I would never have read this book had not a German version been sitting on a shelf of free books at my language academy. Though above my reading levelI would never have read this book had not a German version been sitting on a shelf of free books at my language academy. Though above my reading level, I was able to make my way through the book without much difficulty, just because I already know the basic story of McCartney’s life so well. That being said, it feels somewhat dishonest to write a review, since there was a great deal I certainly didn’t understand.
My only comment on the book’s contents, then, is that I found it surprisingly critical of its subject. I got the feeling that Benson was dismissive of most of McCartney’s post-Beatles work and found him, in many respects, simply unlikable—vain, empty-headed, and overly controlling. To be fair, I can understand why a biographer would get frustrated with McCartney, since by the time he turned 30 he had reached the high point of his career, and it is frustrating to watch somebody appear to squander their talent.
In any case, considering that the book was published over 30 years ago, and that McCartney is still kicking, I’d think there must be considerably better biographies on the market by now. Still, it made for excellent German practice....more
What struck me, upon reading the second book of Jeeves stories, was how very unusual Wodehouse’s formula for a comedic duo is. From Don Quixote and SaWhat struck me, upon reading the second book of Jeeves stories, was how very unusual Wodehouse’s formula for a comedic duo is. From Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to Laurel and Hardy, comedic duos often include two archetypal characters: the Problem Machine and the Exasperated One. The roles are self-explanatory: the Problem Machine gets them into trouble, and the Exasperated One suffers hilariously.
However, Wodehouse’s formula has a twist. In Bertie we do indeed have an Exasperated One—and one of the funniest ever created—but in Jeeves we encounter, not a Problem Machine, but a Solution Machine. Thus, the comedic duo, in their respective roles, resemble Sherlock Holmes (clever and unflappable) and Watson (clueless and worried) more than the Knight of the Mournful Countenance and his trusty squire.
This formula works quite well for mystery stories but it comes across a difficulty in comedy. For in comedy the characters must find themselves in some sort of a jam, and Bertie is not the type to get mixed up in any funny business. Indeed, from a writerly standpoint, he presents challenges—a person with no close family, no need of money, no strong desire for love, no overwhelming vices—in that he has no reason to be exasperated.
Thus, in this volume Wodehouse introduced a third character, a genuine Problem Machine, in the form of Bingo Little—whose romantic inclinations get them mixed up into all the necessary and appropriate misadventures. It is an admirable solution.
I won’t dwell on the pleasures of the stories, which I think are familiar to anyone who reads them. Yet, I would like to recommend this book—or any in the series—to aspiring writers of fiction. Wodehouse may not have reached the highest realms of literary excellence; but he was a consummate professional and I think his work—much like Agatha Christie’s—is an education in the craft of storytelling....more
I find that I am liking each one of these volumes more than the last. The pleasure of this series is that, through the eyes of Winston Churchill, the I find that I am liking each one of these volumes more than the last. The pleasure of this series is that, through the eyes of Winston Churchill, the war takes the shape of an enormous board game, played over months and years. Far removed from the gore of the front lines, Churchill sees the conflict as symbols on a map, which he needs to arrange in the most advantageous possible way—a game he plays brilliantly. This is not to say that he is frivolous or superficial. But warfare is far more palatable when experienced from the command chair than from the trenches.
Added to purely military decisions is the messier business of courting allies. Indeed, the best parts of this book describe Churchill’s cultivation of his relationships with Roosevelt and Stalin. Dealing with the Americans was relatively easy, as Roosevelt and Churchill seemed to have gotten along very well. Nevertheless, working so closely together required constant coordination of plans, both short-term and long-term; and Churchill sometimes struggled to get the American command to accept his military vision.
With Stalin, relations were far more tense. The Soviet leader is constantly demanding from Churchill fresh supplies and for a second front in France. Churchill, meanwhile, does his best to placate Stalin while firmly refusing to do what he feels is unwise. This culminates in his 1942 visit to Moscow, narrated in the two best chapters of the book. Churchill, certain that the Allies will not be able to invade France in 1942, decides he must deliver this message personally if he is to maintain his working relationship with the Soviets. Stalin, at first, doesn’t take the news well, but by the end they are up all night, drinking vodka. In virtually any other circumstances, the two men would have been sworn enemies, and it is fascinating to see them try to cooperate.
The title of the book is quite apt, as it contains the battles that marked the beginning of the end for both Germany and Japan: Midway, Stalingrad, and Tunisia. These books, it should be remembered, are public memoirs rather than objective history; and so Stalingrad and Midway, being battles Churchill had nothing to do with, get only a cursory treatment. Northern Africa, on the other hand, occupies much of the book, as British and then American forces beat Rommel, invaded the Vichy territories, and finally won a decisive victory in Tunisia.
