Thursday, July 19, 2012

Goodness

I find it puzzling that you often hear the generalisation that wicked people are somehow more interesting than good people. (By the way, I'm simple enough to believe that both types exist.) There's occasionally a surface fascination attendant upon sociopaths and the like, but they're too predictable to be of true interest for long. Read Hitler's table-talk. Extraordinarily obsessively boring stuff. Not a man to be trapped in a lift with.

In contrast the genuinely good are invariably disturbingly beguiling. And challenging.

Shakespeare, of course, knew this. Which is why the Bastard Edmund is exciting at first, but gets a bit wearing, whilst the simple Cordelia is endlessly enigmatic (and far more difficult to play.)

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