James Brown

R J Smith does not have to explain why his big new biography of James Brown is such a showstopper. This book’s sparkle speaks for itself, as does Mr. Smith’s ability to take on his screaming, moaning, kinetically blessed, unbeatably shrewd subject. It takes a nervy authorial voice to describe James Brown with anything better than awe, mimicry or condescension. It takes a prescient writer to look at a picture of 9-year-old James Brown and see the boy who is father to the man: “mouth unsmiling, the head tilted at an angle that sends a message — got something for me?”

-- Janet Maslin at The New York Times

I am so out of the know and uncool that I thought James Brown was still around, still twirling and rocking and beating out those rhythm and blues, like the Rolling Stones and those guys, or have they ended too? I think I will treat this as my obit for the man.

( Rest of Book Review )

James Brown

R J Smith does not have to explain why his big new biography of James Brown is such a showstopper. This book’s sparkle speaks for itself, as does Mr. Smith’s ability to take on his screaming, moaning, kinetically blessed, unbeatably shrewd subject. It takes a nervy authorial voice to describe James Brown with anything better than awe, mimicry or condescension. It takes a prescient writer to look at a picture of 9-year-old James Brown and see the boy who is father to the man: “mouth unsmiling, the head tilted at an angle that sends a message — got something for me?”

-- Janet Maslin at The New York Times

I am so out of the know and uncool that I thought James Brown was still around, still twirling and rocking and beating out those rhythm and blues, like the Rolling Stones and those guys, or have they ended too? I think I will treat this as my obit for the man.

( Rest of Book Review )

Hamlet (2,2) A Note (Timeline)

Reorienting myself in “Hamlet”, I came to realize that I needed to straighten out my understanding of the timeline. It helps to be clear on how much time lapses between scenes. In particular, in my previous readings, I missed entirely how much time had passed since Hamlet talks with the ghost and when we start act two of the play, which begins with Polonius sending his servant to France to spy on his son Laertes.

First, let us nail down the beginning of the calendar with respect to the death of the elder King Hamlet and the remarriage of Gertrude. This is plainly given to us in Hamlet’s first soliloquy:

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

So, King Hamlet died two months before the action of the play begins, and I take it that the marriage is fast upon the beginning of the action. From this point on, I lazily took the action to be continuous. However, Rosenberg wakes me up to the fact that two more months pass after Hamlet sees the ghost and before the action of the play resumes with act two. As he points out, this is rather clearly given, too, in the Mousetrap scene between Ophelia and Hamlet:

OPHELIA

You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET

Who, I?

OPHELIA

Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do
but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my
mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

OPHELIA

Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

Somehow this information never registered with me, so much the scholar am I! It does make more sense that Polonius would wait a little while before sending a spy on his son, rather than doing so on the next day or so. It also makes more sense that Claudius and Gertrude would be getting a little desperate about Hamlet’s condition, so as to call on Hamlet’s old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to fish for an answer. This additional two months also helps explain why there is so much stress about Hamlet delaying on his revenge.

More importantly, this extended timeline allows more play for the theme of Hamlet’s madness, whether feigned or real, or partially feigned and partially real. On this point, I have made another correction on my reading, but we will save that for next time.

Hamlet (2,2) A Note (Timeline)

Reorienting myself in “Hamlet”, I came to realize that I needed to straighten out my understanding of the timeline. It helps to be clear on how much time lapses between scenes. In particular, in my previous readings, I missed entirely how much time had passed since Hamlet talks with the ghost and when we start act two of the play, which begins with Polonius sending his servant to France to spy on his son Laertes.

First, let us nail down the beginning of the calendar with respect to the death of the elder King Hamlet and the remarriage of Gertrude. This is plainly given to us in Hamlet’s first soliloquy:

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

So, King Hamlet died two months before the action of the play begins, and I take it that the marriage is fast upon the beginning of the action. From this point on, I lazily took the action to be continuous. However, Rosenberg wakes me up to the fact that two more months pass after Hamlet sees the ghost and before the action of the play resumes with act two. As he points out, this is rather clearly given, too, in the Mousetrap scene between Ophelia and Hamlet:

OPHELIA

You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET

Who, I?

OPHELIA

Ay, my lord.

HAMLET

O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do
but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my
mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

OPHELIA

Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

Somehow this information never registered with me, so much the scholar am I! It does make more sense that Polonius would wait a little while before sending a spy on his son, rather than doing so on the next day or so. It also makes more sense that Claudius and Gertrude would be getting a little desperate about Hamlet’s condition, so as to call on Hamlet’s old friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to fish for an answer. This additional two months also helps explain why there is so much stress about Hamlet delaying on his revenge.

More importantly, this extended timeline allows more play for the theme of Hamlet’s madness, whether feigned or real, or partially feigned and partially real. On this point, I have made another correction on my reading, but we will save that for next time.

So True

So True