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Book 75: "Tamburlaine Must Die" by Louise Welsh
Monday, August 7th, 2006 18:02Death makes the world a brighter place. I've seen the shape danger gives to things, an edge so sharp that if you like your head atop your shoulders and your entrails tucked safe in your belly it's best not to stop and admire the view. Yet the prospect of death renders everything lovely. Colours shine stronger. Strangers' faces fascinate and your sex calls you to business you must not attend.
This month's selection for the Motley Fool online book club.
I enjoyed "Tamburlaine Must Die" while I was reading it as it was well written and felt like an accurate representation of late Elizabethan London, but when I reached the end I felt rather let down. I think it would have worked much better if Louise Welsh had expanded it into a novel, as it didn't have enough excitement or twists and turns. The revelation about who had actually created the Tamburlaine posters left me disappointed - So Blaize was upset that Marlow always referred to him as 'one of the best actors in London' rather than 'the best actor in London'. What sort of a reason is that for betraying your lover and best friend? The whole premise of the story didn’t make much sense either. Torturing Thomas Kyd to obtain false evidence against Marlow so that they could blackmail him into betraying someone else seems a rather long-winded way for the Privy Council to go about things.
As for the cover description that "Tamburlaine Must Die is the swashbuckling adventure story of a man who dares to defy both God and State - and discovers that there are worse fates than damnation", I don't think that describes the story well at all. Marlow was an atheist and didn’t believe in God or damnation, so it was the state's laws on blasphemy and homosexuality that he was defying rather than God, and his eventual decision was not made because he was scared of hell, but rather because he was sick of being manipulated by the Privy Council.
And some things never change: He granted me a scholarship to Cambridge University where I was recruited into a strange shadow world, where I was assured I could help my country while helping myself.
This month's selection for the Motley Fool online book club.
I enjoyed "Tamburlaine Must Die" while I was reading it as it was well written and felt like an accurate representation of late Elizabethan London, but when I reached the end I felt rather let down. I think it would have worked much better if Louise Welsh had expanded it into a novel, as it didn't have enough excitement or twists and turns. The revelation about who had actually created the Tamburlaine posters left me disappointed - So Blaize was upset that Marlow always referred to him as 'one of the best actors in London' rather than 'the best actor in London'. What sort of a reason is that for betraying your lover and best friend? The whole premise of the story didn’t make much sense either. Torturing Thomas Kyd to obtain false evidence against Marlow so that they could blackmail him into betraying someone else seems a rather long-winded way for the Privy Council to go about things.
As for the cover description that "Tamburlaine Must Die is the swashbuckling adventure story of a man who dares to defy both God and State - and discovers that there are worse fates than damnation", I don't think that describes the story well at all. Marlow was an atheist and didn’t believe in God or damnation, so it was the state's laws on blasphemy and homosexuality that he was defying rather than God, and his eventual decision was not made because he was scared of hell, but rather because he was sick of being manipulated by the Privy Council.
And some things never change: He granted me a scholarship to Cambridge University where I was recruited into a strange shadow world, where I was assured I could help my country while helping myself.
