Quick Thoughts: 'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt

While The Goldfinch possesses moments of unmitigated joy and transcendence, it is ultimately lacking in one key facet: I cannot say I know precisely what Tartt wants me to understand after reading this book. Sure, The Goldfinch is a sprawling rollick of a novel, but it must be more than that, right? In the serialized, episodic tradition most readily associated with Dickens (to Western readers that is), Tartt delivers something broad, vast, and fantastical. Yet unlike Dickens, too much of The Goldfinch feels simply unnecessary and therefore contrived.

Many critics have quibbled with Tartt’s prose, suggesting that The Goldfinch reads like a bloated young adult novel. While I cannot disagree with these criticisms, I suppose that was her not-too-bashful intent. The book’s narrator, the hopelessly self-destructive Theo Decker, has some laudable education credentials (New York prep schools for example), yet he does not possess an unambiguously literary voice in the fashion of Nick Carraway (nor is he, by my estimation, meant to). Like his mother, Theo’s aesthetic sensibilities and voice are filtered through a visual prism, which perhaps explains the meandering, economic, and at times, trite prose. For a point of comparison simply read Tartt’s first book, The Secret History. There Tartt’s sparse prose is visible, but so is a transparent literariness that established her as a unique voice over 30 years ago. Critics that dismiss The Goldfinch for this reason fail to recognize the commitment Tartt makes to narrative coherency and verisimilitude. More often than not reading Theo is exhausting; as it should be. To her credit, Tartt presents a pedestrian voice that speaks to and represents our fraught contemporary moment, freshly peppered with emoticons, clichés, and overburdened sentimentality. For this reason I might be inclined with a wrinkle of hesitation to recommend The Goldfinch.

The 27 Play Project Volume 3: Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay by Robert Greene

Robert Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay is a robust, multi-layered historical comedy that heralds many of Shakespeare’s problem comedies such as Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure. The play begins with the Edward, Prince of Wales, bemoaning his affection for the Keeper of Fressingfield’s daughter, Margaret. Edward dispatches Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, to woo Margaret for him. In addition, Edward intends to use Friar Bacon’s magic to “enchain her love” (1.123). However, after Lacy and Margaret meet, Lacy quickly falls in love with her as well. Edward is momentarily outraged by this perceived slight, “Choler to see the traitors ’gree so well / Made me think the shadows substances” (6.129-130), but soon reconciles himself and marries Elinor, the daughter of the King of Castile.

Before Margaret and Lacey marry, she attempts to settle a dispute between two neighbors vying for her affection: Serlsby and Lambert. Margaret momentarily tempers the dispute, “Give me but ten days’ respite and I will reply, / Which or to whom myself affectionates. (10.77-78). However, Serlsby and Lambert ultimately kill one another in a duel (I discuss this point in more detail below). Later in the play, Margaret receives a letter from Lacy inexplicably denouncing his feelings. In response, Margaret decides to enter a nunnery. Before Margaret takes her vows, Lacy explains that the letter was simply a test to “try sweet Peggy’s constancy” (14.74). With little reluctance, Margaret accepts Lacy’s explanation and agrees to marry him.

Friar Bacon and his sorcery feature prominently as well. Throughout the play he completes remarkable feats of magical acumen. For example, in Scene 9 Bacon vanquishes a rival scholar, Jaques Vandermast, by instructing Hercules (Vandermast’s conjuring) to carry Vandermast back to Germany. Despite Bacon’s abilities, he is unable to complete, by his estimation, his great feat of sorcery: a Brazen Head to protect England. Bacon’s inability to remain awake in conjunction with Friar Bungay’s incompetence leads to the accidental destruction of the Brazen Head. Upon waking, Bacon realizes the destruction of the Brazen Head mirrors the destruction of his reputation, “But now the braves of Bacon hath an end; / Europe’s conceit of Bacon hath an end. (11.113-114). Later in the play, Bacon intervenes in Serlsby and Lambert’s disagreement. Through his magic glass, Bacon shows the two young men an aggressive duel between their fathers. In response the two young men fight and kill one another. Bacon feels responsibility, and pledges to discontinue the use of magic:

Bacon, thy magic doth effect this massacre. 

This glass prospective worketh many woes,

And therefore, seeing these brave lusty brutes,

These friends youths, did perish by thine art,

End all thy magic and thine art at once. (13.76-80)

The play ends with a wedding ceremony—a conservative genre custom. But despite its seeming conventionality, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay ask a series of thought-provoking questions about the power of the self. Bacon is simultaneously celebrating and derided for his sorcery, further reflecting the play’s ambivalence toward hyper-inflated goals and aspirations. Unlike Faustus and Prospero, Bacon wills his sorcery toward national stability and security, which is arguably the most conservative piece of this multi-layered play.  

The 27 Play Project Volume 2: Endymion by John Lyly

John Lyly’s Endymion is a poetically rich but dramatically underwhelming play. Lyly loosely appropriates the Greek myth of Endymion, a man who falls in love with Selena, the goddess of the Moon. While Lyly retains one of the important motifs from the mythology, Endymion’s long slumber, he liberally deviates from the mythos itself. In Lyly’s play it is Endymion who professes his love for Cynthia (i.e. Selena). In addition, Endymion’s sleep is an act of revenge perpetrated by his scorned former lover, comically characterized at the beginning of the play as “a lady-in-waiting,” Tellus. By manipulating the mythology in this manner, Lyly comfortably situates Endymion within an aesthetic of flattery made fashionable during the Elizabethan period. Cynthia—allegorically a proxy for Elizabeth—retains an all-encompassing, transcendent power that eventually frees, rather than imprisons, Endymion.

