I have heard of Lovecraft quite a lot without ever having read his work. This short story is probably his most influential having inspired metal songsI have heard of Lovecraft quite a lot without ever having read his work. This short story is probably his most influential having inspired metal songs from Metallica and others as well as probably hundreds of stories and novels and video games. Admittedly, the horror atmosphere drips of violence and premonition. I felt that the text hasn't aged all that well and the plot was not incredibly original. What is compelling about it is the evil lurking in the unpronounceable eponymous villain(s) and their impossible-to-forget appearance, a tentacle-bearded skull. It is not a big investment at less than 50 pages and certainly now part of our collective imagination, but from a strictly literary perspective, not an absolute masterpiece despite its status as a horror classic....more
This is my second or third Silverberg novel and my favorite so far. His Valentine character is brilliant, sort of the polar opposite of Wolfe's SeveriThis is my second or third Silverberg novel and my favorite so far. His Valentine character is brilliant, sort of the polar opposite of Wolfe's Severian. I liked the quest, the world-building, the awesome alien species, and the fast-moving plot. As in Severian, we go from the street to the throne but in a manner that is full of wonder and excitement throughout. The world of Majipoor is well-described and all of Valentine's companions are so much fun to hang out with. The pace throughout is perfect and keeps the reader engaged. There is humor and drama, but a good balance between the two (something sorely lacking in Wolfe IMO). I would highly recommend this one to fans of sci-fi!...more
I wanted to like this one more. Maybe the evil Carnival trope that this book inspired has just jaded me to the whole concept. I think that American GoI wanted to like this one more. Maybe the evil Carnival trope that this book inspired has just jaded me to the whole concept. I think that American Gods was definitely inspired by the ideas here. I just didn't enjoy the prose as much as the magnificent The Martian Chronicles and never got attached to any of the characters. I gave it three stars primarily because of its influential character of it rather than the joy of reading it....more
This is a sci-fi classic that cements Ursula Le Guin's place in the pantheon of extraordinary writers of this genre. The idea of dreams being real wasThis is a sci-fi classic that cements Ursula Le Guin's place in the pantheon of extraordinary writers of this genre. The idea of dreams being real was well-honed here to the story of manipulation and eventual liberation. It appears to me that this book sort of presages The Matrix and Inception in the idea of "active" dreaming and despite its short length, this novella is powerful and satisfying.
This was a fantastic book, particularly for a debut novel. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that Donn Pearce ever came close again to this first effort.This was a fantastic book, particularly for a debut novel. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that Donn Pearce ever came close again to this first effort. The story turns out to be very similar in structure, tone, and background to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in that the inmates (or patients) are suffering from PTSD following a war (WWII and Vietnam/Korea respectively), the protagonist is a new arrival who tries to improve their lot and challenge authority but ends up losing his battle with authority, the perspective of a fellow prisoner as narrator, and both feature somewhat unsettling descriptions of two forms of internment with their occasional inherent abuses - chain gangs in southern prisons versus electroshock therapy in insane asylums. The writing is really good and the action is riveting. The movie with Paul Newman is of course one of the best adaptations that Hollywood achieved back in its golden days, but the famous line "What we have here is a failure to communicate" does not appear in the book. In fact, the Line Boss and so forth are fearsome characters, but Luke's rebellion is against all of them and not just one in particular like in the film, A must read. Honestly, it was a better book than the one that one the Pulitzer for that year (The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, but maybe its violence and grit was just too much for the stodgy Columbia committee that year? Or maybe 1965 was still too early to talk plain facts about the effects of PTSD on soldiers or the systemic abuse in the southern prison system?...more
Mind-blowing, truly mind-blowing. This book seems to have nearly been forgotten now, but it had an absolutely earth-shattering impact on writers of thMind-blowing, truly mind-blowing. This book seems to have nearly been forgotten now, but it had an absolutely earth-shattering impact on writers of the early 20th century following its publication in 1929. How it could possibly have lost the 1930 Pulitzer to the awful, condescending Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story is just unfathomable. In my mind, t is at the same level as The Sound and the Fury in terms of the power of the writing and the titanic size of its characters. It is the fictionalized autobiography of Wolfe and his upbringing in a small North Carolina town roughly based on Asheville. Wolfe died at the extremely young age of 37 in 1938 which amplified even more the mythical aura to his work.
