Readthrough: The Players and the Rebels: Chapters 5-7
Thank you to lilliburlero for letting me have a crack at The Players and the Rebels!
This chapter-title is from Hamlet. It's the Troilus chapter, notable most of all, perhaps, for Nicholas's semi-private triumph before all the grief to come in the next chapter. Will asks him to demonstrate Troilus's last speech before the whole assembled Company, and this time he achieves the 'silence that's better than applause' without the help of Burbage: he wins it alone, and from his peers.
At the same time, the entanglement of plays and politics is thickening. Forest has been pointing up time-honoured parallels, and creating extras in her fictive universe -- like Antony Merrick's borrowing of Feeble -- all through the book[s], but the sense that plays can be weaponised, used as propaganda, deliberately targeted against the undesirable, the weak or the unpopular, becomes prominent and important from this point onwards. After all, the same chapter includes not only the performance of Troilus which insults Harry Southampton, but also the request for Twelfth Night, and the mocking of Knollys. As Nicholas compassionately (maybe too compassionately?) observes later on in the book, having seen it -- enacted it -- firsthand: poor Malvolio.
Will 'looked as if he were going to his execution' before the peformance of Troilus. I have to say that something I love about the Players books is AF's creation of a Shakespeare who is often extraordinarily perceptive about people and their capacities, but (1) not to a laughably bardolatrous extent -- he does get it wrong sometimes, as with Humfrey -- and (2) nonetheless cannot help but care for these imperfect beings. How is there no fic about him and Harry Southampton, O trennels? This is a fic prompt, if one is needed!
...ahaha, Nicholas quoting Kit Marlowe, and Will's 'stony and affronted eye'. HE'S ONLY HUMAN, AFTER ALL. Surely Armin would know better jokes than 'death and taxes'? But nitpicks aside, I like the long conversation between Will and exhausted, drunk Nicholas. Will receiving the compliment of this request 'sedately', and the necessity of sticking in all the songs and dances because foreigners think English isn't worth learning. The very Forestian shifts between chat about women players and the dangerous ground of Nicholas's hidden jealousy of Hamnet. And through all this, we edge towards Twelfth Night.
'The Quick Comedians' is from Antony and Cleopatra. And now, disaster strikes and Nicholas's career is over, at least for now. The technicalities of the voice-break are fascinating to me. I really want to know: to whom was he speaking when it first cracked, in his day-to-day circle, who was a 'safe' person and didn't tell anyone? Surely he doesn't just talk to himself? Maybe it was practising lines alone, but the Company seems to spend so much time rehearsing that there isn't a tremendous amount of time for that. By the time it cracks in front of Humfrey, he's figured out that it holds if he thinks -- but there's no room for error, of course; he can't have had even one noticeable mistake in front of the Company. And the first 'flaw' in his voice would come completely out of the blue, at any time. I realise that I'm heading down a strictly Watsonian alley, here, and that there is a Good Doylist Explanation for it, namely that he has to have a secretly-breaking voice for the sake of the chapter as a whole. But I still want to know!
Nicholas's voice aside for the time being ... We meet George Blount for the first time, at Drury House. And Humfrey comes good with his air. I am such a tremendous fan of Humfrey, and I can HARDLY WAIT for lilliburlero to take us right to the end of the book so we can discuss his character in full. At this point, while Nicholas and Humfrey are in effect best friends and creative collaborators (since Humfrey is no longer a total outsider to the playhouse world now -- albeit he is, of course, still significantly set apart by his rank), how do you think the friendship compares to the teenage friendships in the modern Marlow books?
Of course I can see it is dreadful of Nicholas not to tell the Company about his voice, but I rather share his opinion of Viola, so ... the frightful temptation that would present, to have such a part written for you, to your special capacities (as Forest imagines Will's writing process), when apart from the accident of the voice you're otherwise at the peak of your powers. I actually find this chapter agonising to read, almost painful: as gripping as those in which there is physical danger. The push-pull of Nicholas's growth and maturation, which gives skill but will inevitably take away, is caught and crystallised in that exchange with that tailor who finds that Nicholas needs another inch of room across his shoulders, and who provokes Will to remark that, 'For my purposes [...] they should stay eternally seventeen.' I've noticed, re-reading TP&TR, that Nicholas often wishes he could turn to Will for comfort or guidance; often thinks back to younger ages with nostalgia and regret, because he really is still emotional, sensitive, in need of help in the repeatedly very challenging circumstances in which he finds himself (we'd certainly never think someone of that age should have to cope alone in the modern world!), &c., but he decides again and again that he is now too old, too tall, too able-to-choose-for-himself, to turn to Will again. With my 'readthrough' hat on, it made me wish we had more books, or more passages, inside the heads of older girls in the modern books: Karen and Rowan seem more remote and mature and empowered than Nicholas, in many ways.