Fidelity toward one’s beliefs, in stark contrast with the visceral and sexual emotions one feels, is an important theme explored throughout the play. By his own omission, Endymion feelings for Cynthia situate him in a distinctly counter-cultural way:

O fair Cynthia, why do others term thee unconstant whom I have ever found unmovable? Injurious time, corrupt manners, unkind men, who, finding a constancy not to be matched in my sweet mistress, have christened her with the name of wavering, waxing, and waning! (1.1.34-38).

This declaration wrinkles the reader’s understanding of why Endymion loves Cynthia. Endymion is not consumed by an unsophisticated, bestial lust. Rather, Endymion’s love is better characterized as allegiance or reverence epitomized by the courtly ethos Lyly wishes to recreate and subsequently celebrate. In fact, on multiple occasions Lyly constructs a sterile thematic environment throughout Endymion that rewards allegiance over sexual conquest. In 3.4 when Endymion’s friend and compatriot, Eumenides, has the opportunity to either secure his friend’s release from the spell that causes his sleep or increase his chances for sexual conquest, he elects—after a brief moment of vacillation—to assist his friend. Eumenides is persuaded by Geron’s assertion that friendship is:

Of all things the most rare, and therefore most rare because most excellent, whose comforts in misery is always sweet and whose counsels in prosperity are ever fortunate! Vain love, that only coming near to friendship in name, would seem to be the same, or better, in nature! (3.4.142-147) 

Geron’s suggestion dismisses the power of romantic love as the primary means of stability even as this play ends with the traditional comedic motif: the marriage ceremony. Nevertheless, what one believes and what one feels are starkly different concepts with the former assuming precedent over the latter. 

But unlike the inheritors of this dramatic tradition, Lyly is not necessarily interested in dynamic character development. Cynthia’s strength, resolve, and unrelenting power fit neatly within the play’s allegorical underpinnings (and sycophantic motivations), but this at times leaves the play stale and unsatisfying. Because Cynthia’s power is so formidable, the dramatic action in the play is anticlimactic. Endymion’s eventual release from the confines of his sleep is too predictable. To be fair, complex and rich character dynamics are not Lyly’s intentions. Even though I briefly attempt to sketch a critical reading of this play’s sexual politics in the previous paragraph, such readings may overvalue what this play offers. As the play comes to a close, Pythagoras (subtle, right?) asserts, “I had rather in Cynthia’s court spend ten years than in Greece one hour,” which Gyptes, the soothsayer, follows with, “And I choose rather to live by the sight of Cynthia than by the possessing of all Egypt” (5.4.294-297). As these two lines suggest, the politics of entertaining a queen supersede any truly progressive aesthetic agenda Lyly may have envisioned. Yet, Lyly’s ornate and uniquely eclectic language infuses every moment of the play. In addition, Lyly’s use of oppositions (e.g. sex versus friendship) creates subtlety and nuance. So even if Endymion lacks the character depth and narrative complexity eventually realized by later playwrights, it is a compelling study that informs the origins of the Elizabethan dramatic tradition.          

Faith in Shakespeare's Characters

Faith in Shakespeare's characters by Dr. Kristen Poole

Shakespeare's brilliance lies in his characters. His plots were almost entirely borrowed – for instance, Hamlet and King Lear were re-makes of earlier plays; Romeo and Juliet re-tells an Italian story; the English history plays are based on sixteenth-century historiographies like Holinshed's Chronicles; the Roman plays are built from ancient sources like Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans.

Many of these stories were already known to Shakespeare's audience. If Shakespeare were a filmmaker today, he would be known as an artist who primarily re-makes classic films. If he were a singer, he would be known as one who specialises in cover songs.

So Shakespeare's audience didn't go to see his plays for the thrill of a suspenseful plot. Instead, the drive of Shakespeare's plays comes from the intensity of the characters he created. Shakespeare had a gift of perception, able to observe and comprehend human emotions and behaviour with keen insight. And he had a talent for expressing these observations with exquisite verbal precision.

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Trevor Nunn on Shakespeare and the Bible

Trevor Nunn: Shakespeare is 100 times more relevant than the Bible by Hannah Furness

Shakespeare is “one hundred times” more relevant today than the Bible, the theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn has said.

Sir Trevor, who aims to put on every Shakespeare play in his lifetime, said the Bard had “more wisdom and insight about our lives” than any religious tract.

Speaking of the influence of Shakespeare in modern life, he argued his works taught an “understanding of the human condition” not present in Holy book of any religion.

He told the Telegraph: “Shakespeare is my religion.

“Shakespeare has more wisdom and insight about our lives, about how to live and how not to live, how to forgive and how to understand our fellow creatures, than any religious tract. One hundred times more than the Bible.

“I’m sorry to say that. But over and over again in the plays there is an understanding of the human condition that doesn’t exist in religious books.”

The director, who has previously worked at the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company, has so far directed 30 of the 37 plays attributed to the Bard.

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