The writing is beautiful and dramatic and full of poetry. Following are some examples. This chapter opening (chapter 9) is just amazing: Yes, and in that month when Prosperpine comes back, and Ceres' dead heart rekindles, when all the woods are a tender smoky blur, and birds no bigger than a budding leaf dart through the singing trees, and when odorous tar comes spongy in the streets, and boys roll balls of it upon their tongues, and they are lumpy with tops and agated marbles; and there is blasting thunder in the night, and the soaking million- footed rain, and one looks out at morning on a stormy sky, a broken wrack of cloud; and when the mountain boy brings water to his kinsmen laying fence, and as the wind snakes through the grasses hears far in the valley below the long wail of the whistle, and the faint clangor of a bell; and the blue great cup of the hills seems closer, nearer, for he had heard an inarticulate promise: he has been pierced by Spring, that sharp knife. And life unscales its rusty wealth...
Does anyone write like this anymore? You can see the influence it would have on Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, Morrison...just wow.
I loved this description of the down-home religion in the South:
And from the mellow gloom of the church, the rich distant organ, the quiet nasal voice of the Scotch minister, the interminable prayers, and the rich little pictures of Christian mythology which he had collected as a child under the instruction of the spinsters, he gathered something of the pain, the mystery, the sensuous beauty of religion, something deeper and greater than this austere decency.
I don't even know where to start in introducing this beautiful quote about chance and chaos: His life coiled back into the brown murk of the past like a twined filament of electric wire; he gave life, a pattern, and movement to these million sensations that Chance, the loss or gain of a moment, the turn of the head, the enormous and aimless impulsion of accident, had thrust into the blazing heat of him. His mind picked out in white living brightness these pinpoints of experience and the ghostliness of all things else became more awful because of them. So many of the sensations that returned to open haunting vistas of fantasy and imagining had been caught from a whirling landscape through the windows of the train.
Further on, we have this paragraph which makes me wonder if Wolfe had read Swann's Way because it reminded me so strongly of Proust's description of the spires of the Cathedral of Chartres seen from the back of a horse-driven cart...
...both the observer and the observed seem frozen in time. There was one moment of timeless suspension when the land did not move, the train did not move, the slattern in the doorway did not move, he did not move. It was as if God had lifted his baton sharply above the endless orchestration of the seas, and the eternal movement had stopped, suspended in the timeless architecture of the absolute. Or like those motion-pictures that describe the movements of a swimmer making a dive, or a horse taking a hedge- movement is petrified suddenly in mid-air, the inexorable completion of an act is arrested. Then, completing its parabola, the suspended body plops down into the pool.
Interesting juxtaposition of the narrator's father and mother's divergent personalities: The fusion of the two strong egotisms, Eliza's inbrooding and Gant's expanding outward, made of him a fanatical zealot in the religion of Chance. Beyond all misuse, waste, pain, tragedy, death, confusion, unswerving necessity was on the rails; not a sparrow fell through the air but that its repercussion acted on his life, and the lonely light that fell upon the viscous and interminable seas at dawn awoke sea-changes washing life to him. The fish swam upward from the depth.
Just pure power here in his words, pure poetry and a piece of Universal Truth:
The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted by a Georgia slattern because a London cutpurse went unhung. Through Chance, we are each a ghost to all the others, and our only reality; through Chance, the huge hinge of the world, and a grain of dust; the stone that starts an avalanche, the pebble whose concentric circles widen across the seas.
Is there an influence here from TS Elliott's The Waste Land?
They were like men who, driving forward desperately at some mirage, turn, for a moment, to see their footprints stretching inter- minably away across the waste land of the desert; or I should say, they were like those who have been mad. and who will be mad again, but who see themselves for a moment quietly, sanely, at morning, looking with sad untroubled eyes into a mirror. Their faces were sad. There was great age in them. They felt suddenly the distance they had come and the amount they had lived. They had a moment of cohesion, a moment of tragic affection and union, which drew them together like small jets of flame against all the senseless nihilism of life.
A nice beautiful paragraph about nostalgia:
They looked at each other with clumsy tenderness. They thought of the lost years at Woodson Street. They saw with decent wonder their awkward bulk of puberty. The proud gate of the years swung open for them. They felt a lonely glory. They said farewell.
