Wole Soyinka's Bacchae is a marvel: I could call it utterly transparent or describe it as supersaturated with color; either way, it’s scrupulously faithful in its own manner. I’m surprised it hasn’t been more visible as a model for later work—it certainly gave me ideas.
Family stopped by outbound and inbound from Hawaii. They say Hawaii is nice.
Melodrama is not equivalent to crudity—that’s one thing I’ve had to unlearn. They can’t all be well-wrought urns. I don’t want to lie about enjoying Die Räuber (though never was anything so obviously written by a precocious nineteen-year-old) or the serialized nineteenth-century slabs (though they begin with no knowledge of their endings); they have life. It’s so easy to switch off the life. From sheer self-consciousness.
One of the more entertaining pieces of advice I heard in workshops was to try stripping off the carefully orchestrated openings and beautifully sealed up endings so as to let the tubby living middle breathe freely.