As a final thought, I am constantly surprised at how much I am learning from these books. Somehow, after a lifetime of World War II media, I knew close to nothing about operation “Torch,” and had no real idea of the significance of the Northern African campaigns. I was also unfamiliar with the Katyn massacres—Russia’s mass executions of Polish prisoners, an issue which Churchill felt he could not raise with the Soviets, for fear of hurting their relationship. Indeed, having been in Dresden just two weeks ago, I’ve had occasion to reflect that it was not only the axis who committed war crimes....more
Churchill’s account of the Second World War continues. I am finding that these volumes have a kind of cumulative power, which far exceeds that of any Churchill’s account of the Second World War continues. I am finding that these volumes have a kind of cumulative power, which far exceeds that of any single volume. As I slowly make my way through the war, month by month, campaign by campaign, theater by theater, the mind-boggling scale of the conflict is beginning to sink in. What would be major operations in other wars are here mere side-shows or diversions. To pick just one example, if the Anglo-Iraq War were to happen today, it would be considered a momentous event that dominated the news. But in the context of World War II, it hardly even registers.
Merely keeping track of all this—the troop strengths, the ships available to the Navy, the number of serviceable aircraft, all distributed literally around the globe—would strain any military organization today. Two silly but revealing examples illustrate just how many different places Churchill had to keep in mind. He insisted that Iceland be written with a (C) after it, so that it could never be confused with Ireland (R). And he also preferred that Iran be called “Persia,” since otherwise somebody might confuse it with Iraq. The very idea that people might mix up what countries to attack or defend I think says more about the scale of the War than any superlative could.
But the military organization is only half of the equation. For Churchill is always acutely aware of the political situation, in ways that strictly military commanders are not.
To pick a simple example, Churchill has occasion to criticize a general for putting a British regiment in a relatively safe zone, while sending colonial forces into battle—for the apparently superficial, but politically real, reason that it reflects poorly on the British government. Indeed, Churchill’s frustrations with General Auchinleck’s hesitations to attack Rommel in North Africa reminded me very much of Lincoln’s own admonishments to George B. McClellan to be more aggressive. In both cases, the political leader realized the value of at least appearing to have the initiative. Appearances are important when you are courting potential allies and public opinion.
Like Manny, I was also impressed by Churchill’s willingness to put politics aside in order to win the war. Few politicians in Britain, I imagine, were less sympathetic to Soviet Communism than Churchill. But as soon as Hitler made his great error and commenced Operation Barbarossa, Churchill did not hesitate to send vital supplies and equipment to his former foe, even though it weakened his own position—correctly predicting that a strong Russian defense would seriously weaken the German army. The tense and sometimes downright rude correspondence between Stalin and Churchill was especially interesting to read. Even then, at the beginning of their alliance, the Cold War was looming ahead....more
I am not sure I have much more to say about this volume than I did about the last one. For what it’s worth, the The story of World War II continues.
I am not sure I have much more to say about this volume than I did about the last one. For what it’s worth, the flaws of these books are becoming more apparent. Churchill clearly completed these in great haste—dictating the narration, and including copious copies of his official correspondence. As a result, the books are exciting and easy to read, but lack any depth of analysis or the sweep of a grand vision. In other words, though this history may be Gibbonian in length, it is no Decline and Fall.
Another obvious demerit is that Churchill wrote these while seeking reelection. This means that they contain quite a bit more ra-ra jingoism than any professional historian would likely tolerate. It is difficult to resist the idea that, say, the spirit of the British people was not so cheerily resilient as Churchill would have us believe.
All that being said, these books are undeniably an invaluable, if obviously biased, historical record. Churchill does an admirable job of making the reader feel what it would be like to be in charge of a great, multi-pronged war effort. Though the level of detail is sometimes a bit tiring, it does allow you to understand how many different things Churchill and his team had to consider at once: radar defense, air force strength, viable runways, anti-aircraft technology, threats to shipping, the distribution of troops, the possibility of invasion, relations with Spain, Vichy France, and the United States—as well as the other theaters of war, North Africa and the Mediterranean, and much else.
Of the entire series, this volume may be in some ways the most interesting, for it covers the period when Great Britain stood alone against the Nazis—that is, when the war reached its darkest ebb. The Soviet Union was still aligned with Germany, and the United States had yet to enter the war. After the remarkably quick fall of France, a complete German victory seemed almost certain. It is to Churchill’s immense credit that he did not even contemplate surrender or peace at this point. Despite all of the blemishes on his record as a politician, his resolute leadership during this time was a great service to the world....more
Despite being—I flatter myself, perhaps—a relatively seasoned reader by this point, this is only my second Agatha Christie novel and my first featurinDespite being—I flatter myself, perhaps—a relatively seasoned reader by this point, this is only my second Agatha Christie novel and my first featuring the iconic detective Hercule Poirot. Yet it is easy for me to understand why both the writer and her creation have become such fixtures, as the book was a pleasure to read. Indeed, I read the whole thing in one plane ride on my way home from the holidays.
Even if you have little taste for murder mysteries, any writer—or any reader, for that matter—must respect, I think, the great care and skill with which Christie wrote this story. From the setup to the clues to the interrogations—her pacing, her attention to detail, her ability to sketch memorable characters without taxing the reader’s memory unduly—all of this, I submit, is a virtuosic literary performance.
