Had a bit of a hiatus there. To be honest I don’t really have any legitimate excuse, the simple reality is that this particular play was just so bad I had a hard time motivating myself to finish it. It was unfortunate too since I really wanted to start the tragedies on a high note, and instead got a play that was possibly the worst Shakespeare play I’ve read yet. Given that it was one of his first I am still hopeful the rest will be better.
I didn’t really know much about the play coming in to it. I really knew only that there is a film with Anthony Hopkins about the play but I have never seen it and honestly don’t care to now. Other than that I really knew nothing about what the play is about or even where it takes place. I’ve heard of a large number of the tragedies at some level or another, but this is one that I scarcely even knew it existed, and now I kind of wish that was still the case. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Barnes and Noble, Shakespeare, The Yale Shakespeare, Tragedy, William Shakespeare
A few years ago I went shopping for an MP3 player. My primary concerns were affordability, and that it not be an iPod. Frankly, Apple is a horrible corporation with ugly business practices that make Microsoft look saintly, and as a consumer I have no desire to feed a company like that. Plus, after doing some research I quickly realized that you pay a premium for a name, and the players themselves are really on par with what else is out there only it has an Apple logo on it.
So when I jumped in to the MP3 player world a few years ago I settled on a Sansa Fuze by Sandisk. It was a nice and sturdy little player that was affordably priced and loaded with the kind of features I wanted in a player. It had support for multiple formats, video, podcasts, audiobooks, and an FM radio. It served me quite well over the years, but sadly it’s looking a bit worse for wear these days as I clumsily dropped it a number of times. When I heard that Sansa was releasing a new version with a larger capacity I decided an upgrade was in order, and my new player recently arrived. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Fuze+, MP3 Player, Review, Sandisk, Sansa
So here we are at the end of the histories, and I must say that I am glad to soon be moving on. I won’t say the histories were bad, there were only a few that I outright did not enjoy to some degree, but they were still far less enjoyable than the comedies that preceded them. I suspect that they are also not quite so good as the tragedies that will be coming next, and for which Shakespeare is most famous.
Now coming in to this play I admit that I wasn’t sure what to think. Nearly everyone knows of King Henry VIII and his six wives and bloody reign, so I definitely had some doubts about how I was going to receive this play. His reign is most famous for excess, his affairs, frequent executions and his many wives (2 of which were executed). I have to say that he is not really even close to the English monarch that I would choose to read about if given a choice, so I definitely came in with some fears that the histories would end on a low note with this play. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Barnes and Noble, Historical Fiction, Shakespeare, The Yale Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
So here I am ready to read about Henry V after a busy week last week took a bit too much time. After reading this play I will have only the play about Henry VIII remaining and I will be done with the histories. I’m looking forward to getting on to the tragedies to be honest because I frankly have found the histories to be fairly disappointing and dry overall. I’ve still enjoyed a few of them and have only hated a few of them, but I’m fairly confident I’ll enjoy the fictional tragedies far more.
For some reason this book just lists some of these tragedies as “Henry IV” and nothing but their name, while others it lists with a grander title like in this case. I know some books all refer by name, and some books all use longer titles. For the sake of consistency I am simply using the titles as they appear within in the book that I have in my possession. That’s the interesting thing about Shakespeare; even accurate printings of his work still don’t always see eye to eye on all of the details. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Barnes and Noble, Historical Fiction, Shakespeare, The Yale Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
Well, I missed my Shakespeare reading again this week, but in this case it was really unavoidable. I read the plays during my 3 days off in the middle of the week, and I’m currently working overnights so I sleep during the day. Well this week I had to help my brother dig a rain garden on one day, and attend a lecture with a possible job lead linked to it the next day. So not only was my week busy, but it also caused my sleep schedule to be completely screwed up during my days off, so sadly I just couldn’t get to it. Still, I have to post something, and there’s two things on my mind I want to touch on a bit.
One of these involves wallpapers (or computer desktop images), and problems I’ve been having finding them since I upgraded monitors earlier this year. This one is simply a chance for me to vent a bit on something that has proven somewhat annoying for awhile now. The other is an issue with iPod fanboys, although the action that bothers me is one that you can find in just about any fanbase where you have overzealous fans who lack tolerance and an open-mind. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Ramblings
Man, what a bummer, I missed another week again. In last weeks case I spent a great deal of my days off fixing my cousins computer. The repair itself took longer than expected, and trying to salvage information from the damaged hard drive ended up eating more time than anything. In the end I just didn’t have time to read the play, and I pretty much ran out of time to do much of anything else as well. Still, at least I got it fixed and I’m back on track this week.
