Being a Student Again

Time has a way of getting away from one.  In looking at the date of my last post, I realized that it has been over a year.  The time duration feels every bit that long.  Call it a lack of inspiration.  Call it a moving on to other things.  Call it extreme lassitude.  I'm not sure what I would call it--likely a combination of all three.  In any event, it's been a long time.  Then fate intervenes, inspiration strikes, and here we are again.

For a time at work one of my unofficial duties was sorting mail.  As much as I would try just to shuffle the pieces into their respective cubicles, occasionally I would catch a glance of what was being delivered.  One such piece of mail was a newsletter from Hillsdale College.  I don't know what drew my attention to it.  It might have been an advert for a series of books on Winston Churchill.  It might have been an advert for the subject of this post.  It's been so long I don't remember.  Certainly, I'd never heard of the school before.  Anyway, I did some checking and learned that Hillsdale hosts numerous online classes on their website.  One of the offerings--"Shakespeare:  Hamlet and The Tempest."  It definitely was of interest, and the cost (FREE) did not hurt.  I filed it away for future consumption, and then let plenty of other things get in the way.

Finally I got around to the course as a workplace diversion.  The flexibility of the job allows for some free time during the day, and the flexibility of the course fits nicely.  The courses consist of lectures, Q & A sessions with the professor, and quizzes to test mastery.  The quizzes are a very low pressure affair; even though a minimum passing score is required, retakes are permitted.  They are great for keeping the student honest.  It was an excuse for paying attention, taking notes, and feeling like a serious student again.

The lectures were interesting.  The professor, Stephen Smith, showed a personal interest in the material and did a great job conveying that through his words.  The lectures went at a fairly basic level, for me at least.  I've seen and heard quite a bit on Hamlet, and The Tempest was required reading in a college Shakespeare class many moons ago.  While the three Hamlet lectures did not provide much that was really new to me, it was a good refresh after being away from the topic for so long.  The Tempest portion (also three lectures) gave me a chance to re-familiarize myself with the play; admittedly I didn't remember much from that long-ago course.

Another feature of the course is the Q & A sessions with the professor.  Moderated by John Miller, another Hillsdale professor, they consist of short discussions about the lectures.  They were interesting additions--sometimes clarifying, sometimes adding material.

Upon successful completion of the course I received a certificate, material proof of achievement.  More than that, though, the course awakened something that had been missing for a bit--an interest in Hamlet.  It also awakened something that had been missing for much longer--the desire to sit in a college classroom and to be a student again.  Although that phase has long passed, unlikely ever to return, the Hillsdale online courses fit my current mentality and personality.  They're comfortable, convenient, and interesting; a great opportunity for anyone looking for some academic stimulation.

As a postscript to this, I started a second course, this one an introduction to C.S. Lewis.  It's incredibly interesting thus far, and it gave fate another chance to intervene.  During the most recent lecture, the professor offered a reference to Hamlet:  the C.S. Lewis work "Hamlet:  The Prince or the Poem?".  That rang a bell and sent me to my Hamlet shelf.  I found it in the book Hamlet:  Enter Critic, which I read long ago and that was the basis of many early posts on this blog. In fact, that particular Lewis work was the subject of my post on May 11, 2014.  Fate, Providence.  It's nice to be back!

Hamlet. Prince Hamlet.

One of the benefits of this blog, aside from feeding the author's inflated sense of self, is to provide a place to save Hamlet references for future use.  (I have no idea what that occasion might be.)  Consider it, then, an annotated bibliography.  This post, the first in long while, fits squarely within that descriptor.

The latest book on my reading list was The James Bond Dossier by Kingsley Amis.  I discovered it while reading a book on the early James Bond films that I had discovered in a vintage book store.  (Apply the adjective to either noun.)  Amis's Dossier is an extended essay reflecting on the Ian Fleming canon.  To this diehard James Bond fan, it really was quite a delightful read!  Never did I suspect that its path would cross with this blog.

Appendix B to the Dossier is entitled "Literature and Escape."  It opens with a paragraph-long discussion of the overriding subject of this ongoing project.  Amis was spot on with his thoughts on Bond, and he was spot on with his thoughts on Hamlet!  I reprint his comments here, for both the reader's enjoyment and the author's retention.

