Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

How do I Find the Time?
Phoenixine One-Hundred and Five, May 1998
Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare is an enormous book -- partly because Shakespeare was quite
prolific and partly because Asimov finds an awful lot to write about every individual play and a couple of
poems. I was also quite surprised to find him discussing several plays which simply did not appear in the
Complete Shakespeare that I inherited from my Grandmother and which is now starting to look
slightly less than complete to my eyes. Admittedly these extras are sometimes of dubious authorship
and there are a couple of acknowledged collaborations where Shakespeare's own input appears to have
been minimal. But all is grist to Asimov's mill and he examines each and every item in the canon.
The book does not pretend to be a literary analysis -- rather it attempts (very successfully) to place the
plays in a contemporary and historical context. Macbeth, for example, was written partly as a gift for
King James I of England (the VI of Scotland) on the occasion of his accession to the English throne. A
deal of political sensibility was required as James had strong opinions and, being a new King and perhaps
uncertain in his powers, needed a degree of buttering up. The play is also based around historical fact,
though Shakespeare played a little fast and loose with the time scale and twisted the truth a bit for
political ends in order to humour his new monarch. Asimov analyses both these threads with masterful
skill, placing each very carefully in context.
I won't claim to have read the whole book. I have read the discussions of the plays with which I am
familiar and I skimmed many of the others. I found all the essays interesting and erudite and utterly
fascinating. What a polymath Asimov was. This book demonstrates as few others do the enormous
breadth and depth of his range of interest and knowledge. It is an absolute gem.
The new Jack Vance novel is obviously the first of an open ended series, given that it doesn't come to a
satisfactory end. It simply stops when the page count is long enough. God grant that he lives long
enough to finish the series for it is wonderful and witty and quintessentially Vance.
As a boy, Myron Tany dreamed of space exploration, of leading expeditions among the myriad planets of
the Gaen Reach. But his family insisted that he set himself a course of sober study, the better to
prepare himself for gainful employment and so he studied economics. Then his Great Aunt Hester, a
woman of flamboyant manner and great wealth comes into possession of a space yacht and Myron
starts to hope his dreams may come true. Aunt Hester is frightened of growing old and departs in her
yacht to search for a fabled rejuvenation clinic. To begin with all is sweetness and light. But soon Hester
is bored by the sameness of every day of her journey and she and her paramour deviate from the
course to explore some of the planets along the way. Soon there is a quarrel and Myron is marooned on
one of these planets and left alone to make his way as best he might across the vast expanses of the
Gaen Reach. He signs on with a cargo ship that meanders from planet to planet. Several are visited and
then the book stops.
There are no plot resolutions. We never learn how Aunt Hester fares and Myron's journey is scarcely yet
begun. There is obviously so much more to come and I for one anticipate the remaining books with
great eagerness. This wandering odyssey of a plot is the perfect vehicle for Vance to indulge in that
which he does best -- the creation of quirky, bizarre and sometimes downright twisted societies, the
description of exotic (and sometimes revolting) foods, the long, languorous conversations, all
profoundly polite and circumlocutory but nevertheless managing to convey all manner of insult and
innuendo. Who cares what plot vehicle Vance hitches his prose to? The prose itself is so lush and
grandiloquent that you can simply wrap yourself up in it and luxuriate in the fecundity of his imagination
and the richness of his tone.
My only complaint is that the book has no footnotes! What use is a Jack Vance novel without footnotes,
I ask you?
Harry Harrison too has begun a new series. Stars and Stripes Forever is the first book of yet
another trilogy. It is a novel of alternate history. Britain is dragged into the American Civil war and (in