Menage a Quatre

Truman Capote: In Cold Blood

Sister should have stuck to being a journalist. This book has all the markings of a Sunday Times Supplement stretched out to book length. Which is not to say that the topic is uninteresting, simply that turning it into a novel made it seem hokey and forced. The least he could have done is give it some recurring theme, but all he managed to do was color inside the lines that were already there.

4 Maccabees

It is especially interesting to read parallel accounts of the same event. I'm not sure Jesus would have turned out to be such a celebrity if we had only one man's version of his life, but we have four and Voila! A rock star is born. It is, by the same token, interesting to reread the account of seven young men's brutal but inspiring deaths from 2 Maccabees from a different perspective. I don't mean to imply that there was another eyewitness to the fact--it is likely mythical. Rather, it is interesting to see the shift from Hebrew mysticism to Greek rationalism, and how it affects the telling of a story. In 2 Maccabees, the youths' deaths are inspiring as examples of faith, a la Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. But in this later, more Greek version, the story is almost told as a Socratic dialogue, the purpose of which is to demonstrate the superiority of reason over emotion. And form meets function here, for the second telling is sterile, rational, and uneffacing.

William Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors

This was a pleasant surprise. I expected another irritating, convoluted comedy along the lines of Twelfth Night, but instead found a clear plot and enough layered meaning to interest a scholar without hindering a casual observer. I especially liked the symbolism of the chain, and should really reread the play to see how the possesion of the chain affects each character. My working theory of Shakespeare is that each play exists in an alternate universe with slightly different rules of physics. In The Comedy of Errors, as in no other Shakespearean play that I can make mention of, the rule is rhyming=proximity. The closer a character is to another, the more likely he or she is to rhyme while speaking to him or her. In fact, rhyming becomes a game, especially between siblings. I'm not sure why that's important, but it certainly gives the play more tint :)

Jack Shaeffer: Shane

I read this book back when I was in middle school, and now I'm having my students read it. What better time to revisit an old friend? As I remembered, it is a well written book, but I certainly don't remember all the sexual tension between the three adults in the book. Is there a doctoral thesis in there somewhere?