoil (which, given the institutionalization of his wife and the extreme depression he suffered after his huge economic losses in the mining business, are numerous) -- sometimes the words ring so genuinely personal and true that Pirandello is Henry IV. Monologuing in the words of a half-crazy, half-lucid, and all tumultuously violent man stuck in the dichotomous realities of his mind and companions, Henry IV asks the essential questions for both existentialism and for anyone who has questioned the mind of the companions, leading up to one of the most intense tragic conclusions I've ever read.