Nullifidian > Recent Status Updates

Up to "The Furnished Room" by O. Henry. I am picking this up again after a long while. I just read "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway.

Listened to A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's a little out of order with respect to my reading of the plays, but I just watched the episode of Upstart Crow inspired by this play so I felt like listening to it now.

Up to Chapter 13, "That's Not So Good Now" (start of track 3 in the audiobook).

Up to Chapter 7, "But This is Worshipful Society" (Track 2, 2:30 in the audiobook).

Loved rereading Volpone again. It's definitely my favorite Jonson play for a reason. Now up to Epicœne: or, The Silent Woman.

Finished Medea by Euripides. Now onto The Tempest by William Shakespeare, for which I've already read a text edition of the play.

Finished Doctor Faustus, the 1616 text. Next up is The Jew of Malta.

Finished Doctor Faustus, the 1604 text. Now moving on immediately to Doctor Faustus, the 1616 text.

Finished The Massacre at Paris. A good play marred by being a probable memorial reconstruction, and therefore much simplified in the transmission. I bet Marlowe's original script was a knockout.

Now up to Doctor Faustus, the 1604 text. I'll be reading that and the 1616 text today because it's Halloween. After that I'll only have The Jew of Malta and Edward III yet to go.

Sejanus His Fall was better than its reputation of its disastrous premiere—not to mention the wretched Poetomachia plays preceding it—would suggest. With judicious cuts and in the hands of a skilled director, I think it would be very playable. House of Cards has taught us to enjoy talky political dramas with Machiavellian leads.

Now up to Volpone; or, The Fox, my favorite Jonson play.

Finished The Dutch Courtesan by John Marston, which, except for the "cony-catching" pranks of Cocledemoy, wasn't actually that funny. Next up is Thomas Middleton's A Mad World, My Masters, which I'm looking forward to. I've not read it before, but I have enjoyed Middleton's comedies A Trick to Catch the Old One and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside and his tragedy The Revenger's Tragedy.

Finished Henry VI, Part 3 at long last. The CD player in my car ate the second disc and wouldn't give it back, so it took me forever to finish. As a result, my impression of the play is rather disjointed. Now I'm not going to listen to any more of these audiobooks in the car, but that will further stall my progress. Next up is Richard III whenever I can get around to it.

Finished with Poetaster, thank God. If anyone wants to read an ill-tempered rant with an authorial self-insert that ends with the self-insert being proclaimed a vastly superior writer and his literary enemies being sworn not to contradict this decree on pain of permanent literary oblivion, then Jonson has you covered. And this is what was supposed to defend Jonson from the charge of arrogance!

Finished Henry VI, Part Two. This is a vastly better play than Henry VI, Part One because Shakespeare had much more of a hand in it, though there is some possible evidence of collaboration in this play.

Up to "Good Gnus".

Finished Cynthia's Revels, which is the most boring play of the early modern era. It took Ben Jonson to realize that what would really give a play dramatic interest is to show the characters playing parlor games. Unfortunately, we readers have to wait to Act IV for that white-knuckled, adrenaline-fueled thrill ride.

Next up is The Poetaster: or, His Arraignment. It's probably unbearably tedious too.

Up to "Mr. Bennett and the Bulldog, Smith".

Up to "One Moment!"

Up to "Old Bill Townend".

Listened to Henry VI, Part One. Since I'm planning on reading and listening to the entire first tetralogy, I'll also be listening to Henry VI, Part Two; Henry VI, Part Three; and Richard III.

Up to "The Right Approach".

Finished Dido, Queen of Carthage, and I loved it, but now I have yet another thing to regret that I'll never have a chance to see in my life.

Read Every Man out of His Humour, which was a truly awful play. No plot, no interest, barely any laughs, and flat-footed explications from Jonson's stand-ins within the play so that we couldn't possibly miss the satirical points. I'm hoping that the other Poetomachia plays—Cynthia's Revels and Poetaster—aren't as bad, but I'm not holding out much hope.

Up to "Best Seller".

Finished Tamburlaine, Part Two. Now I'm debating whether to carry on in the order of the book or save Edward II for last, since it's my favorite history play not written by Shakespeare. If I do skip it, I'll probably opt for either Dido, Queen of Carthage or The Massacre at Paris.

Finished Tamburlaine, Part One, which I started reading yesterday while listening to a performance of Antonio Vivaldi's Bajazet from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which is about the same subject matter. It's such a wonderful play. Next up is Tamburlaine, Part Two.

Listened to The Taming of the Shrew. Now I'm finally caught up on my backlog and I'll be able to start listening to the plays I just read immediately on completing them. The next one is likely to be King Lear or Macbeth, though I also have to read The Comedy of Errors sometime this month as well.

Up to "The Smile That Wins", the first story in the collection Mulliner Nights.

Up to one of my favorite Mulliner stories, "Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court". Charlotte Mulliner's vignette-in-verse is one of the funniest bits of light verse I've ever read.

Finished Titus Andronicus. It was a brilliant and disturbing performance of a brutal play.