February 2019
Another quiet Shakespeare month but not
without its highlights. See the report below.
But first, as always, I appeal to
visitors of this blog - Shakespeare Calling – the book is
available for purchase. Please help promote the
book by buying it, of course, and telling your friends about it, by liking and
sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Bokus…. And please encourage
your local book shops and libraries to
buy it. Thank you! Your support is needed to keep this project alive.
Available for those of you in Great
Britain and Europe on this site:
Also
available on http://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Calling-book-Ruby-Jand/dp/9163782626/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436073737&sr=1-1&keywords=Ruby+Jand+shakespeare+calling
Or
in Sweden
or
Adlibris. Or contact the publisher info@vulkan.se
Shakespeare sightings:
- In Radical Tragedy by Jonathan Dollimore the author deals with Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear and a few others but being a Shakespeare freak I wish the whole book had been about Shakespeare.
- In Happiness by Aminatta Forna, Quell, the friend and colleague of trauma psychiatrist Attila, muses that they are ‘the “somebody” people who have no bloody intention of doing something themselves mean when they say somebody must do something. I blame books, films, all that nonsense…. There’s always a bloody hero who makes it all good. At least in Shakespeare the whole lot die in the end. Lear is wonderful for that. It’s the reward you get for suffering through it. That’s why there’s always so much applause.’ Attila: ‘In the Comedies everything works out.’ Quell: ‘See what I mean.’ Good one, Quell! A brilliant book all the way through.
- In Practicing New Historicism by Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, in discussing how an anecdote may reflect reality reference is made to Owain Glyndwr in Henry IV Part 1 where he makes the claim, ‘I can call spirits from the vasty deep,’ to which Hotspur replies mockingly, ‘Why so can I, and so can any man, but will they come when you do call for them?’
- In Space Opera by Catherynne M Valente in which there have been a lot of galactic wars, someone had written sonnets that would make Shakespeare want to give up and go back to glove making. Later someone is reciting poetry: Quoth the Raven, to be or not to be, that is the question…in form how like an angel…’ Still later some characters were trying to remember Shakespeare’s sonnets. The novel was amusing at times but generally it wasn’t Shakespeare.
- Clara is talking to a colleague about planning their Shakespeare class and the 12th Doctor thinks he’s her boyfriend. He’s wrong.
- ‘Macbeth shall sleep no more.’ The 12th Doctor says that sleep is blessed when, in the 38th century, sleep has been made redundant so that people can work more.
Further since last time:
- Read aloud with Hal: Love’s Labour’s Lost. A text will come next time.
- Watched: Love’s Labour’s Lost, the Branagh version.
- Saw: Macbeth with Framteatern in Hjorthagen in Stockholm. A very interesting interpretation with bits of Ionesco and Brecht. Well done!
- Finished reading: Radical Tragedy by Jonathan Dollimore in which he analyses the radical politics of some of Shakespeare’s plays. It’s quite exciting.
Posted this month
- This report
Shakespeare Calling – the book is promoted by
Read
more about my alter ego’s books on:
- https://themerlinchronicles.wordpress.com/ruby-and-shakespeare/shakespeare-calling-the-book/
- https://themerlinchronicles.wordpress.com/ruby-and-shakespeare/spoiler-merlin-and-shakespeare/