I love this clip:
He belonged, perhaps, to an older and simpler race of men: he belonged with the Mythmakers. For him, the sun was a lordly lamp to light him on his grand adventuring. He believed in brave heroic lives. He believed in the fine flowers of tenderness and gentleness he had little known. He believed in beauty and in order, and that he would wreak out their mighty forms upon the distressful chaos of his life. He believed in love, and in the goodness and glory of women. He believed in valiance, and he hoped that, like Socrates, he would do nothing mean or common in the hour of danger. He exulted in his youth, and he believed that he could never die.
And I'll end on this immoral quote which is a rally-cry for poets and artists everywhere:
We do not want to be told what we know. We do not want to call things by their names, although we're willing to call one an- other bad ones. We call meanness nobility and hatred honor. The way to make yourself a hero is to make me out a scoundrel. You won't admit that either, but it's true.
Have you read this one? If not, you should as it is one of the greatest books written in the US in the 20th century. If you have, please comment on your own experience below....more
I love Dickens' writing! The story of Martin and the incorrigible Chuzzlewits is full of humour and wit. It even includes a hilarious and sarcastic epI love Dickens' writing! The story of Martin and the incorrigible Chuzzlewits is full of humour and wit. It even includes a hilarious and sarcastic episode in the United States (modelled on Dicken's own impressions of his 1841 voyage there) which I particularly adored. It is a book about selfishness where David Copperfield was more about integrity and Oliver Twist was about depravity and greed. Each of the characters has a distinct and interesting personality and the plot moves along at a relatively quick clip. The audiobook was excellent!...more
I am starting my voyage through the 30s now and felt that this book, being the first of a classic trilogy, was a necessary stopover on my way through I am starting my voyage through the 30s now and felt that this book, being the first of a classic trilogy, was a necessary stopover on my way through the Pulitzers. Studs Lonigan is an Irish adolescent who is destined to burn out rather young and in this book we see him at the end of middle school as he is 14 going on 15. The book is written in a realistic style like that of Theo Dreiser or Henry James, but is cringlingly full of the overtly racist and anti-semitic sentiment that pervaded the United States at the time including violence acted upon Jews just due to their association with being "Jesus-killers". Admittedly, those parts were hard to read. Also, the sexuality is raw and violent as well: I really wonder whether a 15yo girl like Iris would really be inviting boys to gang rape her as described. I hesitate whetherto read the other two books about the young manhood and death at 30yo of Studs because we can already see how things will end up and the character is so pathetically void of self-knowledge with the emotional maturity of a squawling newborn. ...more
This was another masterpiece by the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama is one of the first ones I could find that theorized abouThis was another masterpiece by the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama is one of the first ones I could find that theorized about a space elevator for reducing risk and increasing profitability of getting things and people into orbit from Earth. Set in a future where there are martian colonies and folks on the Moon, we also have a sort of Rama drive-by and return which adds some spice and intrigue to the story. It is the Tower of Babel meets Rendezvous with Rama in a sense and both a must-read and a source of great reading satisfaction....more
This is a fantastic first novel and an American classic about the rapid decline of Joe English. I loved O'Hara's writing, his characters, his transposThis is a fantastic first novel and an American classic about the rapid decline of Joe English. I loved O'Hara's writing, his characters, his transposing of the spoken American idiom on the written page. The plot is engaging and relentless. I have not yet read the Pulitzer winner for that year, Now in November, but other books published in 1934 included the fantastic Tropic of Cancer and Fitzgerald's beautiful Tender Is the Night so there was loads of competition. Gibbsville is O'Hara's mythical village in Pennsylvania hard coal country. It is an interesting cross-section of society a bit more blue-collar than, say, that of John Updike's Rabbit tetrology vision of that same state 50 years later. It is sad to note once again the various racial slurs and the presence of a banalized anti-Semitism in the story. ...more
Devastating. That is the one word that comes to mind when trying to summarize the suffering that Sophie goes through during this book. I liked the narDevastating. That is the one word that comes to mind when trying to summarize the suffering that Sophie goes through during this book. I liked the narrator and detested Nathan, but the true story here is Sophie. Her experiences before and during WWII in Warsaw and Auschwitz are harrowing. Having visited Auschwitz two years ago, I think there was a little bit of inaccuracy as to what could be seen from Haus Höss (the Arbeit sign, for example, is not visible from that part of the compound to name one example). Nonetheless, the details about the life in the camp are realistic and align with the reading I have done (Primo Levi, Elie Weisel, etc) and is a gruesome reminded of why all forms of fascism should be condemned and fought tooth and nail in order to avoid a repeat of the brutality suffered by literally millions of Jews, Poles, gypsies, and homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps.
