Amateur Reader (Tom)

A little bit on Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy" followed by a bit more plus the brilliant, innovative masterpiece "Ur-Hamlet":

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...

and then

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Heartening!

And another:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/10/milk...

"The Spanish Tragedy" next week. "The Jew of Malta" a couple weeks after that.

A couple of posts on Marlowe's "Tamburlaine the Great" plays. What they are doing, what the language is like.

One part:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/10/marl...

Oh nice. Good photos.

In English we got it all in retrospect, but for Hungarian readers the turn to East Asian subjects must have been an interesting surprise.

I wrote about "Seiobo There Below," which I think is K's most interesting book, in two parts:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2013/11/who-...

&

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2013/03/art-...

But "The Melancholy of Resistance" likely gives a better sense of why he won the big prize.

I haven't read "Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming" or the short story New Directions published in a nuisance format. You can see "Animalinside," also a nuisance, squeezed in beside the essential "Music & Literature" #2.

Maybe someone will now publish the scattered collectorama in a sensible format.

A surprising feeling to see the Nobel go to Krasznahorkai. Not only have I read almost everything in English but I have even *bought* many of his books.

Oh thanks. Definitely a trip worth doing.

Oh yes read those Gormenghast books!

It's a genuinely difficult book.

Now now. No need for gloating.

Plus you also need the Music & Literature #2 issue.

Where I Walked in September 2025, and with Whom – The great affair is to move I walked about a third of the Chemin de Stevenson in southern France, accompanied by eight other intrepid Mainers and three jolly donkeys.  ...

My French vacation post with Robert Louis Stevesnson and several donkey photos.

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/10/wher...

Well I love reading and am not getting paid for it, so there are two senses of "amateur."

A note on Elizabethan authorship and Stephen Greenblatt's new biography of Christopher Marlowe, which I have not read Stephen Grennblatt’s biography of Christopher Marlowe, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Christopher Marlowe , was j...

And some thoughts on Elizabethan authorship hooked onto Stephen Greenblatt's new biography of Christopehr Marlowe, which I have not yet read, but will:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/09/a-no...

Also, some notes on Marlowe's tragicomic "Dido, Queen of Carthage" (1587?)

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What I Read in September 2025 – A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme My writing on Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great plays has been hampered by an apparent post-France short circuit in my ability to...

NOVELS
Guilt (1936), László Németh
The Ponder Heart (1953), Eudora Welty
Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969), Ishmael Reed
The Poacher's Son (2010), Paul Doiron

With notes and a jolly photo of donkeys at the blog:
wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/10/what...

TRAVEL
Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879), Robert Louis Stevenson
Le Chemin de Stevenson (2023) &
Le Jura... à pied (2023), TopoGuides

POETRY
How the Stones Came to Venice (2021), Gary Lawless
Blood Wolf Moon (2025), Elise Paschen

IN PORTUGUESE
Zilda (1924), Alfredo Cortez

WHAT I READ IN SEPTEMBER

MARLOWE ETC
Tottel's Miscellany (1557)
Gorboduc (1561), Thomas Sackville & Thomas Norton
Dido, Queen of Carthage (1587) &
Tamburlaine the Great, Pt. I (1587? / 1590), Christopher Marlowe
The Cambridge Companion to English Literature 1500-1600 (2000)

We climbed up a high ridge in the Jura to a scenic point.

After this walk we went to the spa. It's an old salt mining town so the water at the spa is salty.

Anyway the Jura is nice.

& on the other hand this is also French food. That appears to be a hash brown on top of the burger. I am not saying I am above eating such a thing but the white bun weirds me out a little.

Some of the babka this morning at La Tresse, the first Ottolenghi-inspired place I've noticed in Lyon. Note the pink praline babka 2nd right, adopting Lyon ingredients. Always good new things in food-crazy Lyon.

latresselyon.fr

The donkeys are home & it was a travel day & it did not seem so interesting to photograph the laundromat so here is the jolly Ramen Vert in Lyon. Time for a change from the regional Cévenol country cooking of the past week.

Feeding oats to a donkey on the summit of Finiels. Not much food for donkeys up there.

Our last day with the donkeys.

Yes we had a little adventure today. All's well. We all learned a lot about donkey handling.

Very pleasant day to walk in the French countryside with donkeys. Except for the hornet incident. Luckily donkeys stop running eventually.

They stay at this level for a while.

With one of our donkeys.

Honestly a little hard to take photos while guiding a donkey.

Folk art Robert Louis Stevenson and Modestine on the Chemin de Stevenson.

For some reason RLS's hat is a crucial part of his iconography here.