If I have any criticism, it is that I think a murder mystery should, in principle, be solvable by the astute reader. But at several points in the story Poirot makes guesses that rely on information unavailable to the reader and, in any case, stretch credulity with their accuracy. However, it is churlish to complain about one of the great classics of the genre....more
In the first volume of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, there is a fantastic chapter about what life in the Texas Hill Country was like befoIn the first volume of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson, there is a fantastic chapter about what life in the Texas Hill Country was like before electricity arrived. Every basic task was substantially more difficult: water had to be carried in buckets, clothes had to be washed by hand, water had to be boiled over an open fire, milk and eggs had to be refrigerated in ice cellars, and on and on. When power finally did arrive to this rural area—thanks in large part to Johnson’s work—it transformed daily life in a matter of years. Johnson was considered a hero, and rightly so.
But if Lyndon Johnson deserves ample praise for having helped bring electricity to his district, what does Michael Faraday deserve? For it was Faraday who first discovered the principles of the electric motor and the electric generator. If not for him, the harsh conditions described by Caro—a life of ceaseless toil, barely eking out a living—might be not just confined to a rural area in Texas, but the general condition of our species. Faraday was, in short, a historical figure of supreme importance, and his work represents a turning point in human history.
Knowing this, it is shocking to see just how humble and, in many ways, how simple his work actually was. The tools at his disposal seem, to the modern reader, almost laughably primitive. Whereas modern physicists are using a city’s worth of power to accelerate particles down a track kilometers long, Faraday was fiddling with wires and bar magnets and compasses. And yet, with such simple tools at his disposal, and with scarcely any formal education—indeed, hardly knowing any math beyond basic algebra—Faraday made contributions to physics comparable to Newton or Einstein.
The format of this book is simple. It is not, like the Principia, a unified work conceived as a final theory. Rather, Faraday reached his conclusions slowly, over years of experimental work; and this book is a reflection of his process. Starting in 1821, Faraday began publishing accounts of his experiments in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. These papers were eventually collected and published in three separate volumes, in 1839, 1844, and 1855, consisting of 29 “series” of experiments in total.
Before I go any further, I should note that I did not make my way through all three of these volumes. Rather, I bought a condensed and annotated version published by Green Lion Press and edited by Howard Fisher. Frankly, I do not have the patience or interest to fight my way through 1,500 of the original, and I doubt many others do either. I also very much appreciated Fisher’s introductory essays, without which I think I would have been quite lost (and I often was, anyway).
Remarkably, Faraday maintains a numbering system for his paragraphs throughout, so that he can refer to earlier paragraphs of previous series as easily as one might cite the Bible. This is a simple device, but it does help to reveal the unity that underpins the apparently disorganized quality of this work, as it shows how Faraday was continually returning to the same questions and refining his answers.
I have already mentioned that Faraday was unversed in mathematics. And this makes him fairly unique in the field of physics, in which equations are sometimes elevated to a level that equates math with reality. However, the more one reads of his work, the more one comes to see that, even if he eschewed quantitative reasoning, Faraday was an extremely precise thinker. Part of this is his use of diagrams, which for Faraday almost take on the role of equations in summarizing complex relationships. He is also very sensitive to language, and is constantly trying to choose words that do not carry any inappropriate theoretical baggage.
Just because this book is written in good old-fashioned English, however, does not make it easy. Often, Faraday is responding to dead controversies and in general is using both language and theories that seem strange to the modern reader. To pick a simple example, static electricity is referred to as “ordinary” electricity, since this was the most commonly encountered electricity in Faraday’s day. What is more, Faraday very often must describe a detailed experimental apparatus or procedure, and I very often found myself totally unable to picture what was going on.
Here is a fairly typical example:
A ray of light issuing from an Argand lamp, was polarized in a horizontal plane by reflexion from a surface of glass, and the polarized ray passed through a Nichol’s eye-piece revolving on a horizontal axis, so as to be easily examined by the latter. Between the polarizing mirror and the eye-piece two powerful electro-magnetic poles were arranged, being either the poles of a horse-shoe magnet, or the contrary poles of two cylinder magnets; they were separated from each other about 2 inches in the direction of the line of the ray, and so placed, that, if on the same side of the polarized ray, it might pass near them; or if on contrary sides, it might go between them, its direction being always parallel, or nearly so, to the magnetic lines of force.
I don’t know about you, but I find this to be extremely exhausting.
Not all of the book was so dense, however. I particularly enjoyed the fifteenth series, which basically consisted of Faraday and his assistants putting their hands in a tank and getting an electric eel to shock them. Science was indeed simpler back then.
But the final impression is of Faraday’s remarkable theoretical vision. Although he is an extremely concrete thinker—couching even his most speculative remarks in terms of experiments—he nevertheless succeeded in probing some highly abstract questions. Beginning with the relationship between electricity and magnetism, he goes on to consider the relationship of force to matter, to light, and even to empty space.
His work is, in short, a model for science, showing how careful observation and the judicious use of imagination can revolutionize our understanding of the natural world. Compared to the baroque mathematical models of string theorists—whose theories have yet to receive any confirmation from experiment—Faraday’s approach is refreshing indeed....more
One of my vices is the reading of advice columns. The problems of the correspondents are often so bizarre as to be beyond the imagination of even the One of my vices is the reading of advice columns. The problems of the correspondents are often so bizarre as to be beyond the imagination of even the most lurid novelists. My favorite agony aunt (as the British say) is Carolyn Hax, who writes for the Washington Post. And her advice very often boils down to one simple precept: mind your own business.
