This author's two books on Lancelot are easily my favorite Arthuriana, so even though I'm not really into fiction about Shakespeare or his plays, whenThis author's two books on Lancelot are easily my favorite Arthuriana, so even though I'm not really into fiction about Shakespeare or his plays, when I was offered a copy of this book to read, I was intrigued.
It's the second in a series, but readers could start here or there--the events of the first book are thoroughly explained. Early on we discover that high school student Beth, who loves drama class and did love Shakespeare but begins this book understandably gun-shy, has been visited by Merlin. As a result, she has magical abilities.
Merlin set her on a quest in the last book, and he's back with another challenge in spite of her craving for a return to normalcy: she has to save Mercutio from permanent annihilation.
In this universe, there is the present time, the time when Shakespeare wrote his plays, and then the magical world of the plays themselves, wherein the characters are real. And among those characters is Richard III, still very evil, who is conniving to force Shakespeare to write a play about King Arthur in order to have Mordred triumph and become king.
To embark on her quest, Beth undergoes a partial gender transformation, which sparks off the meat of the book, no less than an examination of racism, homophobia, and gender-essentialism both in the plays and in their time.
Through the story, Douglas displays a familiarity with Shakespeare's work that permits this kind of fictional play with time, history, and the fantastical elements of the plays. Though these weaknesses are illustrated, overall the author's love for Shakespeare's brilliance shines clear, and she never loses sight of mimesis or exegesis--that is, what the characters within the story know, and what we, the readers, outside of the story know about history, and the plays.
One of the best threads was one of Beth's actor friends, Frank, a person of color, insisting on playing Malvolio. Presented with discomfort by his friends when he states his wish to try for that part, Frank insists that that is exactly the emotion he wants to raise in the audience--which can lead to awareness and discussion. At heart Shakespeare wrote to examine all the complexities and mysteries of the human condition, so this sort of moment in the book rings with conviction.
One of the reasons Shakespeare is still passionately read today is how extraordinarily sharp was his insight into the complexities of human nature—andOne of the reasons Shakespeare is still passionately read today is how extraordinarily sharp was his insight into the complexities of human nature—and how he managed to make poetry even of the muck of evil.
The opening chapters are worth the price of the book alone as Greenblatt gives the reader a precis of Tudor history and culture, focusing on playwrights, censorship, and the social as well as political climate.
The specifics are so enlightening. I had not known, for example, that a couple of would-be rebels against Queen Elizabeth paid for a private performance of Richard II (a play, one of them seemingly remembered, depicting the downfall of a monarch) not long before they were arrested and executed. The actors were briefly arrested, but released when they pointed out that they were paid to give their play, and knew nothing of politics. They were actors, and that was an old, out-of-fashion play.
But this and other instances of danger for artists apparently, Greenblatt feels, inspired Shakespeare to set his plays firmly in the past. Mixing geography and names and cultures didn’t matter. Bohemia could border the sea. The fanciful trappings enabled him to make his commentary on current life safely oblique (or, as Emily Dickinson wrote a few centuries after, “Tell it slant”).
Greenblatt first examines the histories, then other plays centered around tyrants, the corruption of their morals and manners, and the way they prey on the common people while using them. Slogans are so easy to create an us against them mentality: “rage generates insults, and insults generate outrageous actions, and outrageous actions, in turn, heighten the intensity of the rage.”
Sound familiar?
There is no doubt that Greenblatt had current American politics in mind when he wrote this book, which focuses on the psychotic, sociopathic, narcissistic and venal tyrants of the plays, and how and why they were defeated. He contrasts these tyrants, and the circumstances in which each rose, sending me paging through my Shakespeare time after time to reread passages with renewed insight.
Furthermore, Greenblatt incisively teases out Shakespeare’s most powerful observations on the irreparable cost of tyranny even after the tyrant is finally gotten rid of.
Shakespeare was aware, centuries ago, that the common folk cannot always be counted on as a bulwark against tyranny. Greenblatt writes, “They were, [Shakespeare] thought, too easily manipulated by slogans, cowed by threats, or bribed by trivial ‘gifts’ to serve as reliable defenders of freedom.” Shakespeare knew well that it was difficult to stand up for human decency if the threat (right now) is not directly relevant to you.
It is said that hard times make heroes, but what exactly is a hero? In examining Julius Caesar, Greenblatt pulls out Brutus’s chilling ruminations on why it was necessary to kill the tyrant.
His long soliloquy undermines any attempt to draw a clean line between abstract political principles and particular individuals, with their psychological peculiarities, their unpredictability, their only partially knowable, opaque inwardness. The verbs “would” and “might” shimmer and dance their ambiguous way through the twists and turns of a mind obsessed.
Further, Greenblatt comments on how, in this play, the violent act made in desperate attempt to save the republic destroyed it: with the death of Caesar, Caesarism emerged triumphant.
I found especially interesting Greenblatt’s commentary on that hot mess, Coriolanus. He begins the section by observing that societies, like individuals, generally protect themselves from sociopaths. But sometimes they can’t.
He goes on to talk about how, yet again, though Shakespeare sets the play safely in the distant past, it appears to be addressing urgent and immediate affairs such as food shortages and bad harvests, exacerbated by rich landlords practicing enclosure of common lands. This play begins with a food riot, and as it progresses, it underscores the scorn that the wealthy hold for the common people as they connive and fight for power and more wealth.
When they have to address the common folk, “Just lie.”