-(some near spoilers ahead)- I found the idea of the choices that Sophie makes during the book very poignant. There is something close to hopelessness when we see that each of her choices - whether she is trying to protect her children, or just one child, or to leave… - are all ultimately the wrong choices because death follows nearly every time in one form or another. And yet, had she chosen otherwise, nothing would really have changed. I think the question comes down to whether Sophie is able to evolve from choice to choice, and I felt that the real tragedy here is that she does not evolve except that she is finally able to unburden her soul to Stingo before making her final choice. Styron is certainly showing us his own impuissance when faced with trying to understand and cope with the idea of a genocide that happened during his lifetime. The idea of the absurdity of simultaneity was really interesting in that sense, and he goes back to that several times.
As for the book, it is very well-written with some good stories and humor threw in towards the beginning of the book before it takes its tragic turn. It is written in a semi-autobiographical format and makes reference to this period when Styron really was working on his first book and looking forward to writing his third book about Nat Turner (for which he won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize).
The Academy Award-winning film from 1982 cast the effervescent Meryl Streep as a stunning and unforgettable Sophie with a young Kevin Klein in his first big-screen appearance as Nathan. It is very respectful of the bookmaking only minor editorial changes to fit the 35mm format. The viewer gets 2 1/2h of primarily staged sets, but a few sequences from a (rather inaccurate) depiction of Auschwitz. It is not the greatest film adaptation of a major novel (I would place Gone with the Wind, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and To Kill a Mockingbird above it), but it is an absolute classic and a must-see due to the over the top performance by the greatest actress of her generation, Meryl Streep. ...more
Another Dickens masterpiece! I loved the characters here and the story was compelling and lively. More later, but I am so happy to have taken my dive Another Dickens masterpiece! I loved the characters here and the story was compelling and lively. More later, but I am so happy to have taken my dive into Dickens this year and have pulled up so many treasures!...more
A splendid masterpiece! Gibbon wraps up the monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with the end of the Empire of the East and a survey of theA splendid masterpiece! Gibbon wraps up the monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with the end of the Empire of the East and a survey of the states of the various nations that had been born at the time. It is, like the first two volumes, written with an incredible vocabulary and such perfect prose. His tone succeeds in avoiding being dry and barren, but rather rests sarcastic and humorous throughout....more
Extraordinary like Part 1, Gibbon takes us from the period following Constantine forward about 600 years to the 11th century. It is masterful writing Extraordinary like Part 1, Gibbon takes us from the period following Constantine forward about 600 years to the 11th century. It is masterful writing full of sarcasm and humor which helps one muddle through the thousands of names and dynasties. I really enjoyed his discussion of the Goths and the Huns, the Eastern Empire, and northern Africa. We see the definitive fall of Rome and the rise of the Francs. It is a long, complex story but oh so fascinating!...more
One of the monuments of the Enlightenment and one of the greatest works of history in English, Gibbon's iconic Decline and Fall is a pleasure to read One of the monuments of the Enlightenment and one of the greatest works of history in English, Gibbon's iconic Decline and Fall is a pleasure to read and a treasure chest of information. While it is true that it was written before the end of the 18th century and there have been 1000s of archeological discoveries since then, the overall story and theory still captivates and convinces the reader. One is obliged to look past Gibbon's aristocratic bent for preferring enlightened autocracy and fearing rabble democracy as well as his very English (and truly white European) bias against Africans (whether the "brutish tribes" of North Africa or the "savages" south of the Sahara) and the various Gothic tribes, while remembering that he was a product of his times and also that, despite this unfortunate bias, he still has positive things to say about the more notable personalities that emerge from these populations as they merge with his story.