The Return of the Native is one long illustration of the wisdom of this maxim, as the entire tragedy of the plot could have been avoided if any of the major characters (and, indeed, even some of the minor ones) had simply minded their own business. From the aunt who cannot trust her niece—or, indeed, even her own son—to marry the right person, to the rejected suitor who spies, eavesdrops, and meddles, to the two principal characters—Eustacia and Wildeve—who express their dissatisfaction with their own marriage by tarnishing another’s, and finally to the titular “native,” whose love for his own country is tainted by his savior complex, thinking that he ought to “improve” his fellows.
Now, you may think that the injunction to attend to your own affairs is not exactly a profound subject for a novel. But considering how difficult it is, and how often we try and fail to do this, I think that it is worth close examination. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that minding one’s own business is a bedrock moral principle.
To mind your own business is, in one sense, a way of showing respect, by trusting that others will have the wisdom to manage their own lives. And even if another person evidently cannot act wisely, to refrain from interfering is still very often the best course. The freedom to screw up one’s own life in one’s own chosen manner is an inseparable part of having personal autonomy. In any case, even the kindest intervention can often backfire, as Hardy illustrates with the case of Diggory Venn, who has enough good intentions to pave several superhighways to the fiery pit, and who gets most everyone except himself there in record speed.
However, the injunction to mind your own business is also, potentially, a profoundly conservative one. And as with many Victorian novels—indeed, as with many stories generally—the message boils down to this: do not tamper with the social order. Except for Thomasin and Venn (not coincidentally, the two characters who have a happy ending), all of the major characters consider the Heath to be, in some way, beneath them. Whether their dreams are financial (Mrs. Yeobright), educational (Clym), or romantic (Wildeve and Eustacia), they want to, somehow, get beyond their social reality. And as often happens in stories, the result is a tragic end for them and a return to statis of the society.
I have got caught up in analyzing what I take to be the moral of this book, but I have not said anything about its quality. Unfortunately, I have to admit I found the novel to be quite mediocre. The story is full of cliches (unread letters, mistimed messages, the lover in disguise) and implausible coincidences. I think a good tragedy should show how the end result is an inevitable result of the protagonist’s personality. But with so much seeming bad luck involved in this story, the final impression is that the denouement was just a matter of blind chance.
But it must be admitted that this artificial plot was at least very exciting. Hardy dives right into to the scandalous drama of his story and he never lets up. There is hardly a breath to the ceaseless action, except for the interludes involving the Heath folk, who apparently Hardy conceived of as a kind of Greek chorus to his Sophoclean tragedy. Indeed, as the novel was first serialized in a magazine, I think the experience of reading it must have been remarkably close to that of watching a good soap opera.
Hardy’s characters are only partly successful. His women are more compelling than the men, who are rather stiff, shallow figures. But even the novel’s strongest character, Eustacia, is hampered by Hardy’s penchant for writing dialogue that is pretentious and stuffy, even in moments of great drama. Consider this sample, Eustacia’s reply to her husband during a pivotal scene:
Never! I’ll hold my tongue like the very death that I don’t mind meeting, even though I can clear myself of half you believe by speaking. Yes. I will! Who of any dignity would take the trouble to clear cobwebs from a wild man’s mind after such language as this? No: let him go on, and think his narrow thoughts, and run his head into the mire. I have other cares.
Aside from the strangely epistolary quality of this speech, it is also a good example of a certain psychological implausibility, as Eustacia at key moments withholds explanations which would materially benefit her to provide. That she does this is not a convincing consequence of her character, prideful though she may be, but it is required for the plot to plod onward.
The prose of the novel is not much better. Hardy often seems to be straining for a weighty, literary style that feels both unnecessary and false. He often, for example, includes references to history, literature, and mythology which only prove his own learning, adding nothing to the story. And he gives the impression of choosing words simply to show off. To be fair to Hardy, the writing does improve from the beginning towards the end, which the introduction to this volume attributes to its origin as a serialized novel. Yet even in the final part, we get a sentence like this:
All the known incidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and modified, till the original reality bore but a slight resemblance to the counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues.
Such an ostentatious style may, perhaps, be appropriate in a history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but it is jarring in the context of a novel about rural folks.
In the end, I think this is only a half-successful novel—certainly entertaining, but so uneven as to be ultimately unconvincing as a work of art. But I can say that Hardy would at least have made a first-class agony aunt....more
Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another.
If I were setting out to write a dissertation on an English novel, then Orlando would be
Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another.