Master of the oblique angle, Greenblatt states, Shakespeare was—in an age in which you could be drawn and quartered for writing political pamphlets, or even speaking out in the wrong place at the wrong time—able to get someone on stage and tell the two thousand listeners, some of whom were government agents, that “a dog’s obeyed in office.”
Shakespeare was against violence, especially state-organized violence, and while acknowledging that tyrants will rise, his plays breathe the conviction that the best chance for the recovery of collective decency lies in the political action of ordinary citizens.
As a kid, I and my sibs had candy so seldom that I could make a pack of M&Ms last for weeks, allowing myself one a day. I’d nibble that single candy wAs a kid, I and my sibs had candy so seldom that I could make a pack of M&Ms last for weeks, allowing myself one a day. I’d nibble that single candy with my front teeth so that it took longer to enjoy, until it began to melt in my fingers.
I have the same approach to short pieces of fiction I know I’m going to enjoy, and so it was with Starlings, Jo Walton’s collection of short work.
I say ‘short work’ because it’s not merely short stories. In fact, Walton claims in the introduction that there’s only one true short story in the collection. The rest are attempts, first chapters, experiments, and then there is her wonderful poetry (including a biographical poem that alone is worth the price of admission) and a play that had me cracking up so much I startled the dog. (How I’d love to do that play in a readers’ theater reading!)
Anyway, I portioned these out over weeks, permitting myself to read only one at a time right before bed. (This was only a mistake once, when I encountered a piece so very dark in humor that it was basically extremely effective horror. To get the images out of my head I had to bring out the big guns: listening to Ralph Vaughn Willams’ In Windsor Forest and reread some P.G. Wodehouse before I dared sleep. At least it was a very short piece!)
At the end of each, Walton talks about the inspiration behind it, sometimes evaluating it, and giving the history of publication. These notes are especially interesting to fellow writers, as well as for those who enjoy looking behind the stage curtain.
What to say about the pieces themselves? It’s interesting that the ‘true’ short story that Walton picked came way after my own selection for which one it had to be. This raises the question of what exactly constitutes a short story. Each of these could spark debate on that question alone, before we get to the ideas. None of these pieces is predictable, pretty much every one of them could be called a chapter one to a wonderful novel, or else a fine example of flash fiction, or a fictional riff. Many of them could be broken up into poetry format as they are really prose poems.
One of my favorites was the short story “Turnaround,” which takes place in a restaurant over lunch on an enormous spaceship that is destined for a new planet. The sfnal elements are there, but so are the arts, as well as the impractical and sometimes delightfully absurd joys that make human life so great, such as musical fanfares announcing the newest dishes. One of the things I love about Walton’s work is the celebration of human possibility, choice, and a reveling in profligate beauty. This story evokes that, the best in the human spirit.
The voice, or tone, or mode of these pieces varies so widely. Walton is so flexible when it comes to narrative voice. The opening story, “Three Twilight Tales,” reads as if told by a storyteller over the firelight on a wintry night. The dream-world of fairy tales is evoked through prose that slips into poetry just often enough to be enchanting.
Very different is the tight, wry voice of the next piece, a very short one called “Jane Austen to Cassandra.” And different from both is the eerie tone of “On the Wall,” which is in essence a novel contained in a short piece, because once the reader figures out who this is, they know exactly where it’s going, and it stops at exactly the right moment for maximum effect.
They’re all like this, wildly different in tone and effect, and yet there are flashes of themes from her novels here and there, and glimpses of characters, for instance I thought I saw Krokus from the Thessaly novels in “What a Piece of Work.”
The collection finishes up with the play mentioned above, “Three Shouts on a Hill,” and more of her wonderful poetry.
I wish this were coming out before the end of the year, as I can think of three people I’d buy it for as a holiday gift, but OTOH there are always birthdays, ha ha!
This engagingly written, witty, and stunningly knowledgeable book took me over six months to read.
That's because, especially in the early chapters, I This engagingly written, witty, and stunningly knowledgeable book took me over six months to read.
That's because, especially in the early chapters, I kept stopping--sometimes every paragraph--in order to scramble through YouTube and every other access to film clips I could find in order to see as much of the now-obscure, once famous (and also not so famous) films, performers, and songs mentioned as I could.
Mordden has been writing about Broadway and film for many years, and it shows. His grasp of the makers and performers of show and film is masterful, effortlessly presented. Daunting, too, if one wants to get visuals and audial evidence of what he's talking about. I kept wishing that I'd encountered this text about five years from now, when such books will no doubt have hypertext links so one can pause the text and watch film clips.
Anyway, the thrust of this book is an examination of the Broadway-identified songwriters who came to Hollywood, and how they fared there. Many other musicals, non-musicals, operettas, and so forth are mentioned along the way, including vivid, fascinating biographical snips, and musically erudite analyses of famous songs and how they work. (These sent me scrambling for a musical dictionary.)
Mordden begins when film was beginning to experiment with sound. It was inevitable that someone would put music into the equation. From the surprisingly melodious Desert Song up to twenty-first century Broadway musical films, Mordden examines songwriters and teams chapter by chapter. My tastes isn't always his but I appreciated seeing them through his sophisticated eyes, especially as it's obvious how much he loves Broadway, its stars, and the people who wrote for them and directed them.
Aphra Behn was a talented, complex woman who could not be confined to a respectable domestic role, but she was not alone is writing exuberantly subverAphra Behn was a talented, complex woman who could not be confined to a respectable domestic role, but she was not alone is writing exuberantly subversive comedy of manners.
Centlivre's play first was seen in 1718, and its influence is still felt today. Later in the eighteenth century she was considered too indelicate and bawdy, but it's rollicking good fun....more
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