The most controversial aspect in this first third of his work are chapters 16 and 17 about Christianity. Gibbon himself wavered on the question of Christianity, having converted to Catholicism and back to Anglicism in his youth. He is rather judgmental, yet in my opinion justifiable, about the impact of the christianization of the Empire following the reign of Constantine which he attributes as one of the causes for the decline and fall. Personally, I found it enlightening how the stories of martyrs were exaggerated for political and religious currency during the 10th to 13th centuries because, in fact, the persecution of Christians was not as systematic or wide-spread as some would like us to believe. In fact, the empire was incredibly accepting of different belief systems because otherwise, it could never have absorbed such a massive and diverse empire from the Black Sea to the Atlantic. There were some particularly bad emperors, but the local governors could push back and often it was bad business to kill off Christian (and Jewish) merchants. Also, recent research has proven that Nero was not present in Rome when it burnt and never played the fiddle as popular legend would like us to believe. The subsequent burning of Christians as candles was not as much a systemic oppression as a scapegoat to hide his own culpability having been absent on vacation during the crisis; it was simply easier to blame Christians (and Jews), than to admit to his own negligence. But, it was short lived and in fact there were several Christians who continued to have high positions in his government and that of his many successors.
The first part of the Decline ends more or less with several chapters about the Empire at the time of Constantine and leads into part two with the successors of Constantine and the Gothic Wars. I HIGHLY recommend reading the unabridged version despite its length because it is just such a magnificent writing style with humor, sarcasm and wonderful turns of phrase. A true masterpiece....more
The middle volume of USA takes us into the European theater of WWI with many of the characters from 42nd Parallel and some new ones. The cynicism of tThe middle volume of USA takes us into the European theater of WWI with many of the characters from 42nd Parallel and some new ones. The cynicism of the ambulance drivers and the corridors of the peace discussions reminded me of the way that Heller and Pynchon described WWII in Europe. The echos of anti-Semitism sadly presage the catastrophies that will arrive later in the 20s and 30s as the Nazis rise to power. It is interesting to note that Dos Passos was himself and ambulance driver during this period of the war, and that The Camera Eye sections are usually his own autobiographical memoirs. I am a bit mystified as to why this book did not win the 1932 Pulitzer given the relatively obscurity of winner Stribling's The Store....more
It is hard to overstate how absolutely wonderful and powerful a writer of short stories that Hemingway was. This collection contains so many wonderfulIt is hard to overstate how absolutely wonderful and powerful a writer of short stories that Hemingway was. This collection contains so many wonderful sketches full of spit, vinegar, blood, and whiskey stains. Through them we experience attempted murder on a train, the Spanish Civil War in Madrid, the First and Second World Wars in Italy and France respectively, fishing, hunting, fucking, and drinking. The prose is always terse but incredibly saturated in description and meaning. Who else could describe sex thus:
“In the dark he went into the strange country and it was very strange indeed, hard to enter, suddenly perilously difficult, then blindingly, happily, safely, encompassed; free of all doubts, all perils and all dreads, held unholdingly, to hold, to hold increasingly, unholdingly still to hold, taking away all things before, and all to come, bringing the beginning of bright happiness in darkness, closer, closer, closer now closer and ever closer, to go on past all belief, longer, finer, further, finer higher and higher to drive towards happiness suddenly, scaldingly achieved.” (p. 615)
I am reading Meyers' masterful biography Hemingway: A Biography and it is fascinating to see how each of these stories encapsulates a piece of Hemingway's personal experience. His life was particularly exciting and turbulent: WWI ambulance driver (where he met John Dos Passos), Parisian journalist, Parisian bohemian writer, Spanish Civil War participant, bull-fighting aficionado, big game hunter, sport fisherman, and inveterate ladies' man, these stories all pull from his catalog of sensations and memories. It is important to note going in that in his writing technique, Hemingway felt that it was equally important to leave out some information so that the reader has to fill in the blanks. He thought of stories as icebergs with 90% of the content left unsaid. This leaves a considerable amount of ambiguity to many of the stories because no moral conclusion is drawn; his goal is to dive as deep into the experience itself so that the reader feels personally involved in the story.
If you have never read Hemingway, it is possible to start here before heading on San Fermin to Basque Country where The Sun Also Rises. But if you have read his novels, please don’t miss the opportunity to revel on his stupendous writing. He might be the US’ all-time greatest writer of short stories. They are nothing less than marvelous.