If I were setting out to write a dissertation on an English novel, then Orlando would be one of my first choices. For Woolf has packed so much into it—reflections on gender, of course, but also her thoughts on the various ages of England, her scattered observations of history, and her opinions of famous works of literature. Indeed, my most constant impression while reading this was that Woolf had far too much fun writing it—for Orlando is simultaneously a playful joke, a thought experiment, and a long love letter (to Vita Sackville-West). But is it a novel? Certainly—and a surprisingly enjoyable one, too. For a book that (in my edition) clocks in at 160 pages, that’s quite a feat....more
Writing about nature is a perennial challenge. The fact of the matter is that it can be a bit boring after a while to, say, watch a robin hunt worms. Writing about nature is a perennial challenge. The fact of the matter is that it can be a bit boring after a while to, say, watch a robin hunt worms. And trees do not even give you that much. Nature writers have risen to this challenge in a variety of ways—by providing illuminating scientific analyses, by finding truly bizarre and obscure examples of natural phenomena, by telling heartwarming or otherwise anthropomorphizing stories about particular animals, or by poetic description and romantic reverie. Baker takes the last route.
The Peregrine consists of two parts: a short, scientific description of this predatory bird, and a longer diary of his experience tracking the peregrine falcons in his area of rural England. Baker takes quite a lot of literary liberties with this diary. For one thing, he compresses ten years of observation into a single season. And the language is nothing like plain, factual notes. Rather, this work of birdwatching becomes a strange kind of lyrical poem, rhapsodizing the painful longings of a frail man to become fully natural and to fly free.
The book’s merit, then, must be judged on aesthetic rather than informational grounds. And Baker succeeds. His prose is dense with images and heavy-laden with similes. He twists words into thick knots as he tries to convey the near-mystical intensity of his visions. The dominant emotion is one of desolution and despair. The emptiness of the landscape mirrors a kind of inner emptiness, and his fascination for the peregrine becomes an expression of a deep yearning for a richer, fuller life. It is rather sad.
I do have to admit, however, that I found the emotional register of this book to be monotonous, and the prose to be overwrought. There is not really any emotional or tonal contrast to speak of, which makes it difficult to read the book for long spells. I was fortunate, however, to have listened to an audiobook version narrated by David Attenborough, who livened up the experience somewhat. And I do have to admit that the book had an effect on me, since I went on my first birdwatching expedition (to a park) shortly after finishing it....more
My pandemic reading continues with this classic work about one of the worst diseases in European history: bub
It was a very ill time to be sick in…
My pandemic reading continues with this classic work about one of the worst diseases in European history: bubonic plague. Daniel Defoe wrote this account when the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction were looser. He freely mixes invention, hearsay, anecdote, and real statistics, in pursuit of a gripping yarn. Defoe himself was only a young boy when the Great Plague struck London, in 1664-6; but he writes the story in the person of a well-to-do, curious, if somewhat unimaginative burgher, with the initials “H.F.” The result is one of literature’s most enduring portraits of a city besieged by disease.
Though this account purports to be a “journal,” it is not written as a series of dated entries, but as one long scrawl. What is more, Defoe’s narrator is not the most orderly of writers, and frequently repeats himself or gets sidetracked. The book is, thus, rather slow and painful to read, since it lacks any conspicuous structure to grasp onto, but approaches a kind of bumbled stream-of-consciousness. Even so, there are so many memorable details and stories in this book that it is worth the time one spends with it.
The Great Plague carried off one fourth of London’s population—about 100,000 souls—and it was not even the worst outbreak of plague in the city. The original wave of the Black Death, in the middle ages, was undoubtedly worse. Still, losing a quarter of a city’s population is something that is difficult for most of us to even imagine. And when you consider that the Great Fire of London was quick on the plague’s heels, you come to the conclusion that this was not the best time to be a Londoner.
What is most striking about reading this book now is how familiar it is. The coronavirus is no bubonic plague, but it seems our reactions to disease have not come a long way. There are, of course, the scenes of desolation: empty streets and mass graves. The citizens anxiously read the statistics in the newspaper, to see if the numbers are trending upwards or downwards. And then there are the quacks and mountebanks, selling sham remedies and magical elixirs to the desperate. We also see the ways that disease affects the rich and the poor differently: the rich could afford to flee the city, while the poor faced disease and starvation. And the economic consequences were dreadful—shutting up business, leaving thousands unemployed, and halting commerce.
Medical science was entirely useless against the disease. Nowadays, we can effectively treat the plague with antibiotics (though the mortality rate is still 10%). But at the time, little could be done. Infection with the bacillus causes swollen lymph nodes—in the groin, armpits, and neck—called buboes, and it was believed that the swellings had to be punctured and drained. This likely did more harm than good, and in practice the plague doctors’ only useful purpose was to keep records of the dead.
Quite interesting to observe were the antique forms of social distancing (a term that of course did not exist) that the Londoners practiced. As now, people tried to avoid going out of their homes as much as possible, and if they did go out they tried to keep a distance from others and to avoid touching anything. Defoe describes people picking up their own meat at the butcher’s and dropping their money into a pan of vinegar to disinfect it. There was also state-mandated quarantining, as any house with an infection got “shut up”—meaning the inhabitants could not leave.
Ironically, though these measures would have been wise had the disease been viral, they made little sense for a disease communicated by rat fleas. (Defoe does mention, by the way, that the people put out rat poison—which probably helped more than all of the distancing.)
One more commonality is that the disease outlasted people’s patience and prudence. As soon as an abatement was observed in the weekly deaths, citizens rushed out to embrace each other and resume normal life, despite the warning of the town’s physicians. Not much has changed, after all.
