Sunday Sundries, 282

1. AOTW: I see many of you--every day. You are the ones who, at the stoplight or stop sign, ignore that wide white line painted on the road, in your lane--that white white line right in front of you whose message is: STOP HERE; DO NOT GO FARTHER INTO THE INTERSECTION. Oh, how many times have I seen an entire row of cars have to inch backward so that a large, turning semi has room to turn. And why did it need more room? Because some AOTW had ignored that wide white line, had moved into the intersection, even just a little ...

2. I finished one book this week, the amazing 2020 novel Hamnet by a writer I'd not read before--Maggie O'Farrell. (Oh, but I am going to read more, you can bet!)

This novel tells the story of the life and death of Hamnet Shakespeare, the Bard's son who died at age 11 in 1596. (A few years later came that play you've probably heard of--Hamlet?)

Very little is known about the boy: He was a fraternal twin (Judith was his twin sister); we know when he was christened (right after birth was the custom), when he died ... that's about it.

But O'Farrell does a superb job of creating the boy's world--Stratford-upon-Avon and environs--the home where he grew up (still standing)--the family dynamics.

But even this required a lot of research and imagination on O'Farrell's part. The Bard, as you no doubt know, left few records of his life. But O'Farrell fills it all in so artfully, so naturally, that, reading,  I was continually thinking: Yeah, that's probably what happened--makes a lot of sense.

The story takes us back and forth. We meet the teenage Will, sort of at loose ends, not getting along with his father, a glover, and having no interest in pursuing that career, roaming around.

He takes a tutoring gig (Latin!), where he meets the woman, six years older than he, who will become his wife, Ann Hathaway (or Anne or, as O'Farrell calls her here, Agnes--which is how her name appeared on one extant document).

And then we shift to the year Hamnet died.

Back and forth ...

As I said, O'Farrell explains so effortlessly (and naturally) the unknowns about the Bard: What did he do after he left school? Why did he go to London in the first place? What caused Hamnet's death? What happened to the letters the Bard wrote back to Stratford? And so on.

We also get a full portrait of Agnes, who has some ... unusual ... abilities and skills.

Anyway, by the end (which I had not really seen coming) I was awash in you-know-what when we reach the final scene--about which I will tell you nothing!

3. I've almost finished streaming Eighth Grade, that 2018 film about Kayla, an eighth-grade girl near the end of the school year. She lives alone with her father, who tries so hard but just can't seem to connect with her. (She dismisses him continually, reminding me of my own Dark Days in 8th grader.)

Kayla tries hard at school--not in her schoolwork (about which we learn virtually nothing) but in her social life. But the alphas don't really pay much attention to her; she also posts online videos now and then--but gets no hits or shares.

She has a thing for an odd boy, but ... what will happen?

And, in a school-arranged visit to the high school with her classmates (a "shadow day"), she seems to connect with the girl who is her guide ... but how will that turn out?

Available on Amazon Prime ... I should finish it early this week.

BTW: The girl who plays Kayla (Elsie Fisher) is wonderful--kind of plain, kind of an engaging personality, able to turn her affections on and off, relentless in her pursuit of ... happiness?

4: Thanks to a suggestion from our friend Chris, Joyce and I have been working our way through the nine seasons of Waking the Dead, a British crime drama about a cold-case unit. They're always having to respond to the discovery of some decomposed body (or bodies), at which, of course, we get many good, close looks.

An interesting set of regulars on the show--all with their various "issues," of course. Sometimes we like the show; sometimes we hate it. But ... most revealing sign of all? ... we keep watching. We're now in Season 8. But, oh, can the images be grim!

5. Last week, on Facebook, I posted a pun about the word figment. For your pleasure (?) I've reproduced it below ...

... can't find it, but it went something like this ...

FIG: It was just something in my imagination.
PLUM [later]: Did you understand what Fig meant?

Anyway, I realized I didn't know--or didn't remember--anything about the origin of figment. So I looked it up. It comes from the Latin figmentum (something made or feigned). Makes sense.

But, you know, I don't think I've ever read or heard that word except with reference to the imagination.

6. Last Word: a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers:

     - from wordsmith.org

henotheism (HEN-uh-thee-iz-uhm)

noun: Belief in or worship of one god without denying the possibility of others.

ETYMOLOGY: From Greek heno- (one) + -theism (belief in god). Earliest documented use: 1860.

USAGE: “Of course, it is certainly easier and more economical to please a few gods rather than many, so henotheism slowly superseded polytheism, from which monotheism was a small, albeit logical step.”  Frank Luger; Lebenswert; Lulu; 2019.