On Twelfth Night: I'd love to know if anyone who read the book as a child, read it before having read the play, and if so what you thought of the plot summary. I think it's a moderately enjoyable whirlwind tour when you know it well, but -- when I try to step back and be sceptical and wonder what a child, a new reader, not a pre-existing particular fan of AF or Shakespeare, might think -- I wonder if it's over-detailed and could have been much shorter or dispensed with. Conversely, I love -- love! -- the way Shakespearean text is seeping into Nicholas's thoughts more and more and more. Not precisely a comment on this chapter, but it is something that especially stands out about TP&TR (again, in comparison with other 'boy player' books -- no one else does this). If I am a little doubtful about long plot summaries, I am very much pro- inclusion of quotations. But open to listening to and debating disagreement, if anyone thinks otherwise!
And of course Nicholas pulls it off. The Ralegh encounter seems like a miniature version of an AF book-ending, somehow -- it's not exactly triumphant, though exciting. It's intense but ambiguous; we don't just end on a note of happy revelry.
'The Wind is Northerly' comes from Hamlet (again). And the coldness it signals arrives swiftly: Nicholas is reunited with Robin Poley. He has never been safe, but always under watch. Poley manipulates him into taking the part of an informer (again). Not content with that, he sadistically implies that it's Humfrey who has been gravely wounded. (Does anyone else want to shake Nicholas for doubting FOR ONE MOMENT that this was anything other than entirely deliberate? Nicholas! Will warned you about not being a fool!)
Oh goodness, the dreadful heartless realism of Nicholas minding so much less that it's George who has lost a hand, and Nicholas and Humfrey going to a tavern on their own for the first time ... and it not being much of a special occasion because of the lopped-off hand. The atmosphere of paranoia among Essex's faction (thinking Ralegh's behind these awful, but surely NOT Ralegh-related [?] things which go wrong) is horribly plausible.
Nicholas's illness gives us the very different reactions of Will and Edmund. The detail and development of Edmund -- who is the definition of unlikeable in so many ways, and yet still oddly likeable in others -- is another AF masterpiece of character, to my mind. I can absolutely hear him pronouncing on Nicholas not making old bones, and how that would grate on Will -- yet it's equally easy to see how cold-hearted Will's writing seems to Edmund, who has been busy with the compress.
Will and Nicholas discussing Hamlet: thoughts, anyone? It seems to me to hark back a little (not directly, but in formal terms) to Nicholas watching the Company at the very start of the book -- Burbage can bring out the finest shades of complication and subtlety as an actor, whereas others in the same role may act well but miss the nuances. Here, Nicholas grasps much of Hamlet (and Hamlet), but Will is the one with the deeper understanding, the access to that nuanced moral and emotional sphere which he couldn't put across as Master Ford, but which he captures almost incomparably as a writer.
Coming to the end of the chapter, I confess to being intrigued almost to the point of frustration by Humfrey and Harry Southampton. Could it be that Forest in fact hasn't fleshed out this relationship enough? I don't think so, though; I think if we could really tackle it and talk it over, and look at all their interactions and so on (but possibly not until later on -- I am trying to keep custody of my allusions, here!), we would probably be able to figure it out to some degree. The thing that's so baffling is that surely Humfrey presents himself as not very emotionally invested in Southampton, not a hero-worshipper, &c., and he certainly has said he's just going along with the Essex admiration for the sake of convenience. He's not even Harry's page any more. Yet at this point, here we are, end of a chapter, 'But Humfrey -- Harry isn't Will', with all that that implies (of judgment of moral character, whether he is worthy to be followed, whether he deserves all the love that is bestowed...?), and Humfrey says: 'He is for me.' And only 'after a moment' adds, 'Almost.' How equivocal, Miss Forest! So, did Humfrey used to see it as just the job he'd been hooked up with by his family, and then his feelings about Harry Southampton grew much stronger over the years? If what he said earlier about feeling Southampton keeps him around as a human ego-boost is at all true, then that's simply horrible. But he does seem to have, in modern-day terms, incredibly low self-esteem: there isn't really any textual evidence that Harry Southampton does think that (actually, he seems to favour Humfrey's company over George Blount's, and not just when he's feeling depressed and in need of ego-boosting!). So: theories welcome. Fictional theories very welcome. No detailed comment from me on the ominous Antony Merrick echo that this chapter ends with -- we're clearly getting onto dangerous political ground here, but it's all paving the way for the next few chapters, so although I'm more than happy to discuss any particular lines or passages, I don't want to pontificate about the big stuff here and trespass on lilliburlero's upcoming posts.
