Word: welshed
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That was the most remarkable of the many striking effects in German director Peter Stein's production of Falstaff, with which the celebrated Welsh National Opera was making its American debut. But the applause that swept the amiably musty BAM theater was not just for Stein. Nor just for Donald Maxwell's passionate performance as Sir John. Nor even just for the smiling Princess of Wales, Princess Di herself, who appeared in a glowing white satin dress for the black-tie benefit. Also to be applauded and celebrated was the start of a new kind of opera season...
...narrator, who describes himself as a retired terrorist (he fought to establish Israel), refers to a belief among Welsh nationalists that an old steel sword briefly on view in England was actually King Arthur's. The narrator points out that Arthur may not have existed, and that whatever sword he owned would surely have rusted to nothing. He admits, however, that the sword in question was engraved with the letter A. And he retails the scholarly notion that long before it belonged to the proprietor of Camelot it was the legendary Sword of Mars, said to make its wielder invincible...
This seems to portend more than what follows, which is a long, fairly routine mini-series of a novel. Without appearing to have much on his mind, the author follows the adventures of three families -- one Welsh, one Russian- American, one Jewish-English -- through three wars. The founding patriarch is a young ship's cook, a Welshman named David Jones, first seen surviving the sinking of the Titanic. He meets and marries a beautiful Russian immigrant named Ludmila in New York City, resettles in England, volunteers for the army, is mistakenly reported dead in World...
...night)." This comes at a point weighty with literary allusions to Crime and Punishment, so the reader suspects hidden meanings and looks up sutky. No allusions here; all it means is "a day and a night." Marvelous; now we know another Russian word. Perhaps the scraps in Welsh, Turkish, Greek and Hebrew offer magical insights, perhaps not. The suspicion is that they are simply authentic sound effects. You skip them, the way in another kind of writing you skip descriptions of furniture and scenery...
...sword does turn up, after some unlikelihoods normal to popular adventure. Perhaps it was Arthur's, but Burgess, who invented it, now seems to feel that it doesn't much matter. Both he and his characters discount Welsh nationalism as unserious playacting. One of his protagonists, in exasperation, chucks the sword into a pond, where it sinks without a deathbed speech. He explains, "I had to grasp a chunk of the romantic past and find it rusty." Which does not entirely answer a last-page question to the author: "What was that all about...