All literature is escapist.  Everyone at one time or another must have wanted not merely to play but to be Hamlet.  This, I suppose, is the most likely explanation for Hamlet's preeminence in so many people's minds, in defiance of its many claims to be judged the weakest of Shakespeare's tragedies.  I agree that, on consideration, Hamlet's the sort of man only a monster of egotism could want to be, but we all have our monstrous moments and they rarely bring us any permanent harm.  I agree too that there's very much more in Hamlet than we can get out of it just by identifying with its hero, but nobody, as far as I know, has cut himself off from that very much more by identifying now and again, or even a good bit of the time.

Here's to the monsters among us!

Amis, Kingsley.  The James Bond Dossier.  New York:  New American Library, 1965.  Quotation taken from page 137.

Something Old

"Start writing, no matter what.  The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on."  --Louis L'Amour

An unexpected find led to this post.  I was cleaning my apartment recently, although cleaning might be too strong a term.  I found some folders in the Hamlet collection and started sifting through them to see what was there.  I found some junk that went straight into the scrap paper bin, following a "Why did I keep that?" moment.  I found other things that weren't discoveries but rather remembrances:  "I knew I had that!"  This post's topic, however, came from the third category:  "Where did that come from?"

What turned up was an article from The New Yorker, circa November 20, 1995.  Written by David Remnick, it is entitled "Hamlet in Hollywood."  I have no idea how it ended up in my collection.  The time frame would have put me in college, so perhaps it was from the Shakespeare course that has been mentioned in previous posts.  As the article was in a different folder, though, I'm not entirely sure.  Either way, this old something became a new something, albeit 26 years after the fact.

The article describes a legal conflict over a supposedly new theory on Hamlet.  The combatants were Steve Sohmer, the one-time president of Columbia Pictures, and Mary Ann McGrail, a Boston University Shakespeare scholar.  The argument involved the origination of "a theory that the life of Martin Luther is the hidden source of the play" (66).

"Sohmer's work emphasized Shakespeare's use of the calendar in "Hamlet" and how it might provide hints of the character's relation to Luther" (68).  He contended that he hired McGrail to work with him as an assistant of sorts.  When she attempted to write her own article about the life of Luther as the basis for Hamlet, Sohmer undertook legal action.

The author interviewed both McGrail and Sohmer for their perspectives on the issue.  They take themselves very seriously.  Of course, they were embroiled deeply within the matter.  It is the interviews of third parties that provide the objective distance.  Princeton's Lawrence Danson discounts the work.  "Yes, of course Hamlet went to Wittenberg, but Marlowe's Dr. Faustus lived there, too.  What then?" (81).  What then would be David Davalos' play, Wittenberg, which was published in 2010, well after The New Yorker article.  (See 4/20/14 post).  It took the notion that Hamlet, Luther, and Faustus were familiars to great dramatic and comedic effect.  I wonder if the playwright used the work of Sohmer or McGrail as a basis for his work.

Another scholar, Peter Blayney of the Folger Shakespeare Library, shot down McGrail's notion that capitalization of animal names in the Second Quarto was somehow significant.  "[This] is extremely far-fetched.  It just doesn't sound as if she were within her area, here at least..." (81).  James Shapiro of Columbia University also seemed skeptical of the arguments.  "With enough inventiveness, almost anything can be argued about Shakespeare's plays--and most of it has been" (82).  Hearing about the legal conflict, he replied, "An intellectual-property dispute over this is hilarious.  In fact, it's sad" (82).  That statement pretty much summarized it for me.  Sensibly, both parties dropped the lawsuit and went their separate ways with their research.

Twenty-six years later, what had happened?  Certainly David Davalos' play explored the ideas that Sohmer and McGrail seemed to be attempting to develop here, but in a more literal fashion by putting Hamlet and Luther together.  What about the one-time legal combatants, though?  A search on Amazon provided a bit of an answer.  Steve Sohmer is listed as the author of several Shakespearean books.  One is a 2017 title, Reading Shakespeare's Mind.  Another is a 2007 work, Shakespeare For the Wiser Sort.  Mary Ann McGrail is listed as author of one title, Tyranny in Shakespeare (2001).  It may be a published version of her dissertation as described in The New Yorker article.  All are available for a price.  While there are synopses and reviews, none sounds interesting enough for further investigation.

