Hamlet Wore Ladies Underwear
(and Other Literary Secrets Outed)
by Ted Gioia
“J.K. Rowling Outs Hogwarts’ Headmaster: Tells Audience Albus Dumbledore is
Gay” (recent news headline)
Of course, this news brought with it the even more shocking revelation that
fictional characters lead lives outside the pages of their books. We can now
wonder what King Lear ate for breakfast, or where Mr. and Mrs. Darcy went
on their honeymoon. In fact, we anticipate that Ms. Rowling’s bold move will
set off a whole string of literary surprises. We share some of them in
imaginary headlines below.
* * * * * * *
“Ian Fleming Admits 007 Never Had License to Kill: ‘Gun Loaded Only
With Blanks’”
“Strike Four: Mighty Casey Implicated in Mudville Steroid Scandal”
“Say It Ain’t So! Carroll Claims Alice Made Up Wonderland Story”
“Cervantes Tells All: Quixote – Windmill Fight Was Fixed!”
“Author Hints at Existence of Two More Mohicans"
“Now It Can Be Told: Lord of the Flies was Reality Show ‘Gone Badly
Wrong’”
“'Me Tarzan, You Jane, She Jane’s Best Friend': Author Reveals
Tarzan’s Torrid Tree-somes"
"Goethe Admits Young Werther’s Sorrows Could Have Been Treated
With Prozac”
"Roth Revelation: Zuckerman Member of Masonic Lodge?”
“Press Conference Bombshell: Two Karamazov Brothers Adopted:
Ivan Not Even Russian”
“On the Road Protagonist Drove Off-Road Vehicle”
“Dickens Now Claims Third City in his Tale”
“Not So Cowardly?: Baum Confesses He Defamed Lion”
“War and Peace Author Admits: ‘The Peace Never Lasted’”
“The Bard Breaks His Silence: Romeo Had a Second Wife”
“The Day Lucky Jim’s Luck Ran Out”
“Alice Walker Tells Workshop: The Color Was Actually Light Violet”
“Defoe Declares: Robinson Crusoe Had GPS Locator, Communication
Device”
“Homeric Hutzpah: Epic Poet Says Helen of Troy Had Plastic Surgery:
‘Without Nip and Tuck, Face Would Not Have Launched a Single Ship.’”
“Orwellian Nightmare: Spouse Claims 'Big Brother Liked to Watch'”
"Gabriel Garcia Marquez Now Admits: Only Eighty-Seven Years of
Solitude”
"'The Only Roach in That House Was in the Ash Tray': Kafka Claims
Gregor Samsa Imagined Metamorphosis While High on Banned
Substances"
“The Sad Truth About Sherlock Holmes’ Faithful Companion: Watson
Not a Real Doctor – Bought Degree from Diploma Mill”
"J.D. Salinger Breaks Silence: Holden Caulfield Grew Up to Become
Hedge Fund Manager"
____
This article also featured on Blogcritics
(and Other Literary Secrets Outed)
by Ted Gioia
“J.K. Rowling Outs Hogwarts’ Headmaster: Tells Audience Albus Dumbledore is
Gay” (recent news headline)
Of course, this news brought with it the even more shocking revelation that
fictional characters lead lives outside the pages of their books. We can now
wonder what King Lear ate for breakfast, or where Mr. and Mrs. Darcy went
on their honeymoon. In fact, we anticipate that Ms. Rowling’s bold move will
set off a whole string of literary surprises. We share some of them in
imaginary headlines below.
* * * * * * *
“Ian Fleming Admits 007 Never Had License to Kill: ‘Gun Loaded Only
With Blanks’”
“Strike Four: Mighty Casey Implicated in Mudville Steroid Scandal”
“Say It Ain’t So! Carroll Claims Alice Made Up Wonderland Story”
“Cervantes Tells All: Quixote – Windmill Fight Was Fixed!”
“Author Hints at Existence of Two More Mohicans"
“Now It Can Be Told: Lord of the Flies was Reality Show ‘Gone Badly
Wrong’”
“'Me Tarzan, You Jane, She Jane’s Best Friend': Author Reveals
Tarzan’s Torrid Tree-somes"
"Goethe Admits Young Werther’s Sorrows Could Have Been Treated
With Prozac”
"Roth Revelation: Zuckerman Member of Masonic Lodge?”
