Ros Barber

I need to begin with a disclaimer: I do not believe that Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays. I have only read The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus so far, but they were both so much more emotionally and socially complex than anything I have ever read by Shakespeare that I simply cannot believe someone so remarkably progressive would have regressed so deeply into such a (these days) socially regressive shell.

In case it's not clear, I have a great deal of admiration for Marlowe (he was so flippin' cool!), which is part of why I decided to read this book anyway. The other big part of the reason is that the book is written in iambic pentameter--quite a feat! I had to check it out.

And now I feel like an uncultured Grinch for failing to be as impressed by this award-winning book as several prestigious publications and authors have been. Oh, I don't mean the verse--that is brilliantly done and many of the individual poems are real gems (if not exactly Marlowe). I mean some pretty basic rules of storytelling that, I'm guessing, were overlooked in all the attention being paid to historical accuracy and meter.

First and foremost is the fact that this is quite a difficult book to follow. I flatter myself that I’m pretty familiar with at least the plots of most of Shakespeare’s plays and decently versed in what’s known about Shakespeare and, to a lesser extent, Marlowe, and I still had trouble following events, especially in the first half when the timeline jumps around (and I say that as someone who really, really likes books that play with timelines!). There’s a note in the back that the text was written as part of a PhD (445), in which case the attention to Marlowe-as-Shakespeare arguments to the detriment of the narrative makes some sense, as does the pretty high level of knowledge required to follow events.

To that end, the pacing felt very uneven: the scenes that went on for pages and narrowed in on the exciting or important scenes of Marlowe’s life were brilliantly done, but so much time was skipped, so little attention paid to the kind of espionage work Marlowe was doing, that I was amazed when I read that Marlowe had been exiled 10 years--sometimes it seemed like longer, sometimes it seemed like much less.

Even though another note said that the notes at the back of the book weren’t necessary to understand the story (409), I found them as necessary as the plot summaries you find at the top of the acts in many copies of Shakespeare plays. As is almost always the case in history-inspired novels, there is a huge cast of characters--but many of them aren’t fleshed out. We don’t get a physical quirk or a notable anecdote with which to associate a lot of the characters, especially before Marlowe’s exile, so I had trouble sticking names to backstories. (Incidentally, this is something at which Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and an early proponent of The Marlowe Papers, excels.) I only found the notes halfway through the book, and since those tended to have more information, I found it easier to keep track of everyone after that.

In a similar vein, I had trouble understanding why Marlowe fell in love with the people he did. There just didn’t seem to be enough explanation of what drew him to people, what made him feel like it was worth it to risk betrayal, arrest, and execution. Yeah, yeah, I get that one of them was just a lust crush kind of thing, but no one else got even that much explanation. What was so special about the “you” to whom most of the verse is addressed? Why did he feel so close to the Dark Lady of the sonnets? Are we seriously expected to believe that he married the sister of his lover because she was him but with socially appropriate genitalia? (And we’re supposed to believe that arrangement isn’t complicated enough to warrant a line or two?)

The book didn’t convince me that Marlowe was Shakespeare, though I do like the idea of Marlowe surviving to do his own thing long after his supposed death. Of course the evidence has been chosen to support that theory in the book, but why not?

I’m going to hold onto this book and hope that I can give it a second read someday. I think once I go in knowing about the notes from the start and knowing not to expect lots of action from one of Elizabethan England’s main men of action, I’ll be able to slow down and appreciate it more.

Quote Roundup

4) . . . A man of books:
which words will make him interesting as dust
to folk who cannot read and do not care
they sign their papers only with a cross.
My name means more, and yet I shrug it off
like reptile skin . . . Anon,
now Christopher is too much cross to bear.
The writing in this book is technically and poetically great in a lot of ways. The occasional Shakespeare-esque play on words was a delightful surprise. I also was drawn to this passage because I think a lot about names--maybe because mine is notable in some circles and it’s made me aware of others’, probably because I’m a writer and I think too much about words--especially important ones...and what’s more important that a name?

24) Do modern poets not have time for love?
Is it extinct?
Greene, Barber, darlings--I can’t escape it! Please show me this mythical land in which people are not obsessed with love.

47) . . . the Flanders Mare fills up
with Flemish conversation.
Um...why is there an inn called the Flanders Mare in Flanders? Henry VIII used the phrase to insult his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, not that long before. Barber has another note about it, but it’s just thanks for the idea, so I have no idea if this exists or if it was a suggested in joke (inn joke, ha ha) for people who know their Tudor history. Yer killin’ me, Barbs!

36-37) I was not impressed with Marlowe’s religious arguments and supposed blaspheming. We’re told even joking about blasphemy at the time could risk execution, but Marlowe’s really pretty tame compared to some of the gospels that didn’t make it into the Bible. I was expecting something a little more, well, Faustian. Or gnostic.

71) The Pact of Faustus
This was one of those great stand-alones. I love the commentary about knowledge and I do like the way Marlowe’s set up as thinking himself too clever for his own good. It goes some way to explaining the blasphemy angle, the implication that he hides things in plain sight counting on most people to be too uneducated to see them.

