Much Too Profound For Its Own Good

A landmark has been reached. I have finished my first Virginia Woolf novel. And though I enjoyed Mrs. Dalloway, I have also never been more certain of a novel being better than I can appreciate. I am still too young, too interested in finishing novels rather than savoring them, and Mrs. Dalloway is, more than any novel I've heretofore encountered, one that needs to be unpacked. And that takes time, care, and sometimes just plain old repetition. So I will return to it, again and again I'm sure, and I have no doubt it will be better each time. For now, I'll relax with what passed for quality in the 1990's, Michael Cunningham's The Hours.

I wrote briefly a few days ago about the phenomenon of a book being "too profound for its own good." This is the sense that the book has had so much influence over the years, that at this late date it is hard to see how revolutionary it was when published. In that vein, I am now embarking on what could be the next great landmark I achieve: a reading of Shakespeare's collected plays.

Now, if there is anything that qualifies as "too profound for its own good," this is it. Shakespeare has been copied, imitated, twisted, turned, interpreted, re-interpreted, condemned, revived, and thus rather influential. Every plot of every novel or film I've ever seen is likely a take on something Shakespeare already wrote (not to mention the plethora of Shakespeare quotes appropriated by pop culture), so I'll have to go easy on the old guy if it sounds like I've heard some of his stuff before.