Book Note: Malvolio's Revenge

Masson, Sophie. Malvolio's Revenge. New York: Ember, 2012.

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The last book I read by Sophie Masson was The Madman of Venice (for which, q.v.). Indeed, I once taught it in a course I developed called "Modern Shakespearean Fiction."

I ran across this one in an essay for the most recent Shakespeare Association of America Convention. From the title, I thought it might be a sequel to Twelfth Night, and it does have some elements of that, but it's more of a mirror novel, but with a twist.

The story involves a touring troupe of actors putting on a play entitled Malvolio's Revenge. They end up in New Orleans. The year is 1910. There's much witchcraft, mystery, and intrigue.

Because of the mystery and intrigue, I don't want to say too much about the plot—spoilers, you know. But I'll provide a few sample pages—particularly geared toward the plot of the play-within-the-novel.

The first gives us the troupe's first sight of a Louisiana manor house called . . . yes, you can probably guess it . . . Illyria:

Later, we learn a bit more about the play:

I thought the book had a good sense of setting and tone, and the plot is intriguing. We don't get as much of the play-within-the-novel as I'd like—I'd like to learn more of the vision of the afterlife of Twelfth Night that the novel plays with.

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Shakespeare in The Flintstones

"Curtain Call at Bedrock." By George O'Hanlon. Perf. Alan Reed, Jean Vander Pyl, and Mel Blanc. Dir. Joseph Barbera and William Hanna. The Flintstones. Season 6, episode 20. ABC. 18 February 1966. DVD. WarnerBrothers, 2012.

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In an episode of The Flintstones close to the end of its run, our Bedrock buddies put on their production of a Shakespeare play.

In its usual style, the name has been altered to fit the paleo setting. Thus, we have Romeorock and Juliettestone as the play.

The plot involves Fred Flintstone objecting to playing the lead role of Romeorock—even though he knows all the lines and is adequate in putting passion into them. At least, he's more adequate than Barney Rubble, who is tagged to play the role.

Barney keeps forgetting his lines. And when he does deliver them, he does so very monotonously. The controversial intervention of the Great Gazoo solves the former, but it can't do anything about the latter.

I've compiled some clips to give you a sense of the episode, which had a surprising number of lines from Shakespeare in it (and one reference to public speaking majors):

To avoid spoilers, I'm not showing you anything from the actual performance at the end of the episode—you'll have to seek that out for yourself (though the image that heads this post may give you a clue as to how it works out).

There's a Season five episode (episode 11, for those keeping score) titled "Dino and Juliet," but I suspect that its use of Shakespeare is much more generic.

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Links: The Episode at IMDB.

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Book Note: Kino & Teresa

Lujan, James. Kino and Teresa: A Play in Two Acts set in New Mexico in the Years after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, after the Spanish Re-Conquest of 1692, Based on Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. Lexington: Native Voices, 2005. Post-Production Draft.

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At the 2018 Shakespeare Association of America convention, I learned about Kino and Teresa, a Native-American play that retells the story of Romeo and Juliet.

I don't know much about the period 1680 to 1692 in New Mexico. I know John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel was published in 1681, but that's not exactly relevant here.

The play is set in a Spanish town with two groups of Pueblo peoples: those who are living peaceably in the town (though they are subject to racist attitudes) and those who are living outside the town and who are suspected of plotting against the Spaniards.

The play stays very close to Shakespeare's original—sometimes seeming to proceed almost speech-for-speech.

I'll give you two samples (click on the images to enlarge them). Here's one from early in the play. It's setting things up . . . and then working into the opening "Do you bite your thumb at us?" exchange:

And, since I know you're going to ask, here's how the balcony scene plays itself out:

Bypassing the "wherefore" conundrum, we get "O, Kino, Kino! Why have you come into my life, Kino?"

The play provides an intriguing setting for its retelling of Romeo and Juliet, but it may stay a bit too close to the original to provide a depth of commentary on the cultures involved in that setting. But I'd love to see it in production—that might bring the cultural elements to the foreground.

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Book Note: As I Descended

Talley, Robin. As I Descended. New York: HarperTeen, 2016.

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As I Descended is a young adult novel that is derivative of Macbeth. Its title comes from a question Macbeth asks not long after the murder of Duncan.

This version of the plot is set in an upper-crust boarding school with a history of ghosts and supernatural activity. Indeed, our Macbeth analogue is tempted into action when a Ouija board says "Usted conseguirá lo que más desea" (20)—you will have what you most desire.

The novel generally follows the plot of the play, but the characters have been changed along with the setting.  Our Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are Maria and Lily, a lesbian couple. Duncan is Delilah, the top student and soccer player. The Kingdom of Scotland is the college scholarship for which they're competing.

All in all, it's a compelling read, but it does take agency away from the characters and give it to a myriad of ghosts, figures from folklore, and other supernatural creepy things. Some sample pages follow.  Note: The extracts below are not appropriate for all readers.

