Historical Fiction Notes: As You Like It

Walter Deverell, The Mock Marriage of Orlando and Rosalind, 1853

Before I proceeded any further into my Harriman research, I decided that it was absolutely necessary to read the Shakespeare play that is so critical to the Harriman family saga, namely As You Like It.

To wit, I had done much research about the play itself, but hadn't bothered yet to read it end-to-end!

I knew I could download a version on Kindle for free, and could thus read it on my iPhone 5S, but that didn't seem appropriate. It was around that time, after having finished the paperback of Moll Flanders, that I decided it was worth while to acquire a new Kindle device--a new step for me. I did a bit of research, and discovered the model I wanted: the Kindle Paperwhite. Having made up mind, and ruminated a bit to make sure, I went on Amazon.com and within a few moments, I had purchased the device with one-click and received an email that it was on its way.

At the time I was absorbed with much work with my job, and when the package arrived from Amazon a few days later, laid on the front door step of our house here in Fountain Hills, I didn't even open it fully, but put the handsome box on my bookshelf, to be retrieved and opened as some kind of present to myself when I had enough free time to savor its existence.

Once I was ready to start using, and had configured it via the Wi-Fi network to link my Amazon account, the first thing I purchased and downloaded was a copy of the Shakespeare play. It seemed like an auspicious way to start.

To be specific, I was not reading the play for the purpose of acquiring direct historical background for the story, as it had none to offer. Nor was I reading it as an example of historical fiction, since it is a whimsical tale with no direct historical context. The necessary historical research about the play itself had already been done, most importantly in discovering that it had been performed regularly at the Drury Lane Theatre in London during the time frame of the story.

But the play itself was certainly important. How could it not be?

But what could it offer? Answering this question would be part of the pure fun of reading it.

Summary of the story: a benevolent duke is overthrown and exiled to the forest by the new duke, his cruel brother. The overthrown duke's daughter is eventually exiled to the forest as well. Out in the forest, a community of exiles and misfits forms, as a refuge from persecution. There is deception of identity and gender, as well as much whimsy. Multiple couples wind up falling in love, and after much wooing and humor, all the couples are married in a mass ceremony at the end. The former duke is restored.

Of course part of the importance of the play for the Harriman saga is that here we find the origin of the name Orlando (and later, by extension, Roland).

But perhaps the most important element of the play that relates the story at large is the forest itself, namely Arden. Of course this is going to be the name of the Harriman estate in the Catskills. The name is taken directly from the forest of the play. A little web research about the play tells me that the name Arden in Shakespeare possibly refers to the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxembourg, which was the theater of many critical battles in the Second World War, among other things.

What stuck out most in reading the story was the direct contrast between civilization and the wilderness. The narrative of the play is direct progression from the former to the latter. The civilized world is corrupt. Justice and love are thwarted. As the story moves to the wilderness, both justice and love are restored and allowed to flourish.

This contrast---the city versus the forest---is extremely important to Edward Harriman. He was the great railroad baron who was also the close friend and patron of John Muir. Likewise one has the contrast between the city Harriman life of the 20th century and the simultaneous private seclusion of the Arden retreat in the Catskills. There was certainly an alteration and combination of the two realms, and it goes to a prominent and significant theme of "embodying the duality" and the rule of Always be on both sides. Or perhaps more appropriately here, Have a foot in both worlds.

It is fascinating that all of this was set down so literally in the Georgian era of the late 19th century. Edward Harriman built Arden around the turn of the 20th century, over a century after Rosamund Holmes urged her sister to name her son after the character Orlando. The play and its themes obviously had an important conscious legacy within the family itself, one that stretched over two centuries.

The city vs. wilderness theme is not intended to be the main theme of the Harriman saga, but it can obviously be a canvas on which to cast the other themes of the story, even from the earliest days. How this all plays out, I haven't yet figured. I'm not sure I'll know until I begin the actual writing, or even until after it's done.

There is plenty more Shakespeare I intend to read even as part of this project, a including most, if not all of his histories. After all, who is a better role model at fictionalizing history into pleasing artistic narrative than the Bard himself? I read Milton and Chaucer, and loved them, but my direct knowledge of Shakespeare is frighteningly small. Wouldn't it be cool to say I read all of Shakespeare's plays on Kindle?

As for the Kindle device itself, I absolutely love it. No more reading off my little iPhone. With my new device, I've already ripped through half a dozen other books in the last few weeks, which surpasses my reading over the entire last year.

One tweak to my routine that has helped is that I have adopted the habit of taking out my contact lenses earlier in the evening than bedtime. This allows me to forgo the use of reading glasses, which have put a strain on my eyes---one of the main reasons that reading books ceased to be a pleasure.

Back in Portland, moreover, in our little apartment hovering above the traffic of East Burnside, I had a difficult time feeling relaxed enough to read at leisure. I never even had a proper chair, and rarely felt in the mood to sit and absorb myself in a book.

Here in our new home in Fountain Hills, reading has become my primary leisure evening activity. We live up away from the city, in a quiet desert neighborhood behind a mountain range that separates our community from the lights and sprawl of Scottsdale and the Phoenix Valley. There are no streetlights up here, and at night, on our back patio, one can sit under the unbroken canopy of stars and moonlight, with the mountains silhouetted against the horizon.

Lately t has become nightly delight to go outside after sunset and sit beside the pool in my zero gravity chair, with the little LED-lit rectangle of the Kindle cradled in my lap, and the magnificent black dome of the stars overhead.


It feels as if an entire part of my soul, long neglected, has sprung back to life. I have never ceased devouring news off the web----that every-refreshing newspaper. But now I feel literate again.