That's it from me! Thanks again to everyone who keeps trennels running smoothly, and of course to lilliburlero for all her amazing work during the readthrough. Over to you all. :)
This chapter-title is from Hamlet. It's the Troilus chapter, notable most of all, perhaps, for Nicholas's semi-private triumph before all the grief to come in the next chapter. Will asks him to demonstrate Troilus's last speech before the whole assembled Company, and this time he achieves the 'silence that's better than applause' without the help of Burbage: he wins it alone, and from his peers.
At the same time, the entanglement of plays and politics is thickening. Forest has been pointing up time-honoured parallels, and creating extras in her fictive universe -- like Antony Merrick's borrowing of Feeble -- all through the book[s], but the sense that plays can be weaponised, used as propaganda, deliberately targeted against the undesirable, the weak or the unpopular, becomes prominent and important from this point onwards. After all, the same chapter includes not only the performance of Troilus which insults Harry Southampton, but also the request for Twelfth Night, and the mocking of Knollys. As Nicholas compassionately (maybe too compassionately?) observes later on in the book, having seen it -- enacted it -- firsthand: poor Malvolio.
Will 'looked as if he were going to his execution' before the peformance of Troilus. I have to say that something I love about the Players books is AF's creation of a Shakespeare who is often extraordinarily perceptive about people and their capacities, but (1) not to a laughably bardolatrous extent -- he does get it wrong sometimes, as with Humfrey -- and (2) nonetheless cannot help but care for these imperfect beings. How is there no fic about him and Harry Southampton, O trennels? This is a fic prompt, if one is needed!
...ahaha, Nicholas quoting Kit Marlowe, and Will's 'stony and affronted eye'. HE'S ONLY HUMAN, AFTER ALL. Surely Armin would know better jokes than 'death and taxes'? But nitpicks aside, I like the long conversation between Will and exhausted, drunk Nicholas. Will receiving the compliment of this request 'sedately', and the necessity of sticking in all the songs and dances because foreigners think English isn't worth learning. The very Forestian shifts between chat about women players and the dangerous ground of Nicholas's hidden jealousy of Hamnet. And through all this, we edge towards Twelfth Night.
'The Quick Comedians' is from Antony and Cleopatra. And now, disaster strikes and Nicholas's career is over, at least for now. The technicalities of the voice-break are fascinating to me. I really want to know: to whom was he speaking when it first cracked, in his day-to-day circle, who was a 'safe' person and didn't tell anyone? Surely he doesn't just talk to himself? Maybe it was practising lines alone, but the Company seems to spend so much time rehearsing that there isn't a tremendous amount of time for that. By the time it cracks in front of Humfrey, he's figured out that it holds if he thinks -- but there's no room for error, of course; he can't have had even one noticeable mistake in front of the Company. And the first 'flaw' in his voice would come completely out of the blue, at any time. I realise that I'm heading down a strictly Watsonian alley, here, and that there is a Good Doylist Explanation for it, namely that he has to have a secretly-breaking voice for the sake of the chapter as a whole. But I still want to know!
Nicholas's voice aside for the time being ... We meet George Blount for the first time, at Drury House. And Humfrey comes good with his air. I am such a tremendous fan of Humfrey, and I can HARDLY WAIT for lilliburlero to take us right to the end of the book so we can discuss his character in full. At this point, while Nicholas and Humfrey are in effect best friends and creative collaborators (since Humfrey is no longer a total outsider to the playhouse world now -- albeit he is, of course, still significantly set apart by his rank), how do you think the friendship compares to the teenage friendships in the modern Marlow books?
Of course I can see it is dreadful of Nicholas not to tell the Company about his voice, but I rather share his opinion of Viola, so ... the frightful temptation that would present, to have such a part written for you, to your special capacities (as Forest imagines Will's writing process), when apart from the accident of the voice you're otherwise at the peak of your powers. I actually find this chapter agonising to read, almost painful: as gripping as those in which there is physical danger. The push-pull of Nicholas's growth and maturation, which gives skill but will inevitably take away, is caught and crystallised in that exchange with that tailor who finds that Nicholas needs another inch of room across his shoulders, and who provokes Will to remark that, 'For my purposes [...] they should stay eternally seventeen.' I've noticed, re-reading TP&TR, that Nicholas often wishes he could turn to Will for comfort or guidance; often thinks back to younger ages with nostalgia and regret, because he really is still emotional, sensitive, in need of help in the repeatedly very challenging circumstances in which he finds himself (we'd certainly never think someone of that age should have to cope alone in the modern world!), &c., but he decides again and again that he is now too old, too tall, too able-to-choose-for-himself, to turn to Will again. With my 'readthrough' hat on, it made me wish we had more books, or more passages, inside the heads of older girls in the modern books: Karen and Rowan seem more remote and mature and empowered than Nicholas, in many ways.
