This is the annual Midyear review. As usual I’d like to look back at the first half of the year and see how I’ve been doing with my goals, and share a favourite book from 2024 so far. You might have seen my post where I set my 2024 reading goals at the end of last year. There were four categories I planned to focus on: English Classics, Shakespeare and his contemporaries, drama, and poetry. So how have I been doing?
English classics
I’m not doing too bad for the English classics category. In reverse chronological order of the publication dates, I read a modern classic called Mariana, a beautifully written comfort read from the English independent publisher Persephone; and a Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, which is my favourite Woolf so far. For the Victorian period, I tried the Scottish writer George MacDonald finally and read the famous Phantaste which had a tremendous influence on C. S. Lewis. I wanted to read Lewis Caroll’s works again which apparently had an influence on John Lennon’s lyrics, so I listened to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland during a car journey. It was so weird and dream-like it kept putting me to sleep. When it started to put the driver to sleep as well, I thought it was too dangerous to continue until we reached the destination. In terms of children’s literature, I also read The Wind in the Willows. Between the two, The Wind in the Willows is more my cup of tea. I also read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley to see its influence on Poor Things.
The two major titles from earlier periods I want to tackle this year are The Canterbury Tales and Paradise Lost. It’s a relief to report that I have finished The Canterbury Tales. I read the Penguin Classics 2003 edition translated by Nevill Coghill. If you’re interested but intimidated like I was, give it a go, just read one tale at a time and don’t worry too much. It’s a lot easier than I expected and a lot more fun as well.
For Shakespeare and his contemporaries
For Shakespeare, my plan was obviously to continue reading his plays. I haven’t completed my first round of reading all his works yet. My plan at the beginning of the year was to read Richard II, Henry IV part 1 for history, King Lear for tragedy, The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night for comedy, and Cymbeline for romance by the end of the year. I planned six because I read six in 2023. The diet is more balanced than last year, I somehow ended up reading six tragedies last year. So far
- I read Twelfth Night and watched the Globe 2012 production featuring Stephen Fry and the National Theatre 2017 production. The Globe 2012 has an all-male cast, which I guess might look quite similar to what it would have looked like in Shakespeare’s time. Interestingly, all the actors are so excellent and strong, they outshine Viola a bit. It happens in both productions.
- I read Richard II and watched the Globe 2015 production and the BBC Hollow Crown episode AGAIN featuring Ben Whishaw.
- The latest one I finished was Love’s Labour’s Lost. I didn’t plan to read this but I did before watching the brand new RSC production live last month in Stratford upon Avon, featuring Luke Thompson. The Globe 2009 production was lovely too.
Among the three plays, my favourite story and protagonist is Richard II – I’m surprised by how much I’ve been enjoying the history plays. The most delightful theatre production is the 2012 Globe Twelfth Night. I had never seen an all male cast before and it was an eye-opening experience.
I also watched a few plays that I have read in the last couple of years. It’s wonderful and fascinating to watch the same stories but different productions with different actors and more importantly, different interpretations with different time and geographical settings and designs. And watching the shows always helped me to GET the stories and the characters better.
- I watched Globe 2013 The Tempest. I hadn’t quite got The Tempest before this. I loved the cast, there were many memorable scenes. I learnt the funny side as well as the tender side of the story.
- Then I watched Romeo and Juliet done by Branagh Theatre in 2016 featuring Lily James. I read that Juliet is the real protagonist between the two and she grows from a 14-year-old girl to a woman over the course of the play. I got that when I watched this production – Lily James has a little girl quality to her and the fast progress of her maturity looks striking but also convincing. I had always felt Romeo and Juliet over the top but this production didn’t feel that way and I liked it very much.
- Then National Theatre’s 2015 Hamlet suddenly became available for about 24 or 48 hours. I have wanted to watch this production for a long time but had no access to it. It disappeared so fast that I only managed to watch about a third. But I’m still very happy I got to see a little bit of Benedict Cumberbatch playing the Prince of Denmark.
- I was also very fortunate to get to watch the 2021 Macbeth by Almeida Theatre featuring Saoirse Ronan. She’s one of my favourite actors and she’s an amazing Lady Macbeth. I’ve watched quite a few Macbeth by now. Saoirse Ronan’s crumbling and madness was the most moving. I could see her putting up a fragile brave front when Macbeth raves at the banquet, her loneliness when the marriage breaks, and her horror when the wife and children of Macduff are murdered. The stage design is very special too, especially the music. There’s one cello player on stage to provide live music and she sometimes plays a speaking role too. I’ve never seen that before.
For non-fictional works, I’ve been reading Majorie Garber’s essays alongside each play. I find them very helpful. The audiobook for Shakespeare the Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench is excellent, way better than I expected. 1599 by James Shapiro was one of my favourite books last year. 1606 The Year of Lear by the same author is excellent too.
For Shakespeare’s contemporaries, I read John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi and watched the Globe 2014 production in Wanamaker candlelit indoor theatre. It was a wonderful production and the Duchess as a character in the story blew me away. Like Juliet and Cleopatra and many other Shakespeare’s female protagonists, Webster creates a very strong female character.
Drama & Poetry
For Drama, I made little progress in this category. One of the goals of having a drama category is to try world literature. I haven’t read any drama from other countries. I also haven’t read as much poetry as I liked but that seems always the case. However I’m pleased to get to know a few lesser-known poets myself and introduce them to you too. I read John Clare, a contemporary of Charles Lamb, who cares deeply about the landscape and the nature of the English countryside; Sir Thomas Wyatt, the guy who brings the sonnet form of poetry into England and who is pretty bitter about his lovers and mistresses; and Aemilia Lanyer, who is an Elizabethan slash Jacobean feminist, arguing her case from the creation account in Genesis as well as the rest of the Bible.
Favourite book
My favourite book for the first half of 2024 is a bit different. It is 1964 Eyes of the Storm, a book of photographs and writings by Paul McCartney. The photos were taken by Paul as the Beatles travelled for three months from the end of 1963 to February 1964, beginning in Liverpool and London, then Paris, and during their first visit as a group to America: New York, Washington and Miami. I received this as a gift, the card that came with it says ‘hope this present will help you to tell them apart better and can be a good substitute for missing the exhibition in London’. I missed the opportunity to go to the photo exhibition in London. I wasn’t a fan when the exhibition was on, but when I became a fan, it was closed. So a good friend gave me this instead. I can look at the photos again and again, instead of only once in the gallery. The photos are of the cities as they travelled, the musicians and people they met and worked with, the fans screaming and chasing after their car, and journalists taking photos of them and smiling broadly as their photos being taken by Paul, photos of John, George and Ringo. Intimate candid shots that the journalists and official photographers would never get – them rehearsing in studios and on stage, swimming, hair plastered across their forehead, sleeping in the cars on the planes, yawning late at night. I get to see things and people through Paul’s eyes really. It’s very special.
A Day of Small Things 