2024 in reading and viewing

1/ I’m sure none of you are surprised to hear that the greatest novel I’ve read this year is Don Quixote, the funniest and saddest of novels. 

It blows my mind still that Shakespeare and Cervantes were contemporaries—I have seen Shakespeare everywhere, now I see Don Quixote everywhere. 

2/ My reading in 2024 discovered two interesting things. 

One was that Don Quixote led to the exploration of the Spanish Golden Age: 3 plays by Lope de Vega (The Dog in the Manger, Fuenteovejuna, The King the Greatest Alcalde), 3 plays by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (The Surgeon of Honour, Life Is a Dream, Love After Death), 1 play by Cervantes (The Siege of Numantia), 1 play by Tirso de Molina (The Trickster of Seville, the original Don Juan), 12 stories by Cervantes (Exemplary Novels). 

I have known a bit of 17th century Britain. Now I know a bit of 17th century Spain. Also went to the Spanish Gallery in Bishop Auckland (I know, it’s great to be an art lover in England). 

To sum up my impression, Lope de Vega has a better sense of pacing and structure, and his characters are more vividly drawn, but Calderón’s plays are the ones with complexity and depth. Neither of them is Shakespeare. Neither of them is Cervantes. But who is? Life Is a Dream is a great play, the best among these plays, and you should read it. The Dog in the Manger and Fuenteovejuna are also good fun. 

(Those of you who have often scolded me for only reading novels—you know who you are—where’s my cookie?) 

The other thing in 2024 is that I started filling my 18th century gap: Dangerous Liaisons, (part of) Pamela, Shamela, Joseph Andrews, Evelina, The Female Quixote, Candide, and now Tom Jones.

(Each of these, except Candide, got multiple blog posts).

Am I going to read Clarissa? Maybe. Don’t know. Perhaps someday. But right now there are plenty of writers to get to first: Sterne, Swift, Defoe, Goethe, etc. Enjoyed Dangerous Liaisons, Evelina, and Henry Fielding. 

3/ The best non-fiction I’ve read this year is Primo Levi: If This Is a Man, The Truce, and Moments of Reprieve. 

The best book of literary criticism is possibly What Happens in Hamlet by John Dover Wilson. Followed closely by The Imperial Theme by G. Wilson Knight, which has a couple of interesting essays about Antony and Cleopatra. 

4/ This year, I saw two Shakespeare plays onstage: Macbeth (2023-2024, dir. Simon Godwin, starring Ralph Fiennes) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2024, Royal Shakespeare Company, dir. Eleanor Rhode, starring Mathew Baynton as Bottom).

Both productions were enjoyable enough. 

The Macbeth production was the fourth version I saw (though the first Shakespeare onstage), after Trevor Nunn (Ian McKellen – Judi Dench), Joel Coen (Denzel Washington – Frances McDormand), and Orson Welles (Orson Welles – Jeanette Nolan). The Trevor Nunn production is the standard—Ian McKellen and Judi Dench are the Macbeths—everything else suffers in comparison. But I did enjoy Indira Varma’s portrayal of Lady Macbeth, and enjoyed the comic touch in Ralph Fiennes’s performance. 

My first complaint is that the production was too bright—Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a dark and murky play, a play in which night strangles the travelling lamp, a play in which darkness does the face of earth entomb—it didn’t quite work the same way when the performance was in full light. 

My second complaint is that Simon Godwin increased the presence and significance of the witches but they looked too… human—there’s nothing strange or eerie or frightening about them as though they’re not the inhabitants of the earth—look at the witches in the Trevor Nunn production or Kathryn Hunter in Joel Coen’s film. 

They also cut the porter scene. 

The production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the second version I saw, after the 1968 film (which had a spectacular cast: Ian Holm as Puck, Judi Dench as Titania, Helen Mirren as Hermia, Diana Rigg as Helena, etc). 

It was enjoyable enough, largely thanks to Mathew Baynton as Bottom, and was especially funny towards the end. As it’s a modern-dress version, some of the costume choices were questionable and I didn’t particularly like the couples—my friend Zena Hitz thought the best of the four was Boadicea Ricketts as Helena and I think she’s right—Ryan Hutton was too camp as Lysander and the other two were forgettable—but unfortunately for Boadicea Ricketts, I had seen Diana Rigg in the same role. Mathew Baynton was the one who carried the production—I never thought of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Bottom’s play—but this production belonged to Mathew Baynton. 

5/ Over the past few years, I’ve been complaining about contemporary cinema. But this year, I watched quite a few good films—cinema is not dead, baby, cinema is not dead—Anatomy of a Fall, La chimera, The Zone of Interest, The Holdovers, The Taste of Things—all from 2023. 

Anyway, enjoy the holiday, folks. In case I don’t write another blog post by then, Merry Christmas!