Worst books you have ever read

[SteveH]

Macbeth was never supposed to be accurate history any more than the nativity stories are supposed to be accurate depictions of Jesus’ birth. Both are powerful pieces of literature/drama.

Quite. The historical Macbeth was not a bad king by the brutal standards of the 11th century, and he ruled for some years, not the mere months implied in the play.

[Anchorman]

'War and Peace' and most of Shakespeare are both brilliant, even if WS did make a few egregious errors, such as giving the ancient Romans clocks and Bohemia a coast, and even if Tolstoy (in the Maude translation, at least) was excessively fond of the "now this, now that" figure of speech.

The brummie bard was simply a toadie - a sycophantic chap who tried to sur the edges of power for gain, with a pretty turn of phrase thrown in.
The aforementioned 'Macbeth' is a prime example.
The Stewarts claimed some descent from Duncan's branck of the MacMalcolm family...Macbeth was from a cadet branch, primogentture not being a way in which kings were chosen.
Our Will, in order to please James VI, ignored, twisted and franlkly polluted the real story to please himself.
Far from killing nice old Duncan in bed, Duncan was killed in battle - and he was younger than Macbeth.
So successful was Macbeth that he ruled for 17 years, managing to go on pilgrimage to Rome halfway through his rule - unheard of in the violent climate of Alba at the time.
So confident was he that he left his queen, Grouoch, in charge while he was away.
Yes, Malcolm killed Macbeth in battle (not a siege), but Macbeth was successded, not by Malcolm, but by Lulach, Grouoch's son, ruling for nine months while Malcom eventually gained the throne of Alba with aid from the Norse forces of Orkney and Ypork.
Oh, and not a witch in sight.
That was another nod to James VI's obsession with witchcraft.
All in all, sycophantic rubbish which Willie dribbkled out in lieu of drama.

[Anchorman]

Macbeth was never supposed to be accurate history any more than the nativity stories are supposed to be accurate depictions of Jesus’ birth. Both are powerful pieces of literature/drama.

   



Sorry, Rhi, given the events at the time the drivel was written (Lizzie of England popping her clogs and Jamie the Saxt coming down to take over the shop) Willie was trying to ingratiate himself with the new regime. If he had been trying to make a political point which struck a chord, he could havesurfwed the unease at the English court when a lot of Jamie's pals came south with him.
Instead he went with the flow, much as the tame literati in Soviet Russia penned stuff lionising the heroes of the revolution.
Macbeth was little different.
By the way, that other play - Hamlet - showed the 'good guys' in Denmark coming through in the end....and some of those names would have struck a chord with Jamie Stewart's wife....Margaret of - oh, look, Denmark!
Coincidence, eh?

[Aruntraveller]

How tiresome AM - I know you filter everything through your nationalist spectacles but he was a bloody playwright. He wasn't recording history. The reality of his historical plays, for example, bore as much resemblance to real life as Young Victoria on TV bears to Queen Victoria's actual reign.

Anyway anyone who can pen this from one of my personal favourite's is ok by me:

“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star.”

[jeremyp]

I'll echo that. I got belted in my third year at secondary school for describing him as a second rate Mills & Boon writer whose 'Macbeth; should be used as cat litter. The incompetant twit couldn't get names or titles right, invented a few who never existed....and didn't even know Grouoch.

To be fair, your antipathy towards Shakespeare and Macbeth in particular is really because of that massive chip on your shoulder about the way some people who lived in Scotland four hundred years ago were treated by some people who lived in England four hundred years ago.

It's called fiction. Get over it.

[floo]

To be fair, your antipathy towards Shakespeare and Macbeth in particular is really because of that massive chip on your shoulder about the way some people who lived in Scotland four hundred years ago were treated by some people who lived in England four hundred years ago.

It's called fiction. Get over it.

I did Macbeth for 'O' Level English Lit, I am still trying to get over it!

[Humph Warden Bennett]

   



Sorry, Rhi, given the events at the time the drivel was written (Lizzie of England popping her clogs and Jamie the Saxt coming down to take over the shop) Willie was trying to ingratiate himself with the new regime. If he had been trying to make a political point which struck a chord, he could havesurfwed the unease at the English court when a lot of Jamie's pals came south with him.
Instead he went with the flow, much as the tame literati in Soviet Russia penned stuff lionising the heroes of the revolution.
Macbeth was little different.
By the way, that other play - Hamlet - showed the 'good guys' in Denmark coming through in the end....and some of those names would have struck a chord with Jamie Stewart's wife....Margaret of - oh, look, Denmark!
Coincidence, eh?

You make my views on "London" seem moderate! Hey they could use you in FSR Moldova!

[Anchorman]

How tiresome AM - I know you filter everything through your nationalist spectacles but he was a bloody playwright. He wasn't recording history. The reality of his historical plays, for example, bore as much resemblance to real life as Young Victoria on TV bears to Queen Victoria's actual reign.

Anyway anyone who can pen this from one of my personal favourite's is ok by me:

“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star.”


Whoa!
This has diddly squat to do with politics - it's a history thing.
Aftyer all, the fifteen year old me with the sore hands after telling the twit teaching English how I felt had eight or nine years to go before I became a nationalist.
My history teacher was trying to teach me to be analytiv and observational; to deal with facts and not embellish them with speculation - and at one on the same time this numpty was imparting what he called literature.
What was I supposed to do?
Come off it, the brummie bard knew ziltch about history (Scots, Englsh, Danish or for that mattrer, Roman.) What he DID know was that keeping up with current politics and being a syophant was a nice little earner - so he sacrificed tyruth history, honesty and reality to toadie up with the idiot on the throne of England at the time.
What's nationalistic about that?