The first encounter with the supernatural elements in the novel:

Maria starts to realize that the spirits are telling the truth:

Lily persuades Maria to put drugs in Delilah's glass so that she'll test positive on the upcoming drug test and lose her chance at playing on the soccer team or winning the scholarship:

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Book Note: Exit, Pursued by a Bear

Johnson, E. K. Exit, Pursued by a Bear. New York: Speak, 2017.

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In Exit, Pursued by a Bear, we're off to cheerleading camp for a Winter's Tale retelling—for the first part of the book.

Hermione and Leo have been a couple, but he's starting to become jealous—and not just of her and other guys. He's also jealous of her ideas and her cheerleading performance.

But things suddenly change.

Then, during a fireside camp activity, Hermione is administered a "date rape" drug and is raped. She wakes up in the hospital, uncertain of what happened or who did it. The rest of the novel addresses the aftermath—including determining who was responsible and how he did it.

The novel deals with those deep issues in a sophisticated way, not pulling any punches with the serious nature of the crime and its consequences.

It's not exactly my cup of tea, and it does deviate from Shakespeare's plot after following it for a while, but it's an interesting novel that opens doors for conversation.

Here's an extract from relatively early in the novel so you can get a feel for it.

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Book Note: New Boy

Chevalier, Tracy. New Boy. London: Hogarth Shakespeare, 2017.

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Hang on tight, everyone, this may take a while. This will be a roundabout way of talking about Tracy Chevalier's New Boy, but it's one way of getting my point across.

Have you heard the music of Alison Krauss? She's astonishing. She's won twenty-seven Grammy awards—twenty-seven!—and she's recorded tons of amazing music. She's even released an album with Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin fame.

I trust you're following me so far. We have an amazing performer who is known for an incredible singing voice.

Have you heard her sing "Ghost in this House"?

Let's all take a quick listen:

Listen to that astonishing voice. It has an unbelievable clarity to it. Listen to the "up" and the "down" in the lines "I don't keep this place up; / I just keep the lights down." You can slice that note anywhere you want and you'll get exactly the same segment—it's beyond comprehension. It's like a giant salami of sound, cured to perfection.

So . . . amazing performing . . . incredible voice.

But what she's singing is little more than drivel. The melody is great; the voice is superb. But the lyrics leave an enormous amount to be desired. I listen to the song entirely because of the voice.

Note: For a better marriage of voice, melody, and lyrics, listen to Alison Krauss sing the Beatles' "I will."  

Another Note: I have the same complaint—as seemingly-unthinkable as it might be—about Adele. She needs to cover more Dylan, sing more gospel numbers, or do the Cole Porter Songbook. Put that voice to better use, Adele, than singing codswallop like "Rumor Has It." 

I told you that to tell you this.

Tracy Chevalier's New Boy is very well-written, has an excellent concept involving race, and presents a number of intriguing voices.

But it just doesn't work.

The primary reason for that is its setting. The plot of Othello is played out in the grade-school classroom. That's a place for jealousies and rivalries, of course, but the idea of Dee "going with" Casper behind Osei's back lacks gravitas, to put it mildly. I suppose a handkerchief is a light enough object, so the idea of a strawberry pencil case replacing it isn't too far off. But the rest of the plot does not work in the setting, however well-written it might be.

Here are a few sample pages, starting with Dee's first lie to Osei.

Ian (our Iago analogue) tempts Osei in this section:

Finally, Osei lashes out at Dee:

Again, the book is well-written and interesting, but, all in all, it doesn't succeed.

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Bonus: Alison Krauss singing "I Will":

Book Note: Paint

Tiffany, Grace. Paint. Tempe: Bagwyn, 2013.

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Grace Tiffany has written a number of historical / biographical novels about Shakespeare. Witness her Will: A Novel (for which, q.v.) and her Shakespeare had a Daughter (for which, q.v.).

In Paint, she takes on the mystery of the sonnets, telling the story of Emilia Lanier, the woman some people name as the Dark Lady of the Sonnets.

Frankly, I'm more interested in Shakespeare in Star Trek than in theories about the Dark Lady—though they do sometimes overlap (for which, q.v.). But this novel is well-written and fairly interesting.

I'll just give you a quick sample from the first third of the novel and let you decide if it's your cup of tea or not.

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Book Note: The Shakespeare Stories

Matthews, Andrew. The Shakespeare Stories. Illus. Tony Ross. Croydon: Orchard Books, 2015.

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This delightful collection of sixteen Shakespeare plays retold for early readers has only recently come to my attention.

These are more than fabulous introductions to the plots of the plays. Each one has a brief essay at the end that opens up some of the questions raised by the play in question.