On Twelfth Night: I'd love to know if anyone who read the book as a child, read it before having read the play, and if so what you thought of the plot summary. I think it's a moderately enjoyable whirlwind tour when you know it well, but -- when I try to step back and be sceptical and wonder what a child, a new reader, not a pre-existing particular fan of AF or Shakespeare, might think -- I wonder if it's over-detailed and could have been much shorter or dispensed with. Conversely, I love -- love! -- the way Shakespearean text is seeping into Nicholas's thoughts more and more and more. Not precisely a comment on this chapter, but it is something that especially stands out about TP&TR (again, in comparison with other 'boy player' books -- no one else does this). If I am a little doubtful about long plot summaries, I am very much pro- inclusion of quotations. But open to listening to and debating disagreement, if anyone thinks otherwise!
And of course Nicholas pulls it off. The Ralegh encounter seems like a miniature version of an AF book-ending, somehow -- it's not exactly triumphant, though exciting. It's intense but ambiguous; we don't just end on a note of happy revelry.
'The Wind is Northerly' comes from Hamlet (again). And the coldness it signals arrives swiftly: Nicholas is reunited with Robin Poley. He has never been safe, but always under watch. Poley manipulates him into taking the part of an informer (again). Not content with that, he sadistically implies that it's Humfrey who has been gravely wounded. (Does anyone else want to shake Nicholas for doubting FOR ONE MOMENT that this was anything other than entirely deliberate? Nicholas! Will warned you about not being a fool!)
Oh goodness, the dreadful heartless realism of Nicholas minding so much less that it's George who has lost a hand, and Nicholas and Humfrey going to a tavern on their own for the first time ... and it not being much of a special occasion because of the lopped-off hand. The atmosphere of paranoia among Essex's faction (thinking Ralegh's behind these awful, but surely NOT Ralegh-related [?] things which go wrong) is horribly plausible.
Nicholas's illness gives us the very different reactions of Will and Edmund. The detail and development of Edmund -- who is the definition of unlikeable in so many ways, and yet still oddly likeable in others -- is another AF masterpiece of character, to my mind. I can absolutely hear him pronouncing on Nicholas not making old bones, and how that would grate on Will -- yet it's equally easy to see how cold-hearted Will's writing seems to Edmund, who has been busy with the compress.
Will and Nicholas discussing Hamlet: thoughts, anyone? It seems to me to hark back a little (not directly, but in formal terms) to Nicholas watching the Company at the very start of the book -- Burbage can bring out the finest shades of complication and subtlety as an actor, whereas others in the same role may act well but miss the nuances. Here, Nicholas grasps much of Hamlet (and Hamlet), but Will is the one with the deeper understanding, the access to that nuanced moral and emotional sphere which he couldn't put across as Master Ford, but which he captures almost incomparably as a writer.
Coming to the end of the chapter, I confess to being intrigued almost to the point of frustration by Humfrey and Harry Southampton. Could it be that Forest in fact hasn't fleshed out this relationship enough? I don't think so, though; I think if we could really tackle it and talk it over, and look at all their interactions and so on (but possibly not until later on -- I am trying to keep custody of my allusions, here!), we would probably be able to figure it out to some degree. The thing that's so baffling is that surely Humfrey presents himself as not very emotionally invested in Southampton, not a hero-worshipper, &c., and he certainly has said he's just going along with the Essex admiration for the sake of convenience. He's not even Harry's page any more. Yet at this point, here we are, end of a chapter, 'But Humfrey -- Harry isn't Will', with all that that implies (of judgment of moral character, whether he is worthy to be followed, whether he deserves all the love that is bestowed...?), and Humfrey says: 'He is for me.' And only 'after a moment' adds, 'Almost.' How equivocal, Miss Forest! So, did Humfrey used to see it as just the job he'd been hooked up with by his family, and then his feelings about Harry Southampton grew much stronger over the years? If what he said earlier about feeling Southampton keeps him around as a human ego-boost is at all true, then that's simply horrible. But he does seem to have, in modern-day terms, incredibly low self-esteem: there isn't really any textual evidence that Harry Southampton does think that (actually, he seems to favour Humfrey's company over George Blount's, and not just when he's feeling depressed and in need of ego-boosting!). So: theories welcome. Fictional theories very welcome. No detailed comment from me on the ominous Antony Merrick echo that this chapter ends with -- we're clearly getting onto dangerous political ground here, but it's all paving the way for the next few chapters, so although I'm more than happy to discuss any particular lines or passages, I don't want to pontificate about the big stuff here and trespass on lilliburlero's upcoming posts.
That's it from me! Thanks again to everyone who keeps trennels running smoothly, and of course to lilliburlero for all her amazing work during the readthrough. Over to you all. :)