So while not exactly pleasant to read, A Journal of the Plague Year is at least humbling for the contemporary reader, as it reminds us that perhaps we have not come so far as we thought. And it is also a timely reminder that, far from a novel and unpredictable event, the current crisis is one of many plagues that we have weathered in our time on this perilous globe....more
This play marks the end of my voyage through the dramas of William Shakespeare. It has taken me years, and even so I am still missing a couple of the This play marks the end of my voyage through the dramas of William Shakespeare. It has taken me years, and even so I am still missing a couple of the lesser-known works, such as the Merry Wives of Windsor and all three parts of Henry VI (which I am sure I will get to—eventually). Shakespeare completed this work in 1613, three years before his death, while he was in the process of removing himself from the London theater scene. He seems even to have been delegating the task of writing to his successor, John Fletcher, making these last plays rather uneven collaborations.
For the most part this play is based on pageantry. Known for having the most stage directions of any Shakespearean drama, there are many scenes that consists of an elaborate procession of exalted personages. The characterization is strikingly uneven. Catherine emerges as the most compelling and dramatic figure, though even she did not come fully alive for me. Cardinal Wolsey, the play’s villain, has nothing of the Iago’s cunning, and for the most part has not much of a personality at all—that is, until he is undone, at which point he becomes suddenly noble and eloquent, speaking beautiful lines out of keeping both with his character and his situation. The king has no consistent character whatsoever, being now lustful, now irate, not gullible, now generous.
If any theme emerges as dominant in this work, it is that of being on the way down—of losing one’s worldly position. This is when Catherine and Wolsey have their most convincing moments. Can we infer something about Shakespeare himself from this theme? It is tempting, especially considering that he was in the process of extricating himself from his London theater career. In any case, the result is an uneven play with an unsatisfying ending (a long prophecy about the coming greatness of Queen Elizabeth). One naturally wishes that Shakespeare's career ended with more of a bang....more
I have been slowly making my way through Shakespeare’s plays for years now. So it feels a little bittersweet to reach his final play, especially sinceI have been slowly making my way through Shakespeare’s plays for years now. So it feels a little bittersweet to reach his final play, especially since Shakespeare’s last act is more of a whimper than a bang. We see a man gradually growing uninterested in the stage and withdrawing himself from the theater, delegating work to his colleagues. Considering how little we know about Shakespeare the man, it is tempting to look for clues in these final works. But facts cannot be wrung from poetry, no matter how hard you squeeze it.
While Shakespeare at the height of his powers was a man preternaturally sympathetic—able to throw his mind into any person he pleased—this late Shakespeare seems to have grown disenchanted with his fellow men and women. Instead of deeply individual characters, we get baroque puppets, speaking sublime poetry with wooden mouths. These characters follow conventional motivations—love, jealousy, honor, glory—but the bard seems to go out of his way to make these goals appear vain and foolish. Thus, here we have two apparently noble souls driven mad with love after a single glance, who break all bonds of blood and loyalty to win the hand of a woman who, for her part, hardly seems to care for either of them.
We, thus audience, hardly care for either of them, too, since Shakespeare does not bother to differentiate their personalities. In any case, I bet that Shakespeare’s audience (who were more worldly than most of us, I am sure) would have found this love-at-first-site conceit just as ridiculous as we do; and this puts the play’s plot in a rather uncomfortable light. For Shakespeare seems to be saying, first, that love is based on self-delusion; and, second, that love destroys what is truly precious for the sake of what is really worthless. The two noble cousins begin the play with a bond so deep they seem to be twins. Likewise, Hippolyta describes Theseus’s profound friendship with a general, which may forever be deeper than their marriage, and her sister Emilia tells of her lost childhood friend who meant more than the world to her.
All of these life-defining bonds contrast sharply with the perfectly arbitrary marriages that take place in the play. Should we infer something about the bard’s own marital situation? Well, I seem to be breaking my own rule. Even so, this final play—uneven as it is, and tinged with a strange sort of world-weariness—is certainly not the weakest in the Shakespearean oeuvre. Indeed, if we judge the play based on its finest parts, we can see that Shakespeare’s edge was in no way dulled....more
When you do dance, I wish you A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that, move still, still so, And own no other function.
After slogg
When you do dance, I wish you A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that, move still, still so, And own no other function.
After slogging my way through the problem plays, the late tragedies, and the early romances, this play is a sweet relief. Shakespeare here returns to form with this delightful work. The play is easy to enjoy: winsome characters, pastoral romance, and a whimsical plot. I particularly liked Shakespeare’s depiction of sexual jealousy in the play’s beginning acts, as Leontes’ hysterical suspicion becomes a form of incurable madness. Here we can see how jealousy, once it has taken hold, can use the same warped logic as a conspiracy theory: the slightest supporting evidence is seized upon, and everything contrary is ignored or dismissed as a lie.