“Press Conference Bombshell: Two Karamazov Brothers Adopted:
Ivan Not Even Russian”
“On the Road Protagonist Drove Off-Road Vehicle”
“Dickens Now Claims Third City in his Tale”
“Not So Cowardly?: Baum Confesses He Defamed Lion”
“War and Peace Author Admits: ‘The Peace Never Lasted’”
“The Bard Breaks His Silence: Romeo Had a Second Wife”
“The Day Lucky Jim’s Luck Ran Out”
“Alice Walker Tells Workshop: The Color Was Actually Light Violet”
“Defoe Declares: Robinson Crusoe Had GPS Locator, Communication
Device”
“Homeric Hutzpah: Epic Poet Says Helen of Troy Had Plastic Surgery:
‘Without Nip and Tuck, Face Would Not Have Launched a Single Ship.’”
“Orwellian Nightmare: Spouse Claims 'Big Brother Liked to Watch'”
"Gabriel Garcia Marquez Now Admits: Only Eighty-Seven Years of
Solitude”
"'The Only Roach in That House Was in the Ash Tray': Kafka Claims
Gregor Samsa Imagined Metamorphosis While High on Banned
Substances"
“The Sad Truth About Sherlock Holmes’ Faithful Companion: Watson
Not a Real Doctor – Bought Degree from Diploma Mill”
"J.D. Salinger Breaks Silence: Holden Caulfield Grew Up to Become
Hedge Fund Manager"
____
This article also featured on Blogcritics
| Great Books Guide |
| Contact Ted Gioia at tedgioia@hotmail.com Visit his web site at www.tedgioia.com Great Books Guide is an Amazon.com associate Visit Blogcritics |
| RECENT REVIEWS BY TED GIOIA Mario Vargas Llosa [click here] Denis Johnson [click here] Philip Roth [click here] Ann Patchett [click here] Junot Diaz [click here] Matt Ruff [click here] Ryszard Kapuściński [click here] Roberto Bolaño [click here] Jack Kerouac [click here] John Leland [click here] Ian McEwan [click here] Khaled Hosseini [click here] Don DeLillo [click here] Michael Chabon [click here] Haruki Murakami [click here] Jonathan Lethem [click here] Michael Ondaatje [click here] Steven Hall [click here] |
The novel of ideas is dead. Of
course, we never read the
obituary. It was one of those
deaths that is hushed up, kept
out of the newspapers. It
happened around the time
Moses Herzog started writing
those crazy philosophical letters
to dead people. Ideas, once the
gold standard of the “serious
novelist” – ah, the very phrase
seems so quaint these days --
became the currency of the
unhinged. The mantra of the
MFA programs in creative
writing became “Don’t tell us,
show us.” And the novel of
ideas was too much in the “tell
us” camp.
Serious ideas once gave dignity
to a work of fiction. Remember
the Grand Inquisitor in
Dostoevsky? Or those great
debates between the humanist
Settembrini and the radical
Naphta in The Magic Mountain?
These passages are brilliant,
exhilarating and . . . hopelessly
old-fashioned. Even when a
contemporary novelist borrows
the trappings of the novel of
ideas – see for example Marisha
Pessl’s Special Topics in
Calamity Physics, with its dense
bibliography and constant
footnotes – the metaphysical
trappings are just there for
decoration. The plot moves on
in cinematic fashion, brilliantly
so, and the reader never needs
to complete a syllogism or dust
off an abstract concept.
FOR MORE, CLICK HERE
course, we never read the
obituary. It was one of those
deaths that is hushed up, kept
out of the newspapers. It
happened around the time
Moses Herzog started writing
those crazy philosophical letters
to dead people. Ideas, once the
gold standard of the “serious
novelist” – ah, the very phrase
seems so quaint these days --
became the currency of the
unhinged. The mantra of the
MFA programs in creative
writing became “Don’t tell us,
show us.” And the novel of
ideas was too much in the “tell
us” camp.
Serious ideas once gave dignity
to a work of fiction. Remember
the Grand Inquisitor in
Dostoevsky? Or those great
debates between the humanist
Settembrini and the radical
Naphta in The Magic Mountain?
These passages are brilliant,
exhilarating and . . . hopelessly
old-fashioned. Even when a
contemporary novelist borrows
the trappings of the novel of
ideas – see for example Marisha
Pessl’s Special Topics in
Calamity Physics, with its dense
bibliography and constant
footnotes – the metaphysical
trappings are just there for
decoration. The plot moves on
in cinematic fashion, brilliantly
so, and the reader never needs
to complete a syllogism or dust
off an abstract concept.
FOR MORE, CLICK HERE
| Exhuming Robert Musil A Fresh Look at The Man Without Qualities by Ted Gioia |