Since Monday I’ve had five more requests for interviews. Already one of them has taken place and been posted. It’s over at historicalboys, a site run by fellow historical novelist C.W. Gortner. In his enthusiasm to aid a comrade-in-arms, he’s given me a great deal of excellent advice, and done more this week to promote MV on Amazon than I have in six months. I am in his debt.
And of course there’s the second half of my interview with Sarah Johnson at readingthepast. I wrote those answers three months back, and it’s fun to finally see them up and read the responses. Again, Sarah has been a treasure, and she’s written the only guide I know of to the genre of historical fiction. If you are a reader, that book is a magnificent map.
More and more interviews are coming, as soon as people read the thing. And there are many other developments that are, at present, too tenuous to put into print. As soon as they become concrete, I will share. Meanwhile, let me throw a shout out to Gabriele at Lost Fort for sending so many readers my way. Welcome, all! I hope to entertain (to quote Daffy Duck) in my own inimitable fashion.
DB
Hi, I’m through reading most of your blog archive now. What a wealth of information.
I’ll have to reread some Shakespeare, esp. Macbeth and Julius Caesar (got some things to share about that one?). And finally read R&J. 🙂 It’s one of the few things school spoiled for me – we went through a set of Shakespeare plays in summary form with selected scenes, and among them was the balcony scene in that horrible Schlegel/Tieck translation. It read like gooey, sticky fudge and while I eventually read all the historical plays plus Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello and others (in the original), and watched the Branagh films, I never got near R&J. Bad girl. The version I know and love is Bellini’s opera I Capuletti e i Montecchi, and that’s based on older sources more than the bard.
Fortunately, school seldom made me stay away from books, and our theatre group staged plays like Schiller’s Don Carlos, Lessing’s Emilia Galotti and Büchner’s Woyzeck.
So I’m not the only one who acts out combat moves in front of the mirror. 🙂 I wish I had known I needed a riding trick when I checked that Roman saddle in Carlisle museum mentioned in my posts; I could have tried it then.
Colleen McCullough has a new Rome book? How cool is that? We share some of the same favourite authors – Dunnett and Cornwell are others.
Posting teaser snippets is evil, you know. 🙂 🙂
Well, I’m an evil man.
Yeah, one of my favorite things to hear is that I’ve made someone go back and reread Romeo & Juliet.
The Gounod opera is the one I know, and I’m not fond of it as a whole, only in places. I’ll have to lok for the Bellini, especially if it’s based on da Porto.
As far as Roman saddles, it drives me mad when I watch films like Gladiator and see them using stirrups. That’s such an easy check! But, yes, fights are fun – though scary for the neighbors.
Did you hear that McCullough is going slowly blind? She said that in a recent interview – it’s why she’s rushed to finish the Antony and Cleopatra book (originally entitled THE QUEEN OF BEASTS, now called…. ANTONY & CLEOPATRA. Sigh).
Talk to you soon, I’m sure.
DB
I love Italian belcanto, so that’s why I have the Bellini one. Though I’ve heard parts of Gounod’s version as well. I’m not that much of a Gounod fan. 😉
Here’s the text to I Capuletti e i Montecchi.
http://www.karadar.com/Librettos/bellini_capuleti.html
The part of Romeo was originally cast for a musico, that is a female singer in a male role, but there’s a score for tenor as well. I have both versions.
The most interesting change is that the roles of Paris and Tybalt are sorta thrown together as Tebaldo. And right when he’s going to fight with Romeo, they hear the funeral cortege for Giulietta, and then Romeo goes like, ‘I’m so unhappy now, kill me,’ and Tebaldo says, ‘I’m even more unhappy bacause I’m guilty, kill me.’ In the version where Romeo is sung by a man, this makes for a fine duet for two lead tenors, an unusual combination.
I suppose you have read that one already, but if not, give it a go – the autobiography by Benvenuto Cellini. He lived later than the time your books take place, but he was such a Rennaissance character, and the book makes for a fun read.
Don’t get me started on Hollywood and History. GRRRRR
I’m so sorry about Mrs McCullough. That must be a horrible fate for a writer.