The Oxford Complete served as my guide through Shakespeare's plays. Its introduction is highly recommended and very insightful. The book itself is ratThe Oxford Complete served as my guide through Shakespeare's plays. Its introduction is highly recommended and very insightful. The book itself is rather bulky, so I often restored to Kindle or to paperbacks for some of the plays. The book collects all known Shakespeare plays and attributions including two copies of King Lear, Edward III, Henry VIII, and Two Noble Kinsman all in chronological order with a one-page introduction to each play. I did not really use the Glossary due to the book's bulk and the inconvenience of their having placed it at the end, and there are no notes in the text. This is a blessing (fewer distractions from the text) and a curse (fewer insights into the texts) so your mileage may vary.
As for other versions of Shakespeare, I found that the Folger Shakespeare was more practical (numbered notes on even pages, Shakespeare's original on the odd pages) than the Signet Classics which I had read in high school (non-numbered notes at the bottom of the page). It was fun, however, to see my notes from thirty years ago as I was reading!
I would still recommend the Oxford for its completeness and the quality of the printing for the Shakespeare fan with a hefty bookshelf to store it. Regardless, the Bard is a pleasure in nearly any format....more
Great action scenes despite the many anachronisms, Edward III is still rewarding. It is the first of the great War of the Roses cycle (before Richard Great action scenes despite the many anachronisms, Edward III is still rewarding. It is the first of the great War of the Roses cycle (before Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1&2, Henry V, Henry VI Parts 1-3, and the inimitable Richard III). The authorship of this one by the Bard has long been contested, but most modern critics allow that Shakespeare wrote at least several acts himself.
Edward III takes power after his mother Isabella of France and her alleged lover Mortimer forced Edward II to step down. A succession controversy for the Frenc throne provokes the beginning of the One Hundred Years War when Edward III claims, rightly it would seem, the French throne. The French find a legendary Salic law that reserves the throne to male descendants which disqualifies Edward who was claiming the title through his mother Isabella. So, if you think Shakespeare is confusing, the real story that he is telescoping and abbreviating is far more complex!
In Shakespeare's play, the action is non-stop with battles galore. Edward III was particularly lucky to have won successively the battles of Sluys, Crécy and Poitiers against the French and thereby established a massive foothold on the continent. As explained in Norwich's Shakespeare's Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485, the Bard does not respect the timeline, but he does a fairly good job of capturing the momentum of events and draws memorable portraits of the various actors. I would also highly suggest the excellent A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century for more about this tumultuous period, but seen from a more French point of view.
One of Shakespeare's greatest characterizations in this play is the godlike Edward, the Black Prince. He is Edward III's heir and an incredible warrior with a relatively realistic, but characteristically dark personality:
Audley, the arms of death embrace us round, And comfort have we none, save that to die We pay sower earnest for a sweeter life. At Cressey field out Clouds of Warlike smoke Choked up those French mouths & dissevered them; But now their multitudes of millions hide, Masking as twere, the beauteous burning Sun, Leaving no hope to us, but sullen dark And eyeless terror of all ending night. Edward III - Act IV Scene IV
In one of the most memorable scenes in the play, the Black Prince is about to succumb to overwhelming French numbers around him and Edward III is asked several times by his advisors to send reinforcements to help him. Edward III prefers to let the Black Prince fight his way out.
ARTOIS. Rescue, king Edward! rescue for thy son!
KING EDWARD. Rescue, Artois? what, is he prisoner, Or by violence fell beside his horse?
ARTOIS. Neither, my Lord: but narrowly beset With turning Frenchmen, whom he did pursue, As tis impossible that he should scape, Except your highness presently descend.
KING EDWARD. Tut, let him fight; we gave him arms to day, And he is laboring for a knighthood, man.
[Enter Derby.]
DARBY. The Prince, my Lord, the Prince! oh, succour him! He's close incompast with a world of odds!
KING EDWARD. Then will he win a world of honor too, If he by valour can redeem him thence; If not, what remedy? we have more sons Than one, to comfort our declining age. Edward III Act 3 Scene V
The Black Prince, of course, prevails and captures King John II and in the closing scene, the English retake Calais (including the scene of the Burghers of Calais immortalized by Rodin centuries later) and seem to be poised for total domination setting the stage for the tragedy of Richard II.
This play is a fantastic read, but it does help to do one's homework to understand the historical events behind the action. It is non-stop and a great start to the long cycle.
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