Reading Update

The Apocrypha

A follow-on to my years-ago reading of the Bible. I did recognize the the stories of Judith and Susanna, but I reached peak entertainment with Tobit, where Tobit’s son Tobias goes off to collect some of Tobit’s money from another city, only to end up marrying Sarah, who keeps marrying guys who get demon-killed during the wedding night. An angel intervenes, all is fine, yada yada, but the thing that got me was when Tobias is like sweet, okay, let me go home and let my parents know everything is chill, and his father-in-law is like. No. You must stay here a whole fortnight in celebration. So Tobias’s poor parents back home are like wow...our son is dead probably...we are very sad...until Tobias finally shows up to clarify things.

Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne

Book covering seven distinct eras of Paris, from the 12th century to the mid-20th century. Probably not the best pick for someone who didn’t know much French history — frequent visits to Wikipedia were made — but informative nonetheless. Has the foibles one would expect of a book written by an old British guy. (E.g. opening the book saying London is a dude, NYC is ~ambiguous~, and Paris is certainly a woman + describing some lady as seducing her own father in a way that made me go “hmmmm”).

The Importance of Being Young At Heart by R. Zamora Linmark

Ken Z is a teenager living in the Pacific island nation of South Kristol, about to graduate high school and obsessed with Oscar Wilde. He’s spending an afternoon bunburying in a fancy mall when he runs into Ran, a guy his age from South Kristol’s richer more militaristic neighbor, North Kristol. Thus starts a whirlwind romance.

I was optimistic at first, for even if I didn’t quite jibe with these teens I was curious as to where the tensions between the countries might lead. The answer is: nowhere. Ran disappears but we don’t ever find out why, and Ken Z’s coping with it isn’t that interesting. Sort of felt like a whole lot of nothing.

The most compelling bit was Ken Z’s confronting Oscar Wilde (yes, he pops up here and talks, don’t worry about it) about letting himself be taken advantage of by his lover. Of course I have no idea how accurate that is, but I enjoyed the argument.

Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare getting his gory B-movie urges out. Read this because I was going to watch a production of it, which was as bloody on stage as it is in the text. (Perhaps technically less so, given the absence of one death in the opening act.) Even if you didn’t know it was a tragedy, you’d probably know Titus is fucked once he refuses the position of emperor. My guy, what did you think was going to happen?

The production I saw genderswapped the uncle, Marcus Andronicus, which I enjoyed. It removes one of Titus’s sons and Titus’s killing of him in the first act, which somehow made it feel like there was a more suspenseful build-up to the violence of this play. (Even though Titus does kill the firstborn of the Queen of the Goths. A more suspenseful build-up from the perspective of the Andronici, I suppose.)

Remains true for me that I can enjoy watching/reading bloody murders and self-dismemberments, having it wrap around to so exaggerated it’s comical, but this does not not really apply to sexual assault.

Titus roping both his children into holding his lopped-off arm and their dead brothers’ heads, complete with Lavinia holding her item in her teeth, remains so stupidly funny to me lmfao. I wondered if the production would cut that bit and it did not.