[HN Gopher] Tom Stoppard Finally Looks into His Shadow
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Tom Stoppard Finally Looks into His Shadow
Author : lermontov
Score : 38 points
Date : 2022-09-14 21:46 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| jclem wrote:
| While "Arcadia" is likely of greatest interest to HN readers of
| all of Tom Stoppard's plays, I also highly recommend "Jumpers"
| and "The Hard Problem."
|
| Also worth noting the many excellent films he wrote, like
| "Brazil" and "Empire of the Sun."
| ska wrote:
| Not to mention _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_ , which
| I guess is both play and film.
| blipvert wrote:
| Happy to be corrected, but screenwriter for EotS, surely, as JG
| Ballard wrote the book?
| [deleted]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > louche glamour
|
| One of those words I really want to use some time ("louche", not
| "glamour").
|
| > he still writes with a Caran d'Ache fountain pen with a six-
| sided barrel
|
| because of course he does.
| patcon wrote:
| https://archive.ph/HHFC2
| VonGuard wrote:
| Anyone wondering why this is here should read or go see a
| performance of Arcadia.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_(play)
|
| Tom Stoppard is the greatest living American playwright. Some of
| his earlier stuff can be a tad impenetrable, but Arcadia is why
| this story is here on Hacker News. It's about a girl in the
| 1800's who discovers the fractal equation for trees, and in
| theory, reality itself.
|
| It's marvelous.
| himlion wrote:
| Can second this, I'm not usually into plays but Arcadia is
| brilliant.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I also found Shakespeare in Love to be one of the wittiest
| comedy movies of all time.
| myxie_ wrote:
| Stoppard is definitely excellent, but at the risk of being
| pedantic, I feel the need to correct the fact that the man is
| quite English!
| harry8 wrote:
| Well if we're being pedantic, definitely not English - there
| is no such "nationality". Czech-British? Maybe just "British"
| being the term used for citizens of the United Kingdom of
| Great Britain and Norther Island?
| Veen wrote:
| England is not a nation state, but it is a nation. English
| is a nationality, as is Welsh and Scottish.
| cbfrench wrote:
| Oh, come on. No one considers Seamus Heaney a "British
| poet," even though he was born in Northern Ireland. He's
| Irish. I don't think the Welsh or the Scots place much
| emphasis on being "British," either. It's a perfectly
| sensible designation to call Stoppard an English
| playwright.
| harry8 wrote:
| It may be sensible in a given context on which I express
| no view but it is not pedantically correct. The context
| here is an expression of nationality while claiming
| pedantry. If one were to refer to Seamsus Heaney's
| nationality at birth, it sounds as though "Irish" would
| be wrong. Whatever one thinks about what should have been
| in that part of the world, or should be today or does
| not. In a different context he may be culturally more
| Irish than Irish for all I know as I'm not familiar with
| him or his work.
| cbfrench wrote:
| But that's not how we designate authors in the field.
| When you're discussing the various literatures in
| English, nationality in the political sense is
| effectively meaningless. Robert Burns was born in
| Scotland after the Act of Union of 1707, but no one
| refers to him as a "British poet." He's Scottish.
| Likewise, Heaney is an Irish poet, David Jones is a Welsh
| poet, and so forth. Those distinctions matter within the
| field of literary study, so it's not really even a matter
| of being "pedantically" correct. It's simply not how we
| classify authors within the various literatures that
| generally fall under the umbrella of "English
| literature." To call Stoppard an English playwright
| (rather than a Scottish or Welsh or American playwright)
| has a significance in identifying the particular
| tradition within which he works.
|
| Moreover, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland
| are recognized as constituent countries of the United
| Kingdom. (And is should be noted that "Great Britain"
| only encompasses England, Scotland, and Wales--not N.
| Ireland. So it's definitely incorrect to refer to a N.
| Irelander as "British.") They aren't simply states in the
| way Texas or Tennessee are. They are countries with
| devolved governments, and are recognized as such by the
| UK government. As such, it seems entirely fitting, even
| from a political and pedantic standpoint, to refer to
| someone as belonging to the particular country from which
| he hails.
|
| E: Probably also worth noting, since we're being
| pedantic, that OC's comment that "the man is quite
| English" need not refer to his nationality per se. It
| could just as easily mean that Stoppard is culturally
| "quite English" rather than indicating which national
| gov't issues his passport.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Northen Ireland is still part of Britain, if not Great
| Britain.
| cl0ckt0wer wrote:
| This thread is literally NoTrueScottsman
| rtev wrote:
| And the most HN thing ever!
| ohruvdjv wrote:
| Veen wrote:
| > So it's definitely incorrect to refer to a N. Irelander
| as "British."
|
| That's a complex issue. Many Northern Irish people do
| consider themselves to be British and others consider
| themselves to be Irish. As you might expect, their
| preferred identity is often related to whether they are
| members of the Protestant/Unionist or
| Catholic/Nationalist communities (this is a significant
| oversimplification).
| renewiltord wrote:
| Wow, that sounds _fantastic_. I only know of his mainstream
| play R &G are dead but it looks like I've got something really
| exciting to read.
|
| > _Thomasina starts asking why jam mixed in rice pudding can
| never be unstirred, which leads her to the topic of determinism
| and to a beginning theory about chaotic shapes in nature._
|
| Well, I am looking forward to this!
|
| And, I have to admit, I do enjoy igniting a little pedant-snipe
| here so "English playwright" I'm afraid. Hopefully, everyone
| decides to have a silly nationality war in my replies too!
| benbreen wrote:
| Arcadia really is extraordinary. My favorite modern play and
| one of my favorite pieces of writing of any kind. +1 to the
| recommendation above.
| afthonos wrote:
| Indeed. My favorite theatre memory is getting to play
| Septimus, and having an audience member tell me the
| lynchpin of my interpretation was something they had never
| realized before. The tiny, infinite reward of having a role
| in a masterpiece. :-)
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