And so an old magazine article on an even older play provided some enjoyment and an excuse, as Louis L'Amour put it, to start writing, no matter what.  Another chapter completed in this ongoing project.  Until the next one...

P.S.  A bonus Hamlet appearance in today's NY Times Crossword.  36 across (13 letters):  "Hamlet's dilemma...with a phonetic hint..."  That one was not too tough to figure out.  It led one to solve answers containing "habit" and "rabbit" and also "treble" and "pebble."

P.P.S.  Another clue in the same puzzle.  52 across (four letters):  "Schemer against Othello."  I've known that one for years!  (See 2/14/21 post.)

Saturday With the Moor

Another cold February Saturday was saved by the Stratford Festival.  It was a day for not even drawing the curtains.  (Sure, it might have been sunny out, but cold just the same.)  English football (albeit a bad day for Liverpool), a good novel (more on that later), and then an evening performance of Othello made for a quite pleasant home-bound day.

The Shakespearean portion of the day was courtesy of Stratford's free stream-at-home largesse.  Again, it was a wonderful gesture on their part for their south of the (Canadian) border friends.  The 2019 production of Othello was not one that I was able to see on stage, so this was a great opportunity to get caught up.

Othello was the first Shakespearean play that I studied.  It was sophomore year of high school,  Advanced English.  (Nothing in freshman year?  Nope.  Odd reading list that.)  In a year of difficult reads, many of which I might appreciate more now, Othello was the Shakespearean contribution.  Having seen the name Iago in many crossword puzzles, I finally was able to meet the source of those clues.  What stands out now was the teacher, a Jesuit priest, explaining what the "beast with two backs" was.  Honestly, I don't remember much else of our study of the play.

Two years later, having jettisoned the advanced track for a more pleasant English experience, I chose an elective on Shakespeare.  The tragedy offering was...Othello?  Why would a class cover the same play that had been studied two years earlier?  Bad planning on the part of the English Department, methinks.  That brief experience was noteworthy for the BBC film starring Anthony Hopkins as Othello and Bob Hoskins as Iago.

Forward twenty-eight years to yesterday evening.  This version of Othello was set in modern times, with characters largely in military dress--lots of camouflage.  The set design was particularly inventive.  It was a black box writ large, with backdrop lighting used to simulate scenery.  The darkness added well to the mood of the play, and the white light provided a stark contrast.  As enjoyable as it was to see it on TV, it must have been quite striking to see it live.

The cast was tremendous.  Several of them had appeared in the Festival production of The Merry Wives of Windsor (see 2/7/21 post).  Michael Blake as Othello was terrific in showing the terrible psychological and physical effects of jealousy.  Gordon S. Miller was particularly vile as Iago--a supreme compliment.  His was a treacherous, quite horrid portrayal.  (It helped that he bore a physical resemblance to someone I used to know who shared some of those unpleasant qualities.)  Amelia Sargisson's Desdemona was piteous; one could not help to feel sorry for her husband's treatment of her.  Johnathan Sousa, a personal Stratford favorite, as Cassio and Laura Condlin as Emilia were excellent as two characters snared in Iago's web.

The play had good direction and pacing overall.  Admittedly, I did find myself checking the clock late in the 160-minute running time.  Things picked up with the final scenes, though.  Desdemona's death scene was difficult to watch; it was a very realistic strangling.  In fact, it made the death scene in Hamlet seem almost comic by comparison.  The play ended on a decidedly dour note with a final fade to black.  The standing ovation given by the audience was very well deserved.

It seems that this may wrap up Shakespearean viewings for a bit, having exhausted the Stratford offerings.  I won't discount fate, though; something likely will arise.

