How to Survive a Renaissance Drama

I got a particular kick out of this, since I wrote my undergrad senior thesis on the clowns and fools in Shakespeare's comedies. Even though I'm partial to Renaissance comedies, pretty much all of that is true, in a funny, irreverent way.

I've been away for a couple of days, and I've been reading The Far Pavilions-- a review will be forthcoming. I also need to go catch up on my blog reading...

Comments

Amanda said…

O yay! I just heard about The Far Pavilions and added it to my to-read list. I'd love to read your review!

December 12, 2008 at 11:43 AM

Anonymous said…

Thanks for the link :)

Myself, I prefer the tragedies to the comedies -- most of the time, I think they're funnier -- maybe you should write the comedic counterpart!

December 12, 2008 at 12:52 PM

Michele said…

I'm hoping to read The Far Pavillions for the January HF Online group, but that's a whole lotta pages, isn't it?? :)

December 12, 2008 at 7:29 PM

Ania said…

Heh heh... good one! Reminds me of the movie "Stranger than Fiction" when Dustin Hoffman's character is trying to figure out what kind of a story Will Ferrel's (sp?) character thinks he's in.

December 12, 2008 at 9:23 PM

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...

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