110) ‘Revenge is his interest, isn’t it?’ ‘Revenge
could work like a canker on the man beneath.
Disolve his metal, even as it shines
through his despair. I can’t find his despair. . . .
Hamlet is all of us, put in his place.
You need his hesitation, or the deaths
are done with by the end of the first act.
But where’s his anguish? His humanity?
Is he a thoughtless murderer? Your Dane
is a writer’s puppet. Wooden. Yanked on strings.’
Ouch, Chris. Ouch. Way to shove your expectations onto someone else’s work. I do wish we’d gotten to see some of how Marlowe shaped Hamlet/Hamlet in light of Kyd’s attempt. Beyond this basic stuff, at least.

115) . . . ‘My view is this.
Religion is irrelevant. What counts
is faith in God, and love of humankind.
a Catholic’s as human as a Jew,
a Muslim, Moor or Puritan; though he,
the Puritan, will aim to enjoy it less.’
Ah yes, the good old “Frozen Chosen.” And on the same page:
. . . ‘To preconceive
is to imprison thought, which should be free.
We will discover nothing if we bind
ourselves to accepted wisdoms.’
I have been having this argument a lot lately. Strikes me even more now that I’m going through my quotes again.

180) . . . ‘The powers that be
have cooked up fear until it bubbles thick
in the brains of the ignorant, and you would stir
it further, give them names? And give them mine,
as if this mind is fodder for the ropes
at a public hanging?’
Someone was due for some work on his ego. Oh, and the first sentence is very relevant today--obviously influenced by current world politics, if probably nothing new.

196) How much I would prefer I had been damned
by the words I crafted carefully in ink.
Instead my pen was cancelled by my mouth,
and scholarship drowned in an hour or two of drink.
I couldn’t remember what, specifically I wanted to say about this, and then I grinned--because clearly Marlowe would have been well served here by “the death of the author”!

206) Another great standalone poem, this one in which Marlowe reflects about his name. Again, I’m obsessed with names, and I love the way he plays with this one of his. No points for the chapter title, though.

212) Another great entry about names as Marlowe considers his alias in exile and the pen name he’ll need to keep writing his plays. Mostly I love all the plays on “William”. Such a versatile name!

237) . . . ‘An untold story sits
like rust on the heart. It makes the blood go sour.’
Lovely quote.Though I’m going to get tired of hearing Marlowe tell his story by the end of this book...

253) I choke unnoticed on the loss. There’s cheer
around me, and I in a bubble of different air,
mull how the past included me.
I know the feeling.

278) I talk her to climax seven times.
Why is it always seven? And why do I yet again have to put up with straight-male-gaze sex scenes when the narrator is actually, for once, bisexual?

314) . . . ‘I cannot share
your taste for female flesh.’ No remedy.
‘And I don’t ask you to. But don’t ask me
to love no more than half humanity.
Beauty is sexless. It’s found everywhere.’
Funny this should follow the previous quote. It’s as great to have a decent, complex, multi-faceted bisexual character as it is frustrating for that character to be stuck with a heteronormative narration. Poor guy.

369) How blind and mindless to old rulers grow,
afraid for their legacies; more fearful still
of their snuffing. Jealously extracting oaths
as insubstantial as a smudge of soot
from those who do not love them, while the pure
untainted soul is viewed suspiciously;
as if some bitter motive lies beneath
his love, as if his constancy’s a plot
to inherit the crown and all its fractured woes.

405) . . . ‘You’re right,’ I say, ‘I’m not
called William Shakespeare. That man is a fence.’
She fast objects, ‘There’s no offence in him!’
‘A fence of the sort that keeps intruders out.’
Another example of fun Shakespearean wordplay of the sort you see between the more refined pentameter-speaking and the rough-and-tumble blank verse-speaking characters.

442) From the Acknowledgements: Without the generous funding of the [Arts and Humanities Research Council], I could not have taken four years out of my life to research and write this book, and I wish to express my sincere thanks to those who selected this project for funding, and the British taxpayers who continue to fund research in the arts and humanities. It is the mark of a civilized country.
’Nuff said. … (més)

It is a well written story; I especially liked the description of the dog's relationship (devotion really) to her mistress. I eventually figured out that chapters 3a and 3b were actually two different endings/paths to the story (admittedly after a little backtracking!). The idea of being able to change a person through experimental treatment was chilling and I enjoyed this part of the story. The book is well named - devotion isn't just about religion but devotion to a daughter, job, the name of a perfume etc. However, I gave it two starts (for the writing and style) as I hated the main character, really hated him. He caused so much destruction/devestation that I wondered if he was the one who was actually sectioned and everything that happened in the book was in his head. I also felt the son suddenly vanished from the story for no aparrent reason as did Merriweather.… (més)

I will admit that it took me a long time to read and review this book. This is not because I did not enjoy it; the exact opposite is true. Most accustomed to fast and light reads that require little brain work, I found that this story could not be read without stopping to enjoy the poetry that was intrinsic to the writing. The author has an uncanny ability to take the most simple of events and create sheer beauty in the lyrical descriptions of those events. It's worth the effort and the time to enjoy the beauty of this work and writing.… (més)