The enormous scene four of the fourth act is a particular jewel. Seldom has Shakespeare portrayed young love so convincingly. And, of course, the thief and song-peddlar Autolyclus is a comic delight. For my part, the seacoast of Bohemian and the living statue only add to the many charms of this work....more
After making one’s way through Shakespeare’s many histories, tragedies, and comedies, this play will no doubt seem anomalous. Neither tragic nor comicAfter making one’s way through Shakespeare’s many histories, tragedies, and comedies, this play will no doubt seem anomalous. Neither tragic nor comic, the play lacks the earthy humor (except in the brothel scene) and the psychological intensity (except in the recognition scene) that one normally expects from Shakespeare. It is even rather bereft of the bard’s verbal fecundity. But it does have one thing: imagination. This play tries to do something that I had never seen a play try to do before. Here, Shakespeare stages the epic tale of a man’s entire life—the sort of thing normally reserved for long poems or novels.
The result is clumsy and awkward. If it is staged, much of the play’s action must be showed as a kind of dumbshow, as an actor’s narration bridges the many disparate scenes of this play together. It is difficult to think of what else Shakespeare could have done, considering the huge span of space and time he tried to fit onstage; but the result is not exactly “dramatic.” Added to this, the beginning of the play seems not to have been written by Shakespeare himself—so inept is the dialogue, so mangled is the verse. Either that, or Shakespeare had drunk some very bad wine beforehand.
Despite all this, it is still possible to enjoy this play. Performance salvages what is dead on the page. For my part, I found the kind of nautical adventure an enjoyable experiment, almost as a kind of children’s tale or bedtime story for the stage (though the incest and the brothel scenes probably make it unfit for that audience). If this is the worst of Shakespeare’s late romances, then I have a lot to look forward to....more
It tutors nature: artificial strife / Lives in these touches, livelier than life.
As opposed to many of my fellow reviews, I quite liked this play.
It tutors nature: artificial strife / Lives in these touches, livelier than life.
As opposed to many of my fellow reviews, I quite liked this play. At the very least I found it far more enjoyable than the stiff and martial Coriolanus. Admittedly, on the page Timon of Athens is a fairly weak play. Timon is the only notable character to speak of—all the rest being wispy supporting roles—and he is not one of the bard’s more subtle creations. To the contrary, he is cartoonish in both phases of his character: the generous friend and the bitter enemy. Shakespeare, who could so convincingly show us the workings of our innermost souls, abandoned character development completely, letting Timon go from night to day with nary a shadow.
This play seems so rough and unfinished that many have ascribed some sections to another hand. I do not know about that. Presumably even the bard had his off days. In any case, while the dialogue is repetitive and boring to read, in the mouth of an energetic actor it can be quite fun—which is how I experienced the play. Timon’s immense bitterness must be performed to be palatable. And since I am myself prone to fits of vituperation, I was predisposed to sympathize with the foul-mouthed Timon. The misanthropy of this play, while exaggerated and farcical, is runs quite deep. One wonders what was happening in Shakespeare’s own life to attract him to such a splenetic rejection of humankind. ...more
In my review of Plutarch’s Lives, I noted the stark difference between that ancient author’s conception of personality, and our own. For Plutarch, chaIn my review of Plutarch’s Lives, I noted the stark difference between that ancient author’s conception of personality, and our own. For Plutarch, character was static and definable—an essence that is manifested in every decision and remark of a given person. Compare this with Montaigne’s or Shakespeare’s portrayal of personality: fluctuating, contradictory, infinitely deep, and ever fugitive. To borrow a metaphor from Oswald Spengler, the Plutarchian self is statuesque, while the Shakespearian self is more like a work of music. The first is a self-contained whole, while the second is abstract, fleeting, and morphs through time.
It is fascinating, therefore, to see Shakespeare handle a story right out of Plutarch. Shakespeare adapts his art to the subject-matter, and creates a character in Caius Marcius Coriolanus that is remarkably opaque. I say “remarkably” because Shakespeare had just finished with his five greatest tragedies, each of which has a character notable for its depth. Caius Marcius, by contrast, is a man almost in the Plutarchian mode: with a enumerable list of vices and virtues, who acts and speaks predictably, with little self-reflection. Next to Hamlet, Iago, or Macbeth, the Roman general seems almost childlike in his restriction.
Like Julius Caesar, this play is interesting for a certain amount of moral ambiguity. It is difficult to side with any of the major players. The plebeians of Rome are certainly not a mindless rabble, but they are somewhat vain and narrow-minded, not to mention easily influenced by empty words. Coriolanus himself is a superb soldier but ill-suited to anything else, whose capital vice is not exactly pride, but a certain smallness of mind. His mother, Volumnia, is scarcely less warlike than her son. Even if her counsels are good, it is difficult to see the mother-son relationship as perfectly healthy. She comes across, rather, as a kind of Roman helicopter mom, bringing up her son to be a killing machine for the glory of the state.
