Amateur Reader (Tom)

Food, food is good.

Sounds like I should read "Taiwan Travelogue".

What is your usual taste for postmodern screwing around? My impression is that some people who dislike that kind of thing have been bumping into this book for some reason.

I was whelmed. There was a sufficient degree of whelming.

But otherwise, I would say, imaginatively translated. Ross Benjamin does a great job with the shifting tones.

Then here's a bit on Ben Jonosn's "Poetaster" where he savages Marston for his overwrought poetry:

What, shall they lubrical and gibbery Muse
Live as she were defunct, like punk in stews?

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It is all a fascinting travesty. Never seen anything quite like it.

The 2nd piece is about Marton's purple poetry, wonderful for those, like me, who like that sort of thing.

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I have here a couple of posts about John Marston's "Antonio and Mellida" (1599) and "Antonio's Revenge" (1600), the 1st a romantic comedy, the 2nd a bloody revenge tragedy using the same characters.

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2026/02/john...

Nice.

Thomas Dekker's <i>The Shoemaker's Holiday</i> - hire him, good master, that I may learn some gibble-gabble; ‘twill make us work the faster I think of Thomas Dekker as one of the great hacks of Shakespeare’s time, writing over a long career a large number of plays, mostly lost, t...

A bit of gibble-gabble about Thomas Dekker's livel London comedy "The Shoemaker's Holiday" (1599).

"How, merry? why, our buttocks went jiggy-joggy like a quagmire."

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This one has the Nazi book club chapter! What is not to like?

On Ben Jonson's first hit, "Every Man in His Humour":

"Oh, no: a rhyme to him, is worse than cheese, or a bagpipe."

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On Kawabata's "The Sound of the Mountain":

"The American government designated the beard a national monument; and so he could not of his own free will cut or dress it."

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With some notes here:

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Not Shakespeare should be back on schedule soon, I hope.

IN FRENCH & PORTUGUESE

L'Ignorant (1958), Philippe Jaccottet
O Hóspede de Job (The Guest of Job, 1963), José Cardoso Pires
Les mots (The Words, 1964), Jean-Paul Sartre
& the lyrics to 2 Caetano Veloso albums both titled "Caetano Veloso" (1968 & 1969)

NOVELS

Men at Arms (1952), Evelyn Waugh
The Sound of the Mountain (1954), Yasunari Kawabata
The Kindly Ones (1962), Anthony Powell
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972), P. D. James

POETRY

The Shield of Achilles (1955), W. H. Auden
For the Unfallen (1959), Geoffrey Hill

WHAT I READ IN JANUARY

NOT SHAKESPEARE
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595?), William Shakespeare
Every Man in His Humour, Italian (1598) & London (1616) versions, Ben Jonson
The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599), Thomas Dekker
Poems (???), Sir Walter Ralegh
Nothing Like the Sun (1964), Anthony Burgess

What I read in December: Elizabethan stuff, plus Percival Everett, Jules Verne, Amy Rigby, etc. etc.

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What I read in November: Elizabethan stuff but also two genuinely new novels.

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/what...

Not Shakespeare for next year - Jonson, Marston, satire, revenge With one Marlowe play left to write up, The Massacre at Paris , next week, I am thinking about what I will read in the winter and spring. ...

My next round of Not Shakespeare reading, if anyone would like to join in here or there. Lots of John Marston and Ben Jonson. I especially recommend Marston's "The Malcontent":

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/not-...

Joost van den Vondel's Baroque play <i>Lucifer</i> - from their lofty nest / They see their dreaded foe How I find books: Andrei The Untranslated posted a list of Baroque writers from Otto Maria Carpeaux’s massive História da Literatura Ocid...

"Lucifer," a classic of the Dutch Baqoque theater by Joost van den Vondel - all news to me. wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/joos...

The anonymous "Edward III" has one great act - maybe written by Shakespeare! Or not, but still it is good:

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Marlowe's <i>Massacre at Paris</i> - And so let's forward to the massacre! Saving the worst for last, it’s Christopher Marlowe’s The Massacre at Paris (1592?, published soon after), a poor play that is full of Marl...

"The Massacre at Paris" is not so good, but is it ever full of Marlowe:

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Although "Edward II" is also awfully good:

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Christopher Marlowe plays:

Dr. Faustus, the best one:
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I have neglected my self-promotion. How will I ever accomplish whatver that is supposed to accomplish?

So here come many links.

Good advice.

Next up is Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," one of the greats. Please join me if interested.

<i>Arden of Faversham</i>, an early true-crime murder farce - Oaths are words, and words is wind, / And wind is mutable. Arden of Faversham (c. 1591, pub. 1592) is a true-crime play, a dramatization of a famous forty-year-old murder case.  An adulterous wife, ...

On the surprisingly "Fargo"-like early true-crime play "Arden of Faversham":

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/11/arde...

On Christopher Marlowe's hilarious farce "THe Jew of Malta":

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