After I left the barn yesterday I stopped at Chapters (big box bookstore) to see if they had Horse & Rider UK. They did, there is a jumping lesson article featuring a piebald cob named Moo who could not look more like my mental image of the horse in National Velvet if he tried, and in the help! letters there is a page-long reply to someone whose mare keeps running over her when she's being led. I am considering photocopying it and tacking it to the black mare's stall door. Signed, of course--if I do anything I'm not going to be sneaky about it.

And then I went over to look at fiction.

And found a trade paperback copy of The Sunne In Splendour.

And. Um. I bought it. Because I already know I don't want to give the library copy back, and I do this Richard III thing every couple of years regularly.

I know. * sigh *

I picked this up yesterday and started reading it last night. I've got to stop myself from skipping around in it to find the fictional take on incidents that interested me from history and just read it through, but so far it's quite absorbing.

The title, incidentally, refers to Edward IV, the "Sun of York," which is interesting in a novel about the life of Richard. But it makes sense, given that as far as I can tell the author is arguing that Richard was a good man but not a great one. For that value of "great" that might be painful and even dangerous to try to live with. Her portrait of Richard is of a man pretty much created by God or nature to be someone's utterly reliable strong right hand, and when he's let down by or otherwise loses his leader, he's not as able to cope. I'm putting this badly--he's an able general, for instance, but even in the early parts I'm reading now he's not at all suited to be a king, and he seems to know it.

As my brother remarked of Gimme Shelter, this shit is not going to end well. And there's the bad thing about reading historical fiction based on real people. No matter how well-prepared you are for betrayal and death and stuff, it's still hard to read about.

I've also been reading my history of the wives of Henry VIII today, by Antonia Fraser. Incidentally, when Henry was at his most deeply paranoid, he executed George's of Clarence's nearly-seventy-year-old daughter, among other women, not to mention children. I can only assume this activity is not considered as shocking as the deaths of "the little princes" because we already consider Henry a monster.

Fraser refers to Margaret as the daughter of "the murdered Duke of Clarence." Yes, poor innocent George, whose only fault was rising in armed insurrection against his brother the King. Twice.

Imagine how the Tudors would have dealt with the like of that.

And on that note, I'm out of time...

Right--Richard again. I spent the weekend reading Richard III by Paul Murray Kendall. I'm nowhere near through with it (just flipping between the text and the end notes can slow you down considerably) but I have a few comments.

I remembered this book as being pretty thoroughly pro-Richard, so I was a little surprised in reading The Murders Of Richard III to find some of Peters' Ricardians referring to Kendall almost as bitterly as they do the old anti-Richard historians who were ridiculously influenced by Shakespeare and the tame Tudor historians.

Well, I get it now.

( And so will you! )

And now, since I've been working on this endless entry since early this morning, I think I'll let it go for now.

But! Expect more when I finished the Kendall book. It's a good book, really it is. It just seems like he has moments where he refuses to see what conclusion he is actually drawing, or he goes a little too far in interpreting evidence in an anti-Richard way, to the point where it stops making sense. (I suppose he doesn't want to be identified with the more extreme pro-Ricardians any more than with the extreme "he was an evil hunchback" gang.)

And also when The Sunne In Splendour arrives at my local library!

As planned, I watched Acts IV and V of Richard III last night and...

Well, the production was as great as I remembered it, and it was a treat to finally see Act V, but I am sorry to report that any historical knowledge whatsoever is incompatible with really enjoying the play. I kept having all these intrusive thoughts about the real Richard, who by all trustworthy accounts was at a minimum an earnest administrator and a would-be good king, and I just felt sorry for him.

Okay, and the other factor was this: my old university copy of Shakespeare notes, in the introduction to the play, that Richard is one of the first of Shakespeare's characters to have a distinct and personal voice (this is a relatively early play) and that means you get to know him and, evil or not, you sort of identify with him. Which I guess means that this version of the play treats the anti-hero in a modern way. So, having followed him along all this way, it's hard as a viewer who is not a subject of Henry VII's granddaughter to get up a really good hatred for Richard. He's just been such good company all along.

Also, Richmond (later Henry VII) is portrayed as such a shampoo model of a perfect plastic hero that it's very difficult for a modern viewer to see him as anything but funny. Not to mention the whole issue of the play putting him heroically in the forefront of the battle, which he actually was not.

Which makes sense, naturally: the last thing you want as a soldier is for the King's (or Pretender's) army to win the day only to discover that--oops!--the King or Pretender himself has been killed in battle.

Richard, in fact, fought in the thick of things and died in battle, but given what is known of his character it's easy to believe his attitude was along the lines of, "Fuck it, if I'm King by grace of God, then God will protect me. And if He doesn't, well, then apparently I had it wrong."

Excuse the modern language, I am not good at writing forsoothly, as it were.

I did amuse myself with wonder what the historical verdict would have been if Edward IV had not died, or Clarence had managed to get hold of the throne, and then Henry VII had successfully invaded. The play doesn't beat up on Richard's supposed victims, so it's easy to imagine that under other circumstances Richard would have been one of the unfortunate and well-meaning victims of the machinations of the evil usurper Clarence.

I'm about out of time but I assure you there will be further entries on this subject, especially once I finish reading the Kendall biography and The Sunne In Splendour, the which I have on hold.

