Hi Fforde Fforum Ffans,

just scratching my head over the beginning of ch. 25 - the "Macbeth Retold for Yeast" part. In case it's supposed to be hinting at anything funny - I don't get it...

Maybe my English skills are leaving me here!

So thanks in advance for any help on this matter!

Greetings from Germany,
Hubi

I think that earlier, they mentioned something about how they'd translated things for yeast...anyways, since you don't imagine yeast as being particularly smart (I mean, come on!) their "Macbeth" is rather mundane. Just slashes and elipses, because that's all they understand.

On another level, it might be commenting on the "flatness" of "Macbeth"- that maybe the plot is on such a basic level even yeast could understand it. But I don't think Jasper Fforde would be cheeky enough to insult Shakespeare. Then again, if you'd think about his Hamlet craziness...I don't know. Do you get what I mean?

Best regards from Texas, ya'll (!)

Leah

and there is the reference to yeast being smarter than Pickwick when Thursday is trying to teach the Generics what sarcasm is.

I think it may be a comment on abridged classics/Shakespeare 'retold for children', which has always struck me as amazingly patronizing/condescending (and did when I was a child too), the implication being that the stories/plays have to be retold because the author of the abridged/retold version believes the child is too stupid to understand what's going on.

And yes, I know Shakespeare is too complex linguistically for children to understand all of, but they're more than capable of understanding a great deal, and any intelligent adult should be able to help them with it instead of palming them off with the literary version of slop.

/rant

In defense of "Shakespeare for children," these books are not in any way meant as a substitute for Shakespeare, but they can be an excellent introduction. I speak from personal experience: when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, my grandmother gave me a beautifully illustrated picturebook version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I was instantly hooked. (I am now a senior in high school. Note the screenname -- need I say more?)



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Metaphors be with you!

Besides, you need some kind of explanation for when he MAKES UP WORDS.



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"We are born alone, and we die alone. In between, how about a drink?"
~ Mr. Nutty

If you 'retell' or simplify Shakespeare, it's not Shakespeare. It's like reading crib notes for Joyce's 'Ullyses' and then saying that you've read Joyce.

Having said that, I would add that there is a place for picture book versions, retellings, and even crib notes. Anything that interests a young person in going on with the real thing is valuable. However, I'm dubious about only 'reading' Shakespeare - his writing was for the purpose of being seen and heard.

Many, many years ago I began collecting and reading the full set of 'Classics Illustrated' - comic book versions of the classics - and I've been hooked ever since.

robert wrote:

> If you 'retell' or simplify Shakespeare, it's not Shakespeare.

I could not agree with you more! "Shakespeare for Children" is not nearly the same as actual Shakespeare, but it serves a good purpose in that it lets kids know that Shakespeare is neither stuffy nor incomprehensible (both sadly far too common misconceptions) and that the Bard was truly an excellent storyteller.

That is the difference between those picturebooks and publications like Cliff's Notes and its ilk. They do exactly the opposite by effectively telling high school students (who, unlike 3rd graders, should be fully capable of understanding the plays) that "Shakespeare is far too difficult and erudite for you to grasp by yourself. You need to buy this guide to explain all the hard stuff for you! Can you believe how unreasonable your English teacher is being, expecting you to understand all those complicated words without my help?"

(And I quote from an "Understanding Shakespeare" video we watched in class: "When Juliet says, 'That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet,' she means that even if a rose were called something else it would still smell just as good." Duh. Sad, isn't it?)

Besides, I have a problem with Cliff's Notes for other reasons as well: in oversimplifying the plays, they can sometimes make broad statements about things that are open to the interpretation of the individual actor. For example, in Dream when Lysander suggests to his fiance Hermia that, "one turf may serve as pillow for us both" and she objects that they should wait until after the wedding, Cliff goes on about how naive and innocent Lysander is. Supposedly, he simply does not see how lying down together to sleep could be inappropriate. Most actors see his motivations quite differently (the more likely interpretation, in my opinion, remembering that the church records in Stratford-upon-Avon record the christening of Suzannah Shakespeare less than nine months after the wedding of Will and Anne...). It is incredibly limiting to assume that The Bard According to Cliff is the one and only "correct" interpretation.

(A much better resource for critical analysis of Shakespeare's plays is the book Shakespeare After All, by Marjorie Garber. It is lucid, intelligent, and quite obviously written for people who have read the plays!)

I also agree with robert that the plays were meant to be seen and heard, not solely read. I watch stage and screen productions whenever possible. Or I just read them out loud (although the people in the library do give me awfully funny looks!).

Incidentally, does anyone else bristle when they hear some unenlightened clod refer to Shakespeare's language as Old English? Beowulf was written in Old English, Chaucer wrote in Middle English, and Shakespeare wrote in Modern English!!! (Sorry, that's just my little irrational pet peeve!)



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Metaphors be with you!

A short piece of verse in mock-Chaucerian English!


hmmmmm!


Now THERE's a good competition theme.


A new Canterbury tale:

A specops dam ther was yclept Neckst
whereof was spake nowthing too vexed....



(Thinks: no,no,no, save it for later)