What I can say going in to this part of “Henry IV” though is that I’m simply glad this is a two-parter. The first half was rather lackluster to put it lightly and I have serious doubts the second half will be much better. In fact, if “Henry VI” taught me anything, it’s that the following parts of a multi-part play can, in fact, be far worse than the opening portion. I still didn’t hate the first half, so I may well not hate this half, but I didn’t exactly thing it was good or great either. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Barnes and Noble, Shakespeare, The Histories, The Yale Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
I’m a little late on the punch here because I saw the movie a week or so ago, but I figured better late than never right? This review of the film will also see a format switch to a style more similar to my other reviews instead of just a text wall like I’ve done with previous movies. To be honest I don’t know why I didn’t organize my movie reviews better in the past, and I may well go back and retroactively rewrite those reviews with the same content but with some organization.
Now Inception was a film that I knew I was interested in, but I still wasn’t completely certain it was one I’d want to pay theater prices to see. You see, I rarely go to the movies, and usually when I do it’s only for films I’m greatly anticipating and/or absolutely know I’ll enjoy. The last one I saw before this was “Avatar”, so this is only my second trip to a movie theater this year. Regardless, this is one of the few movies this year that got my attention as a candidate for a theater trip, and as luck would have it some bad weather canceling other plans paved the way for a trip to see it. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Inception, Legendary Pictures, Science-Fiction, Warner Brothers
Yup, it’s true, I missed another week. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that it might be too much to try and do one every single week without an occasional break. I didn’t initially anticipate that each play would take as long to read as it does, and now and then I’ve found I just don’t want to commit that much time on my days off. I still have every intention of continuing this endeavor and making it weekly, but don’t be surprised if I miss one week every now and then. It’s also very possible that these less interesting histories have something to do with it as well, and that I may hit full speed again once I make it to the tragedies.
This play is the first of a two part piece that follows the reign of Henry IV, also known as Henry of Bullingbrooke in the previous play “Richard II”. Having now read “The Life and Death of King John” I now find I’m back in the era that centered primarily around the house of Plantagenet and Lancaster from the fall of Richard II to the fall of Richard III. “Henry VIII” is also not really associated since his reign was the second after Richard III’s reign, with Henry VII reigning between them and having no play associated with that time from Shakespeare. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Barnes and Noble, Shakespeare, The Histories, The Yale Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
Alright, here I am again with another Shakespeare play under my belt. After a rather disappointing July where I missed two weeks of reading, at least I’m able to get back on this with some consistency. I’m still somewhat apprehensive about the histories simply because they haven’t been quite as enjoyable as the comedies were, but at least they’ve improved since “Henry VI”.
Todays play brings me to “The Life and Death of King John”, which is one of the few histories that isn’t from the same general period of history, the other being “Edward III” which many believe is not even one of Shakespeare’s plays. The rest of the histories generally deal with the fall of the house of Plantagenet and the rise of the house of Lancaster, then the rising of Plantagenet again and then its fall to the Lancasterian heir of the house of Tudor. This play really has nothing to do with that period, and is the only one of the Shakespearean histories (since “Edward III” isn’t certainly his) that doesn’t. Read the rest of this entry »
Alright, managed to get my reading in for another week straight. In July there I was beginning to think I’d never get back to keeping this a weekly thing. Although I was busy during those skipped weeks, I was still disappointed that I wasn’t able to keep things going as I had hoped to do. Considering how long it will take me to get through this book I really don’t want to miss any more reading sessions than I have to.
So this week I again get another play that is involved with the same general line of Kings as the previous plays, the house of Lancaster and the house of Plantagenet. This time though we get a sort of prequel, with this play revolving around King Richard II of the Plantagenet line, which is the King that was deposed to usher in the rule under the house of Lancaster starting with King Henry IV. Although this play is considered to be written before the others, for some reason the book places it after “Henry VI” and “Richard III”. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Barnes and Noble, Shakespeare, The Yale Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
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