Alan Jacobs

You can divide all soccer players — maybe all athletes — into two groups: the rational and the irrational. Rational players do what they look like they do. They look athletic, and they are athletic. They look balanced, and they are balanced. Ronaldo is a rational player; you could spot him on the beach and think, “Wow, dude looks like he was built to play soccer.” Irrational players come out of nowhere. They don’t instantly look like they’d excel at the sports they excel at, but somehow when they get out on the field/pitch/court, something weird clicks into place and it works. There’s nothing about Messi that says “athlete,” but put him on the pitch and magic just breaks out.

For whatever reason, the best soccer dichotomies usually involve a rational player alongside an irrational player. Pele, who was supremely rational, was always contrasted with Garrincha, who was supremely irrational, and then Maradona, who was 5-foot-5 and cobbled together like a bulldog. Cruyff was a skinny ballerina compared to the powerfully built Beckenbauer. Rational players are easy to admire, but irrational players are easy to love. They seem to need us more, somehow, and their games bring us closer to the miraculous. Not surprisingly, they tend to strike deeper connections with fans. By every measure, Pele was more important to soccer than Maradona, but ask hardcore soccer fans which star they prefer and Maradona wins every time.

Dubai fog

The question that haunts every Dickens biography, Tomalin’s included, is this one: was Dickens an asshole? It’s to Tomalin’s credit that her book only complicates the question, rather than answering it.

mwfrost:

Shortcuts

Oh, Minos, or Rhadamanthus, or Persephone, or by whatever name you are called, I am to blame for most of this, and I should bear the punishment. I taught her, as men teach a parrot, to say, ‘Lies of poets,’ and 'Ungit’s a false image.’ I made her think that ended the question. I never said, Too true an image of the demon within. And then the other face of Ungit (she has a thousand) … something live anyway. And the real gods more alive. Neither they nor Ungit mere thoughts or words. I never told her why the old Priest got something from the dark House that I never got from my trim sentences. She never asked me (I was content she shouldn’t ask) why the people got something from the shapeless stone which no one ever got from that painted doll of Arnom’s. Of course, I didn’t know; but I never told her I didn’t know. I don’t know now. Only that the way to the true gods is more like the house of Ungit … oh, it’s unlike too, more unlike than we yet dream, but that’s the easy knowledge, the first lesson; only a fool would stay there, posturing and repeating it. The Priest knew at least that there must be sacrifices. They will have sacrifice—will have man. Yes, and the very heart, center, ground, roots of a man; dark and strong and costly as blood. Send me away, Minos, even to Tartarus, if Tartarus can cure glibness. I made her think that a prattle of maxims would do, all thin and clear as water. For of course water’s good; and it didn’t cost much, not where I grew up. So I fed her on words.

This is the Fox speaking, the beloved Greek tutor of Orual, the protagonist of C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. These are among his last words in the novel.

I post them here in answer to a question I have been getting rather often lately. Some of my long-time readers have been wondering whether I have lost interest in writing (perhaps even in thinking) about theology. I have not; nor have I substantially changed any of my core beliefs. But I have come to suspect my own theological glibness. Indeed, I am generally prone to glibness, but if I’m glib about information technology or the merits of the anti-Stratfordian case, that doesn’t matter very much. Theological glibness is a more serious matter. I am not taking a sabbatical from thinking theologically, but I am taking one from writing about what I’m thinking. I am pursuing other interests — or rather, I am pursuing the same old interests with the explicit theological inquiries kept to myself, at least for a while to come. I am neither good enough nor smart enough nor wise enough to pontificate about many things I have pontificated about in the past. I need to back off and learn to be silent — if not about everything, or even many things, then about the most important things.

1. You argue that William of Stratford couldn’t have written The Plays because he was too poorly educated, while The Plays demonstrate great learning. Are you willing to argue this position consistently? John Keats had an extremely limited literary education, but nevertheless wrote poems that demonstrate a pretty high level of learning — or did he? Would you claim that substantial self-education is impossible? If so, what explanation would you give for the apparent existence of gifted autodidacts like Benjamin Franklin, William Cobbett, and Abraham Lincoln, not to mention many of the world’s greatest scientists, and for the presence of undoubted literary genius and great learning before formal education was widespread? And if there are people of great achievement who have benefitted from little or poor formal schooling, why couldn’t William of Stratford be one of them?

