Few days ago I came back to check the date of the last post on this blog, and realised that it has been a year and a few days since I started my Shakespeare project in earnest. And I still haven’t quite finished, as there’s one more play he contributed to to get through, and the sonnets, and Venus and Adonis. And that mystery play that may or may not have anything to do with Shakespeare.
Soon. I promise.
I may even throw in few thoughts about the things I have seen seen in the last month or so, things that I never got around to writing about on this blog – my first live Wagner experience with the ROH Meistersinger (hint: it lasted a long time), the ill-fated second trip to see Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the long trek to Dulwich to see their exhibition of Vanessa Bell’s paintings and the fabulous train ride there, and the ballet in the evening. See, I have been busy. Really. Almost.
After I finished at the end of 2016, lots of friends asked what will I do next – all of Chaucer perhaps, the complete Marcel Proust? I’m actually going to stick to Shakespeare for a bit longer, slowly prodding my way through the secondary literature as well as the works still left to cover. This spring I have managed to read more than for a long time, trying to force myself into the reading rhythm of the old, picking up books I’d probably normally read (I morbidly enjoyed the book about disappearance of Lucie Blackman, for example), finishing things that have been lying around untouched for months, vaguely despising myself for all those hours spent playing Inside Out Thought Bubbles (suitably brainless post-work pursuit, and 100% addictive I’m afraid – the only way to stop is to delete app) and browsing Netflix. It’s sad an embarrassing, really.
At the moment I’m reading Harriet Walter’s Brutus and Other Heroines; a sort of performance diary / character study / feminist reading of Shakespeare’s plays. Last year I bought a whole pile of books, with great enthusiasm, and then realised that while I was reading the plays, I rarely had time to touch them. Walter is my first pick from that pile, and at some point I’ll post a round-up review of them lot. As soon as I can stop procrastinating, I’m also planning on tackling the complete Virginia Woolf (come summer proper – summer for me is the best time to read Woolf), and finally finishing my read-through of Dorothy L. Sayers. If only I could bring myself to hit delete on that bubble shooter now…
Shakespeare for absolute beginners 