Speaking of fate...  What about Saturday's novel?  It was Herman Wouk's A Hole In Texas.  I saw it for sale at a library used book sale and thought about it for a moment, having family in Texas (and missing visiting there).  Instead, I went to the shelves and checked the book out on loan.  I started it on Saturday morning and had it finished by the end of the day.  One line in particular stuck out:  "You were smuggled in and out in a laundry basket, like Falstaff!"  Wait!  That was last Saturday's Shakespeare.  Funny how things work out.

The Stratford Wives

A rather glum February Saturday was made considerably brighter, thanks to the Stratford Festival.  Earlier in the month, an unexpected gift arrived via e-mail inbox--free streaming access to the Festival's recent production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.  Although a frequent visitor to the Festival, this production was not one that I was able to see live.  That situation very happily was remedied!

The Merry Wives had been on my viewing list for a time.  I had read the play in college, part of a project analyzing the evolution of Falstaff.  Back then I was not savvy enough (and had not done enough outside research) to pick up on the obvious differences between the historical Falstaff and the comedic Falstaff.  Years (and additional research) later, it makes more sense.  Previous Saturdays had found me working through Shakespeare's Henriad on film.  (See posts from April 2020.)  It was only natural to finish off the Falstaff saga, and the opportunity presented itself perfectly.

Reading the cast list during the opening credits was like seeing old friends again.  Numerous actors I had enjoyed in previous Stratford trips were there.  Geraint Wyn Davies as Falstaff reprised his role from the Stratford production Breath of Kings (see 8/1/16 post).  Ben Carson, Graham Abbey, Mike Shara, and Johnathan Sousa, favorites all, featured in this production as well.

The play was an absolute delight!  Set in the 1950's, the set and music worked very well with Shakespeare's words.  Bringing the action into a modern context did not detract or distract.  The entire company did an excellent job, conveying well the play's humor.  In addition to the aforementioned actors, Gordon S. Miller as Caius was hilarious, especially with his awfully ludicrous French accent.

One glitch was the stream's captioning.  For the first act, there were no issues.  Following the interval, however, the captioning was not synced to the actors, running earlier than the spoken word.  It got to be annoying enough that I had to shut the captioning off.  Fortunately, the dialogue was still understandable without it.

And so another of Shakespeare's canon is in the books.  Hopefully the world situation will allow for this U.S. resident to visit Stratford in person again someday.  Until then, home viewing is the next best thing!

Kabuki Hamlet

A one-time Christmas gift was the DVD set of the TV series Danger Man starring Patrick McGoohan.  I've been working at it, on and off, an episode at a time, for a while now.  Tonight I fired up the penultimate episode of the series, "Koroshi."  It was strange, not quite up to par of the previous episodes, and it was in color (a first for the series).  These qualities alone do not qualify for a blog post, however.

Our hero, John Drake, finds himself investigating the death of a Japanese agent.  While on the trail, he ends up at a Kabuki theatre.  There was no warning of what was to come.  The cast members took their places.  Two were seated upstage, wearing what appeared to be royal garb.  Two downstage cast members each took sword in hand.  Something looked familiar.  The "king" upstage slipped a foreign substance into a tea (or sake?) cup.  One of the sword fighters was slashed on his cheek.  The "queen" eventually drank from the cup and fell dead, presumably poisoned.  By the time the scene was over, the king, the queen, and the two sword fighters all lied dead on the stage.  And this author was grinning from ear-to-ear.

John Drake caught it, too.  He commented that it seemed familiar, and then gave away that it was a presentation of Hamlet (well, the final duel scene, anyway).  It was unexpected for him to see it on stage, and it was equally unexpected for this viewer to see it on screen.  The closing credits identified the segment indeed as Hamlet, and each actor was noted in his role by Shakespearean character name.

Fate, coincidence--call it what you will.  It was another bit of Hamlet happenstance.  And so it goes.  One more episode of Danger Man, then on to The Prisoner.

Falling

On a few (or perhaps more than a few) occasions in this blog, the post has dealt with fate or coincidence.  I still recall when I came across the topic of this post, the novel Falling For Hamlet by Michelle Ray.  I was at an outlet mall perusing a bargain bookstore.  You may know the type.  The books are all new but discounted.  The store's sections are differentiated by genre, but there the order ends.  Books sit on shelves nearly at random--no alphabetization by author or title or anything.  Many of the books sit with only the spine showing, substantially decreasing the odds that they will be chosen.