2. In supporting the claim that the Earl of Oxford wrote The Plays, you argue that only a member of the Elizabethan court could understand its workings so thoroughly. But you are not a member of Elizabeth’s court, which (according to your own logic) means that you do not understand its workings: so how do you know whether The Plays demonstrate deep inside knowledge or, rather, offer a tissue of misunderstandings and false assumptions? You assume that The Author “got it right”: do you have any evidence that in fact he did? Also: are you willing to argue this position consistently as well? Given how powerfully War and Peace recreates the social and military conditions of Russia during the Napoleonic Wars, must we conclude that the novel was written not by Leo Tolstoy but by an aristocratic Russian soldier who lived decades earlier? If we need not draw that conclusion, why not?

3. In further supporting the claim that the Earl of Oxford wrote The Plays, you assert that many episodes and phrases in them are covertly keyed to topical events and events in the life of the Earl. Do you have any particular reason for thinking that The Plays are both topical and autobiographical? Are all plays (and other works of literature) topical and autobiographical? Were topical and autobiographical plays the order of the day in Elizabethan and Jacobean England? Is Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist either topical or autobiographical, or both? What about Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi? How can you tell?

Just asking.

newyorker:

James Casebere’s photographs of handmade, spare environments speak to a preoccupation with suburban architecture and domestic interiors. His habitats are entirely void of people, which only adds to their creepy charm. This fall, a new survey of his work to date is coming out. See more of Casebere’s creations here: http://ow.ly/70Qw9

The rejection of science seems to be part of a politically monolithic red-state fundamentalism, textbook evidence of an unyielding ignorance on the part of the religious. As one fundamentalist slogan puts it, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” But evangelical Christianity need not be defined by the simplistic theology, cultural isolationism and stubborn anti-intellectualism that most of the Republican candidates have embraced. Like other evangelicals, we accept the centrality of faith in Jesus Christ and look to the Bible as our sacred book, though we find it hard to recognize our religious tradition in the mainstream evangelical conversation. Evangelicalism at its best seeks a biblically grounded expression of Christianity that is intellectually engaged, humble and forward-looking. In contrast, fundamentalism is literalistic, overconfident and reactionary.

The poster has a genealogy, and it’s instructive. Two years ago, the same theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet was advertised as Shakespeare’s. But last year, the playhouse hosted an interview with Germany’s foremost Oxfordian, the publisher and essayist Kurt Kreiler, and after that interview, things changed. Kreiler’s book, Der Mann, der Shakespeare erfand (The Man who Invented Shakespeare), which largely rehearses the same arguments as the major Oxfordian publications in English, appeared in Germany last year, was widely reviewed, and received a very warm critical welcome. With academic Shakespeareans leaving the field largely to journalists, the “mystery-like” appeal of Kreiler’s narrative seemed to matter more than its credibility. And in the virtual absence of a serious scholarly dismantling of Kreiler’s arguments and assertions, they have begun to attain the kind of cultural authority that makes it possible for theatres to present Shakespeare’s plays as someone else’s without so much as an asterisk alerting audiences to the controversial nature of the claim.

All of which makes me think that we can’t afford to ignore the anti-Stratfordians anymore. Worse, it makes me think that it’s not enough to deconstruct the intellectual basis of their projects, as Shapiro did so brilliantly in Contested Will. I fear we will actually have to engage with what they consider evidence; we will have to explain, in venues and formats as popular and widely available as those used by the anti-Stratfordians, why their claims don’t make sense; and we will have to be much more robust in our presentation of the facts. I don’t find this an intellectually stimulating (let alone rewarding) prospect, nor do I think there are many constructive conversations to be had. I also don’t relish the thought of having to spend any of my time in the company of Charles Beauclerk’s writings. But if we don’t take part in the public discussion, if we don’t carefully detail our own position and debunk the supposedly skeptical point of view in as accessible a language and manner as the other side, we risk losing by default. Silence will be interpreted as defeat or, worse yet, consent.

— Holger Syme

The most troubling thing about “Anonymous” is not that it turns Shakespeare into an illiterate money-grubber. It’s not even that England’s virgin Queen Elizabeth is turned into a wantonly promiscuous woman who is revealed to be both the lover and mother of de Vere. Rather, it’s that in making the case for de Vere, the film turns great plays into propaganda. …

De Vere is clear in the film about his objectives: “all art is political … otherwise it is just decoration.” Sony Pictures’ study guide is keen to reinforce this reductive view of what the plays are about, encouraging students to search Shakespeare’s works for “messages that may have been included as propaganda and considered seditious.” …

By bringing this unsubstantiated version of history to the screen, a lot of facts — theatrical and political — are trampled. Supporters of de Vere’s candidacy who have awaited this film with excitement may come to regret it, for “Anonymous” shows, quite devastatingly, how high a price they must pay to unseat Shakespeare. Why anyone is drawn to de Vere’s cause is the real mystery, one not so easily solved as who was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays.