Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Arranging Mom's Affairs
Today I faxed in all of the necessary paperwork to put Mom's house on the market.

I also filled in and submitted the necessary forms to get Mom's mail redirected to our house. And once I start getting that I can begin to cancel whatever other services she subscribes to, such as cable TV, telephone etc.

After discussing things with Erika, will call a local auction house to see what can be done to dispense with her furniture and such. Will also need to arrange movers to take a few of Mom's belongings to whatever nursing home she'll eventually be heading to.

Am really just surprised at how easy it all is to do.

Book Review: Shakespeare's Face
This is an odd book -- it reads a bit like a detective story, then like a scholarly journal with a dash of science thrown in. If it sound like a bit of a mishmash, that's because it is. While the book doesn't win any points for style, it still makes for an interesting read.

The lead author, Stephanie Nolan, details how she ran across a purported portrait of Shakespeare that had been under a neighbour's bed for the past century. Family legend had it that it was painted by an ancestor contemporary with Shakespeare. This story broke on the front page of the Globe and Mail about a year ago, and in the intervening year Nolan has been working on this book. This is the story of what's come to be known as the Saunder's portrait.

In stages it looks at the known history of the painting, what's known about Elizabethan-era portraiture, why 1603 (the year the portrait was painted) was an important year for Shakespeare, the science behind testing the chronology of the portrait as well as the booming 19th Century trade in fake Shakespeare portraiture. Perhaps wisely, Nolan lets the experts in these areas speak for themselves a chapter at a time, though the books ends up being more of an anthology on the subject. The writing styles range from Nolan's lively though journalistic style, to Garber's overly convoluted post-whatever academic style to Alexander Leggatt's warm, lucid and erudite style.

Marjorie Garber's principle chapter just bugs me, and reminds me of why I didn't go after further studies in English. While the topic it looks at is interesting -- why are we fascinated by the idea of looking at a writer's face -- is interesting, the chapter is overlong, filled with too many academic turns of phrase and hammers arguments well past the point at where you want to say "Uncle! I get it. Stop!" She does make the good point that the actual face of Shakespeare matters less than what we think he ought to look like. The Victorians tended to prefer portraits depicting a worldly-looking, sober-faced Shakespeare. She also obliquely says that whether or not the Saunders portrait is real, it's relative youthfulness and rakish looks has particular appeal in our "Shakespeare in Love". In fact the argument that the Sanders portrait differed too much from the accepted 19th Century norm may have been what kept its Victorian owners from exhibiting it -- though Garber never actually makes that point.

I remember after that seeing the picture for myself at the AGO exhibition last year I could be persuaded that it might just be Shakespeare, but after having read the book there are several points that I can't easily shake off. While the picture certainly seems top have been painted in or about 1603, I have a hard time believing that the picture is of a man in his late 30s. I like the theory put forward by Jonathan Bate that this may in fact be a portrait of Shakespeare's contemporary John Fletcher, who collaborated with Shakespeare on several plays and would have matched the age of the man in his 20s seen in the portrait. (Take a look at this known portrait of Fletcher -- which is not included in with the many portrait images in the book -- for comparison). The fact that two of Saunder's immediate 19th Century ancestors were accomplished painters was glossed over -- not that I think they painted a certifiably 16th Century picture, but that they both moved in circles where they could easily come in contact with a dealer who could have sold them the painting.

I do like the picture though, and despite the age problem, I like the idea of the rougish-looking young man in the picture being Shakespeare.

Still, the book was an interesting read. And one whose story seems to be far from over, if only to judge by an upcoming local academic conference that will have a number of papers delivered on the topic.