"Coriolanus" by William Shakespeare

"Coriolanus" is said to be the most political of all Shakespeare plays. it is about a great Roman war hero who knows his way around the battlefield but not into the hearts of his own people. Refusing to soften his image and conform to social customs, he turns the people against him and causes his own downfall.

The image of a politician is perhaps even more important that what he and his party stands for. We live in a culture full of celebrities and false idols. What the play shows, which remains true until today, is that one's good deeds are not enough; one has to magnify and display them for all to see. Politicians lie, whether or not they want to, because they have to; they will do whatever it takes to be liked because they can achieve nothing without. Coriolanus is willing to not be liked, unable to foresee that being liked is necessary for him to keep his position. As the play goes to show, he cannot continue to serve Rome because he refuses to comply with the people's will.

The play is not one of the best cases of character studies. While Coriolanus is well-developed enough, he pales in comparison to other Shakespeare tragic heroes. He has many great fiery moments, but the tenderer, more humane ones are not sufficiently explored. Aufidius, the main villain, is inconsistent and shallow, and never quite grows into a well-rounded person. The most interesting character is Volumnia, the mother of Coriolanus, who raises him to be a war hero and later persuades him to reconcile with Rome after everybody else had failed. Through Volumnia Shakespeare once again shows his value of women and his ability to create strong female characters that triumph over men.

I enjoyed reading this play a lot more than the previous tragedies based on Roman histories, including "Julius Caesar" and "Antony & Cleopatra." It moves at a fast pace and focuses only on the main story line (no clowns or whores here). This play is not nearly as well-known as it should be, but it is one that, I believe, will always be relevant.

"Jacob's Room" by Virginia Woolf

"Jacob's Room" is not about the story of Jacob Flanders as it is about the character as told from different characters' perspectives. The style is experimental, and there is something special in the way an artist like Woolf tries to do something different with the novel form, because by doing so it helps to keep the form alive. As a novel, however, I didn't find it nearly as enjoyable as the other works of hers that I have read, including "Mrs. Dalloway" and "To the Lighthouse." I don't feel like I really know who Jacob Flanders is, or any of the other characters for that matter. Despite the fact that it is written from different perspectives, Woolf's voice remains the same throughout. I don't think there is really any reason why anyone would enjoy this novel, unless you are a die-hard fan of Woolf and Experimentalist or Modernist literature.

Note on Reading Short Stories.

Short stories and short poems are the two things that I don't spend nearly as much time on as I should. They are just as important to my studies as the bigger works, since I study literature and want to know about all literatures. A big aspect of reading that I enjoy is the satisfaction of having read something big, which is probably why I don't read shorter works much.

But because one needs to read what one writes, I need to read short stories more. I often find answers to problems I have with my writing in reading short stories; a good story often contains examples of all the things you need when you have writer's blocks. It is also stimulating to read a brief, self-contained piece of work that is truly brilliant. Great short stories writer can make the characters so interesting you remember them the way you remember characters in novels. I had a discussion in a writing class a while back, in which we discovered that most of the stories we had read for the class focused on the characters than the plots. This, of course, isn't true to all short stories, but I have discovered that this proves to be true in most of the stories that I have read. And I enjoy these stories tremendously.

Reading short stories can help you to discover authors with whom you are not familiar. It is a quick way to get to know their writing styles. There are many authors whose names I recognize but whose works I have never read. Reading their stories help me to decide whether or not I want to read their works.

Last week I went and bought a new short story anthology--it was published in 2008, so not that new, but new to me. It is titled "The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction" selected by Joyce Carol Oates and Christopher R. Beha. So far I have read two great stories, one of which is "The Love of My Life" by T.C. Boyle, which I highly recommend. I might write a more in depth discussion on it later.