Later.

So. Richard.

I put the VHS of the play on hold at the public library, and it turned out there was a copy at my local branch so the hold came in on the same day. Oh, the nerdish giddiness.

The only thing that worried me was this: there was no cast or crew information given in the catalogue record, so I could not be sure it was the right production. And when I picked it up (and we're talking a big old two-VHS set in a plastic case, hello Wayback Machine!) the cover just had a portrait of Shakespeare and the information that it was from the "BBC Education and Training" series, so I had this momentary vision of some cheesy thrown-together-for-schools product.

( But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave; And then return lamenting to my love. )

What was maybe sort of funny is this: ordinarily, Coney likes to hang out upstairs while I watch TV or listen to music. Vladimir and I had been snuggling on the couch for quite a while, enjoying the mayhem, when I realized we were alone. Coney and Bojo had both adjourned to my bedroom downstairs, and showed no signs of coming up to visit. Which is not unusual for Bojo, but it was for Coney, the cat who watches U2 Live In Boston and Festival Express with every sign of enjoyment. Apparently nice old hippie cats have to draw the line somewhere.

Poor old man, he'll have to be patient a little while longer, because I am definitely watching the rest of this tonight!

Although perhaps I should be concerned at how much Vlad appeared to enjoy it, given that it is the story of three brothers, and the middle one is murdered by the youngest. I'm thinking Bojo had better watch his back...

Oh, yeah. It's the right Richard, all right.

Much more on this later!

Okay, one of the things I forgot until I looked up the clips yesterday is this: the Olivier version irritated me on first viewing because it's at least based on Colley Cibber's adaptation. Remember that post where I complained about people who compare their writing to Shakespeare's? How about people who add stuff to Shakespeare with the aim of improving on him???

It doesn't work, to put it mildly.

I mean, watch both soliloqies: the second one, with Ron Cook, is terse and tense and gives you the setup and the character. And the Olivier one just goes on and on, sagging under its own weight of words and destroying the dramatic tension. Who thought that was a good idea? And how did the Cibber version of this play hang around for so many years after the rest of his adaptations were rightfully forgotten??

Although I appreciate the Wikipedia description of his talents: he "had great popular success in comical fop parts, while as a tragic actor he was persistent but much ridiculed."

Sounds like the Ed Wood of his era, really.

And now, thanks to green_knight, as well as to a fortuitous YouTube foray, I have two more Ricardian videos for you. Starring Peter Sellers!

( And here they are! )

Okay, not plots exactly, but my copy of Richard III is available for me to pick up tonight at the public library, which I certainly plan to do. Oh, I hope it's the right one!

(If it isn't, another university in the city has a copy in their reserve collection, and surely after the term ends it'll be available for general loan. I can borrow from that school because of a consortial agreement.)

I gave my brother Gimme Shelter to watch and return, so this morning I got a message from him saying "This shit is not going to end well." And that was when I realized the darkness and foreboding of Gimme Shelter was probably exactly what caused me to start thinking about Richard III again.

As I remarked to someone last week, the reason I don't use mind-altering drugs is because my mind is sufficiently weird as it is.

But I am all agog to see whether it's the right Richard!

Okay. When I was a mere undergraduate, second year I think it was, I took a Shakespeare course. And to my astonishment--after extensive exposure to The Bard in both high school and via my dad, who is a maniac on Shakespeare--by the end of the first day of class I had a revelation: Shakespeare really was the greatest writer who ever lived!

Which is clearly subjective and open for argument, but I'll never forget the revelation: Shakespeare was a guy. And he wrote that stuff. Like, someone was responsible for it. It didn't just... happen.

(Full disclosure: I kind of feel the same way about "Me and Bobby McGee." What do you mean, somebody sat down and wrote that? Didn't it just appear?)

The first play we studied, with an enthusiastic prof who knew when to stop belabouring a point, was in fact Richard III.

( Two different versions of the opening scene behind the cut--thanks, YouTube! )

And I thought Gimme Shelter was dark...

I mentioned a few posts ago that I've started reading about Richard III again (I do that periodically.) It occurred to me last night that, after all the fuss I made over The Other Boleyn Girl and its historical/personality inaccuracies, it's a little strange that I don't get all worked up over that play by Shakespeare.

I mean, it's completely inaccurate. Character assassination, even. And yet I think it's just dandy, and can recite the opening soliloquoy by heart. Richard in that play is the best black-hearted villain EVAR!

Which may say something about my own inconsistency as a critic.

But it probably says a lot more about that old adage that if you're a good enough writer, you can get away with damn near anything.

Just don't tell the Ricardians I said so. Because in real life I am mostly on their side.

Edited to fix author name. It looked wrong when I typed it--thanks, libraryman!

...but apparently I have moved on from rock'n'roll history to English history.

Which is to say, I've begun to reread a biography of Richard III that I've had on my shelf for quite some time. It's a pretty good one, obviously positive toward Richard but willing to consider the idea that he may have usurped the throne and murdered his nephews. I think it was written in the 1950s so I probably should look for something more up-to-date, if I really get on a roll with this.

Ordinarily I only think about Richard when I've just read The Daughter Of Time by Josephine Tey, This time the catalyst seems to have been finding my copy of The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters. (I need to organize my shelves!)

Anyway, it's interesting stuff.