As I wandered the shelves, my cell phone buzzed.  It was the boss of one of my jobs at the time, texting to see if I could work that evening.  Although the outlet mall was a distance from home, I texted back that I probably could make it.  I put the phone back in my pocket and then noticed the cover and title of the book that sat directly before me.  "First comes love, then comes madness."  Falling For Hamlet.  Although work did not pan out that night (I cut short my excursion and headed for home, only to find a "Sorry I got someone else" text.  I quit that job.), the day was not a total loss.  My Hamlet collection had a new member.

It took a while for the book to make it to the top of the "To Read" pile, but it finally got there.  And now it has moved to the "Read" pile.  This one is an interesting, modern retelling of the Shakespearean story.  By the author's admission, she wrote it "as part of [her] ongoing quest to make [her students] love Shakespeare" as much as she does.  Even for this reader, who has been around this block many times, it works.

The story takes place in Denmark in modern times.  Many of the characters from the original are here, although some of the names now refer to different roles.  For instance, Francisco and Barnardo are agents for the Denmark Department of Investigations, which is headed by Fortinbras.  Yorick appears only as the name of a local music group, the Poor Yoricks.  (At least he's there; alas, poor Osric was written out entirely!)  The gravediggers are not present, but their discussion regarding the nature of suicide is carried by a pair of commentators on a TV religious program.  There are some new characters as well.  They are members of Ophelia's personal circle, outside of the castle.

This novel takes Ophelia from side character to protagonist.  Told entirely from her point of view, it tells about her role in the events of the original story and their effect on her.  The bulk of the story runs in three separate accounts.  The main account is first-person from Ophelia to the reader.  There also is a third-person account of Ophelia appearing on a talk show (shown in italics in the book).  The third account is that of a transcript of the interview of Ophelia by Francisco and Barnardo (shown in a typewritten font).  Generally each chapter starts with the talk show account, moves to the first-person story and then concludes with the interview.  The tripartite structure works well, providing foreshadowing while keeping the story moving ahead.

The majority of the action in the story corresponds directly to Hamlet.  The author does create more of a backstory for Ophelia, actually giving her a private, personal life.  Beyond that, there is one major difference.  A spoiler alert might be a little late if you read the last paragraph; that Ophelia is the storyteller (and this is not a tale from beyond the grave) is a none-too-subtle hint.  The circumstances, while a bit of a stretch, work within the context of this story.  The modernization, with cell phones, closed-circuit cameras, TV programs, and elevators, is not terribly shocking.  In fact, it's nothing that is beyond what has been done in other modern versions of the original.

The duel is replaced with a lacrosse game, the annual Elsinore Academy alumni game.  The stage for it had been set with a throwaway description early in the story, namely that Hamlet knew one of Ophelia's male friends "from the lacrosse team in high school."  It leads to a strange, inventive climax, new and yet true to the original.  I wondered about lacrosse figuring into the novel, and then I read the author's biography at the end of the book.  Upon discovering that she graduated from Tufts College, the proverbial bulb lit.  Her alma mater is a well-known college lacrosse power;  I have announced several games featuring Tufts, with both favorable and unfavorable outcomes.

(Speaking of fate, as I sit typing this, there's Peter Friedman--a one-time Polonius--on my TV in an old episode of Law & Order.  See 8/21/2017 post.)

A fitting denouement, the author provides a note at the close of the book.  It serves as an explanation of how she came to write this enjoyable novel.  She summarizes it beautifully.

If you're familiar with the original, I hope this book has provided you with an entertaining twist on a great story.  If you don't know Hamlet, I encourage you to see it.  Note that I didn't say "read it."  As I say to my students, Shakespeare is meant to be performed, not read.  Do as you like...Then try another Shakespeare.  And another.  The man could tell a story.

Michelle Ray has succeeded.  It was indeed an entertaining twist and certainly a novel worth reading!