Shakespeare and performance

I can't explain why I'm addicted to studying. It's certainly not because I have an excess of free time. Nor is it because I have any grand plans for my career. In fact, asking the question 'so what are you actually going to do with your qualification?' is guaranteed to make my blood boil. It must just be for the thrill of it, for those wonderful 'lightbulb' moments when the pieces suddenly fall into place. Of course, you don't need to commit to formal study in order to learn, but there's something about those relentless assignment deadlines and formal exams that motivate in a way that nothing else can.

If I thought that I'd satisfied my desire to study when I graduated last year, I was wrong. I've toyed with Italian and photography, but without a trip to Italy to put both into practice, my enthusisasm soon waned. So here I am again, this time in the thick of an Open University course entitled 'Shakespeare and performance'. I'd looked at this course a few years ago, but did I really want to spend a whole year studying nothing but Shakespeare?

So far so good. There's something quite satisfying about immersing yourself in a particular writer. Then there's the historical context, the performance history and the joy of being able to watch DVDs and swan off to the theatre and call it 'study'. When I was much younger and studying Shakespeare, watching film adaptations always seemed to be cheating - a soft option for those who hadn't actually read the play in the first place. This course positively embraces the performance aspects. I'm sure my sixth form teacher told me there was no 'definitive' way to read a play, but it was only when I saw David Suchet play Iago in the RSC's production of Othello that I truly understood what she meant.

If there is a disadvantage to studying, it's that leisure reading gets pushed to the edges of my days. Consequently, Les Miserables hasn't been opened for a month and even Hangover Square is proceeding at a snail's pace. Still, with an essay to write on Polanski's portrayal of evil in Macbeth, I have other things to keep me happy.



3000 pages of bedtime reading!

Books we love to hate

' we forget sometimes that a vital part of loving literature is hating certain books and certain writers, just as hating Spurs is an important part of supporting Arsenal; and the embarrassing truth is that I have probably got far more satisfaction out of trying to persuade friends that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a tawdry piece of misogynistic torture porn than I have out of discussing the reasons why Wolf Hall is a masterpiece.'

This comment in Mark Haddon's wonderful essay 'The Right Words in the Right Order', really made me smile.  I'm with him all the way with the Dragon Tattoo. Am I the only one to think so?  It seems churlish to blog about books I hate, best not mention them at all. It's true though that our most entertaining book group debates have been between book haters and book lovers. It's great fun to heap scorn and vitriol on a book and equally to defend a book against its detractors.

I haven't read many books that I hate, mainly because if I hate them that much I just don't finish them at all. Consequently the books I hate are usually books I've been obliged to study. So I confess now that I hated Dracula and I never want the Count to darken my bookshelf again.

Often it's just a case of 'the wrong book at the wrong time'.  Books need to be approached in the right frame of mind or at the right stage of life. Reading Camus' The Stranger as a seventeen year old was a revelation. I'm scared to reread it now for fear it leaves me cold and loses its place on my 'Greatest Books' list. It's not a risk I'm prepared to take.

Which books do you love to hate?

Heart of Darkness

He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath—"The horror! The horror!"

The Roi des Belges, the steamboat
commanded by Conrad on the Congo in 1889

Twenty six years ago I began my A Level English Literature studies with Heart of Darkness.  As soon as I'd finished the book I turned back to the start and read it all over again.

Now it's the final text of my English Literature degree. I've reread it several times over the years since, as a novella, it's just the right length for a Sunday afternoon indulgence. Each time I read it, I find more to admire.

Marlow, the narrator for most of the book, recounts his journey as the captain of a steamboat down the Congo into the 'heart of darkness' in search of the infamous Mr Kurtz.  Conrad's vivid descriptions are based on his own experiences of the Congo and I'm never sure what is most terrifying, the oppressive jungle or the assortment of macabre colonists he meets on the way.  From the old women knitting ominously in the company office, to the immaculate Accountant or the horror of Kurtz himself, we see that the darkness is spiritual just as much as physical.  These are the 'hollow men' that inspired T.S. Eliot's poem.

The Nigerian author Chinua Achebe attacked the book as racist. Whilst Conrad is critical of European colonialism, Africans in the book are dehumanized and, at best, described as noble savages.

I can't disagree with Achebe's criticism, but as a work of immense power and a vivid account of the effects of colonialism, I can't think of a better read.

The trouble with studying literature

... is the sense of guilt that stops you reading for pleasure.

Take today, for example.  I should be writing an essay on Germinal and Far from the Madding Crowd.  I've done the reading, taken notes and started one of my chaotic mind maps that usually transform themselves into a well structured argument. I have most of the salient points, and plenty of examples, but I can't quite get to the heart of the matter.

In my defence, I am recovering from a vile sickness bug and have barely left my bed since Saturday.  Yesterday I spent all my waking hours in the company of Radio 4. From Poetry Please to Gardeners' Question Time, via trading with Iran and the omnibus edition of the Archers, it's remarkable what you can learn.

So for today at least, I'm pleading for compassionate leave from literary studies to read The Fault in our Stars, as recommended by one of my Open University friends.  After all, it's OK to play truant once in a while, isn't it?

Middlemarch take two

Middlemarch began as two separate books, the story of Dorothea Brooke in one and the young doctor Lydgate in the other.    However, it was only when Eliot combined the two, that the project that became Middlemarch really took off.

I began Middlemarch with some trepidation.  This was the book, arguably the greatest novel in the English language. This was the one I couldn't possibly not read and still say that I was a true student of English literature.  And yes, the combination of January blues, a new job and an overload of literary criticism did nearly finish me off.  But now the dust has settled, I can comfortably say 'hat's off' to George Eliot.

When I began the book, I fully expected Dorothea to hold my centre stage. 'Yes, yes', I thought, 'that's all well and good, but what about Dorothea?'  But as the characters developed and the 'web' of Middlemarch society became clear, it was Lydgate who captured my imagination.  For me, the story of Lydgate does everything a novel should.  He arrives in Middlemarch, young  and idealistic. Here's a man who's going places, someone who's going to make a difference not just in this country town, but also the world of medicine.  But, as the narrator reminds us, we all have our flaws and society acts upon us too. Lydgate has an eye for a pretty woman and the finer things in life.  After an ill advised marriage he becomes embroiled in a local scandal and never lives up to his great expectations.  Eliot draws the characters well and weaves a web around them.  She reminds us of the ways in which an individual's actions create ripples in our communities and ultimately touch us all.