For me, the tragedy was not quite successful, simply because Coriolanus was such an unsympathetic protagonist—belligerent, scornful, reactionary, and often a great fool. It is a testament to Shakespeare’s art that he is not altogether hateful. As Harold Bloom says, this play is technically brilliant: in its pacing, language, and plotting. Shakespeare was certainly a professional. But if you come to Shakespeare seeking grand personalities, the work is a barren field....more
This is the third of Shakespeare’s “problem plays”—along with Troilus and Cressida and All’s Well that Ends Well—and I think certainly the greatest. TThis is the third of Shakespeare’s “problem plays”—along with Troilus and Cressida and All’s Well that Ends Well—and I think certainly the greatest. These three plays are given a special category because their genres have proven difficult to pin down. Measure for Measure, like All’s Well that Ends Well, is superficially a comedy; yet it takes place within a world with loose and uncertain values, and often causes us to scratch our heads rather than to laugh or smile.
The plot is flagrantly absurd. Vincentio, the duke of Vienna, decides to go away and leave his power in the hands of an upright judge, Angelo. Then, in secret, the duke disguises himself as a friar and sets about manipulating the other characters of the play. In this he resembles no character more than Iago; yet unlike that villain, Vincentio has no overarching goal, no consistent end. His plans are generally beneficent—arranging several marriages (including his own), and protecting a man’s life—yet still perplexing.
Surely the duke could have effected all of these goals more easily by simply remaining the duke. And, besides, the degree of deceit and trickery involved in his schemes, the blatant emotional manipulation, give us pause. He is willing, for example, to tell the woman he hopes to marry that her brother has died, just so that he can appear all the more heroic when it is revealed that it is not so. Simultaneously, he is willing to counsel the brother to prepare for death, giving him a sort of nihilistic sermon about the futility of life, even when he knows that the brother will not die. In his constant manipulation of the characters’ emotions and actions, he resembles not only Iago, but Shakespeare himself, as a kind of playwright within the play. Yet of course Vincentio’s actions, involving “real” people, are far more damnable.
The issue of morality, or the lack of it, looms large within this play. The central conflict is, apparently, whether laws should be strictly enforced, or altered by circumstances and tempered by human kindness. Yet this philosophical question is eclipsed by the play’s moral chaos—and morality itself is dissolved into a contest of trickery. Angelo tries to trick Isabella, Isabella to trick Angelo, and Vincentio to trick them all. The duke wins, not because of any moral superiority, but because of superior craftiness; and the question of whether he did as he ought becomes entirely irrelevant to the play’s implausible concluding scene.
This strange concoction of ethics and nihilism, of order and chaos, of desire and whim, makes this play genuinely absorbing, even if not wholly satisfying. It is the sort of play that makes us wonder what was happening in Shakespeare’s own life....more
Here is another of the bard’s “problem plays.” At first glance it is a straightforward comedy, with an inconvenient problem followed by a happy solutiHere is another of the bard’s “problem plays.” At first glance it is a straightforward comedy, with an inconvenient problem followed by a happy solution. But the play does not sustain such a lighthearted reading. Here, Shakespeare does his best to make the audience feel uneasy about both the means and the ends of the play’s protagonist, Helena. Her choice for a match is baffling—a man with no good qualities to speak of, who treats her with unfeeling cruelty—and her strategy to win him, though ingenious, cannot but raise some ethical reservations.
Indeed, the two partners are so mismatched—Helena, kind, good, and clever, while Bertram is arrogant, brutish, and unfaithful—that Shakespeare seems to be satirizing the very idea of love and marriage. While he is at it, Shakespeare makes sport of martial qualities, too, as he exposes the braggart Parolles as a worthless coward. In the end, there are enough lovable characters—the King, the Countess, and Helena—to balance out the knaves. Even so, it is difficult to know just what Shakespeare meant us to take away from this play....more
True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.
Alexander Pope represents an ideal of poetry which the R
True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.
Alexander Pope represents an ideal of poetry which the Romantic age almost annihilated: epigrammatic, metrical, rhyming, satirical, and unemotional. He is from the Augustan age of classical taste. This makes reading his works a curious experience nowadays, since his poems are rich in memorable lines but almost barren of keen sentiment, meditative wondering, or ardent longing. They are unpoetic poems.
Pope excels nearly every rival in his ability as a wordsmith. Endlessly quotable, technically brilliant, he wrote heroic couplets as effortlessly as Mozart composed melodies. At its best, Pope’s poetry explodes with meaning, as he hits you with one perfectly turned aphorism after another. But too much verse is a dangerous thing: the unvarying succession of iambic pentameter can easily lull one to sleep. And even sharp wit can be dull if used too often.
By common consent, Pope’s greatest poem is the “Rape of the Lock,” a mock-epic satirizing a silly quarrel in high-society. It is a charming poem. But I have always preferred Pope’s didactic works, the “Essay on Criticism” and the “Essay on Man.” The former is irresistible to someone who styles himself a critic—a magnificent credo which exemplifies all of the virtues it professes. The latter is perhaps even more replete with wonderful lines, though the optimistic philosophy of the “Essay on Man” can strike us now as jejune and shallow.
Some of Pope’s other works, most notably the “Dunciad,” are nearly unreadable nowadays. Pope loved a good literary fight, and took many opportunities to fling darts at his enemies. This was probably good fun for his contemporaries, but for a modern-day reader it is uninspiring, since she must familiarize herself with all of the literary hacks and other mediocrities that Pope saw fit to insult—and that seems to defeat the purpose....more
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