Where Kit Outsmarts Everyone. For Awhile.

A Tip for the Hangman: A Novel by Allison Epstein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a very well written book, with excellent research, a well-developed Elizabethan setting, memorable characters, and great pacing.

Yes, Christopher Marlowe probably was a spy. This is a fictional account of that, but it feels like it could be true. (The author lists in the back the ways she diverged from literal truth. I was not concerned.) It's gritty and tough, but there's also tenderness and genuine human emotion. Kit is a great character, and I loved rooting for him, but he didn't do himself any favors at times... He's super smart, a brilliant writer but also an amazing mind, capable of deciphering nearly unbreakable codes, and learns how to keep his secret life and his public life separate. He's a bit of a hothead, willing to antagonize people who he shouldn't, and I only wish he had been a little wiser. Still, it feels that the outcome (both in real life and in the novel) was in a way inevitable. Once the state sees potential in a spy, there's no way he could be free to just live his life. And no way could he ever be truly safe.

I had never looked at his history before, and I was surprised to see that he was from a working class family, attending Cambridge on a scholarship. That's pretty cool. I wonder if it explains the tone of his plays--though the author attributes that to his experience with religion and some other things. Now I want to reread them, see if I can see the poor man's son in his language.

This novel works as a straightforward historical spy novel, but the prose is special. I seldom notice language, but the writing here--the figurative language, sophisticate musings, and prose at the sentence level--are all first class. I enjoyed it a lot and highly recommend it.

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Where I Really Hated It and Sorta Liked It--An Explanation

The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yes. It is super antisemitic.

The title warns you, if you hadn't already looked it up or didn't already know.

(I read it anyway. Hear me out...)

How do you rate such a play? (Same problem with reading HP Lovecraft, etc. Can you separate the hate from the story?) For example, I gave it 4 stars, but I don't mean by that, "Pretty good racism! Needed just a touch more to push it over the edge!"

Based on the attitude toward Jews, this is a horrible piece of literature. Unquestionably. It was clearly written as hate-porn. Barabas is a terrible person specifically because he's a Jew. Marlowe isn't hiding it or slipping it in with dog whistles. He makes Barabas as evil as he can, making him do everything possible to hurt the Christian characters, embodying every sin and every antisemitic trope in existence, making the character into the most hateful person imaginable.

Cartoonishly bad, TBH.

And then, the payoff for the theatre-goers: Barabas gets his well-deserved punishment at the end. I can picture a rabid audience cheering his demise, thrilled to see the object of their scorn receive payback for his crimes, suffering true Christian retribution. Come for the racism--and that's pretty much it.

That earns 0 stars. That's as bad as it gets, and even allowing for the mores and norms of the time--still horrible.

I approached it a little differently, to try to evaluate it as neutrally as possible. ("Why?" you might ask. Fair enough.) As I read, I imagined Barabas as simply a villain, motivated in the usual ways. What if he was only an Iago-type villain, like Lady Macbeth, or Edmund from King Lear? You know--just your everyday horrible, murderous person? What would the play be like then?

Read in this light, divorced from its disqualifying hate, it is an entertaining play, melodramatic in a clever way, with double-crosses and villainous plots that would doubtless please most audiences.

You know, if only...

That play, the one that doesn't really exist, gets 4 stars from me. Marlowe can definitely write. The real play, however, gets a negative score.

I still think it's worth reading for a number of reasons; for me, if nothing else, it lays bare the ugliness of historical antisemitism. It helps one understand what beliefs drove the hate. But those who would like all such works thrown into the dustbin of history, I get ya. You're probably not wrong.

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