And they're illustrated by Tony Ross, who is deeply influenced by Quentin Blake (who illustrated many of the Roald Dahl books). I find the illustrations to fit the plots and their retellings perfectly.

Let me show you what I mean—and, just so you know, the books are available individually as well as in the box set pictured here, so if you just need the Hamlet, you can get it.

Speaking of Hamlet, here's The Shakespeare Stories' take on it:

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Matthews, Andrew. Hamlet: A Shakespeare Story. Illus. Tony Ross. Croydon: Orchard Books, 2015.

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I'm very fond of the Hamlet for its illustrations and its clarity of plot presentation, but it does reveal one critique I have of all the stories: it needs more Shakespeare! I know that they're designed for early readers, but Shakespeare has many passages that are clear and comprehensible, and working those in would provide a terrific foundation for kids reading the plays later. couldn't they work in "to be or not to be" in the section that provides Hamlet's POV during the big soliloquy?

But let me give you a substantial portion of this retelling of the play. Each retelling has a brief dramatis personae, so we'll start with that, and then we'll get Hamlet's most famous soliloquy and some interaction with Ophelia.

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Matthews, Andrew. The Tempest: A Shakespeare Story. Illus. Tony Ross. Croydon: Orchard Books, 2015.

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We can turn to The Tempest quickly—for two main reasons. First, I like the way Caliban is presented. He's a monster, but a sympathetic rather than a scary one. Second, the second spread below shows that the books do incorporate quotations from Shakespeare—but not as part of the retelling . . . just as interludes or epigraphs.

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Matthews, Andrew. Twelfth Night: A Shakespeare Story. Illus. Tony Ross. Croydon: Orchard Books, 2015.

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I wanted to provide a sample of the short essays as well, so here is the one for Twelfth Night, which I thought was just right for opening questions about the play—getting readers to start thinking about what they've just encountered in a retelling and preparing them for what they may encounter in a future, fuller version of the play.

All in all, these are highly recommended additions to family libraries, school libraries, and personal libraries. And they make fantastic gifts from Shakespearean aunts and uncles to potential Shakespearean nieces and nephews.

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Book Note: Queen Lear

Conley, Ellen Alexander. Queen Lear. N.p.: N.p. 2013.

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It's another self-published Shakespeare novel!

This time, I'm not reading it all the way through. I read the opening, skimmed a bit, found it to be not too compelling and too full of easy profanities, and sent it back to the library.

But I'll also call your attention to it so you can either grab it (if it's your cup of tea) or avoid it (if it isn't).

Letty Lear is a real estate mogul who divides her empire between her three kids (and their kids). Then things become complicated, though the plot from there on doesn't closely follow Shakespeare's.

In any case, here are the first few pages—with some censored words.

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Book Note: Peril at End House

Christie, Agatha. Peril at End House. New York: Bantam, 1988.

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I'm sure Dame Agatha Christie was asked—far more often than she liked—where she got the ideas for her novels.

I think I can answer where she got one of the ideas in Peril at End House, a novel from the early 1930s.

Actually, it's Hercule Poirot's idea, but I imagine Dame Agatha had something to do with it.

I'll tell you the plot point and then provide the text to support it.

In the novel, several attempts have been made on the life of Mademoiselle Nick Buckley. After the last, Hercule Poirot has put her in a private hospital with strict instructions that she should see no one but him and Hastings and that she should eat no outside food. Unwisely, she eats a chocolate that she thought was sent by Poirot himself and becomes very—but not dangerously—ill.

That's when Poirot has the idea. See if you can figure out where he may have gotten the idea. It starts about halfway down page 142 below (click on the images to enlarge them):

Where could he have thought of such a thing?

I'll just provide you with a quick speech from Friar Francis in Much Ado About Nothing:

                                            Pause awhile,

And let my counsel sway you in this case.

Your daughter here the princes left for dead:

Let her awhile be secretly kept in,

And publish it that she is dead indeed. (IV.i.200-04)

Poirot's motives are a little different—he wants to smoke out the attempted murderer—but the plot is the same!

I'll let you read the novel to determine whether the end is more like Much Ado's or Romeo and Juliet's.

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"Et tu, UNW?": Julius Caesar at the University of Northwestern

Julius Caesar. Dir. Dan McLaughlin. University of Northwestern Theatre. St. Paul. 26 April—5 March 2018.

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We all remember the triumph of the delightfully Philostrate-heavy Midsummer Night's Dream (for which, q.v.). And we were delighted with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), especially its promotional material (for which, q.v.).

Now The University of Northwestern—St. Paul turns its battalion of magnificent thespians to tragedy in a production of Julius Caesar.

I haven't seen the show, but I've met with the director a few times, and I think the play will be redolent with interesting directorial decisions.

The show starts tonight. If you're anywhere in the Twin Cities area, grab your tickets and go!

Update: Here's an episode of the vlog for the show!

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Links: Purchase Tickets Here.