2016: The Wonderful Year
As told by a cast of many and featuring Edgar, the electric guitar.
2016: As told by Dekker
I borrow the title of this piece from Thomas Dekker, who wrote a pamphlet, thus titled, about the year 1603. In this context, the adjective 'wonderful' did not carry its positive connotations of something memorably jolly or praiseworthy, but was rather more descriptive: something to wonder at, be astonished by; something notable, not necessarily in a jolly way. 1603 saw plague in London, the death of Elizabeth and the accession - but not the coronation - of King James. Not, then, a settled year.2016: As told by everyone, it seems
2016 would also seem to a be a wonderful year: a slew of high profile deaths; God knows what atrocities in the middle east; Brexit; and Trump. One tweet in particular, I thought, captured the prevalent mood, at least online.Humorous as this is, it also seems to tell a truth that 2016 was a particularly fatal year; but you have to buy into that truth before this tweet become meaningful; and I do not particularly buy into this truth at all.
2016: As told by me
Truth be told, I have had a great year, and I don't think I'm the only one. My career goes well, my relationships are solid, and I am finding more time (at a squeeze, admittedly) for music, reading and sport.Beyond my own circumstances - for it wouldn't do to crow - I do not find this to have been the news-disaster year of common repute either. The celebs who have died are of a generation; that generation is now going to start passing away, and keep going well past 2017:
Thou know'st 'tis common: all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Syria is undoubtedly ghastly news; but every year has bad news. This is the real low of 2016, but it does not mark this year as being especially vile, for the war has raged a long while now.
I did not wish for Trump to win, but there is a feeling in me, deep down, that the American voters understand Trump and Clinton much better than we do; I cannot judge them for their choice, nor do I pretend to understand the likely consequences. But as I look at America now, divided unlike it has been in many years, and as I look at the wreckage of Obama's non-leadership abroad, I cannot weep for the Democrats or the repudiation of the things they stand for; nor can hide my anxieties for what Trump means for the future of NATO.
And as for Brexit - well, like 1999 and 2012, that's another Armageddon that has failed to materialise. The reaction to the vote has been disappointing, with some people absolutely determined to see catastrophe unfold and for Britain to disintegrate, just in order to vindicate a smug smile and one of those 'I told you so' gloats. But I can't help but feel immense optimism. The vote itself seems to have breathed new life into our political process; the divisions that have been exposed have forced a long overdue national self-reflection, uncomfortable though it be at times; and given how unsuccessful - and worse - the EU has shown itself to be, how can it be that we can't survive without it? I am convinced we can do better than survive - we can flourish; but we could do without the dreary carping and whining, thanks.
2016: As told by Edgar, the electric guitar
Meet Edgar, the latest addition to my family: |
| I am most grateful to my father for gifting me Edgar. |
Edgar is a Fender Telecaster (MX Standard, for those who know). Edgar has a beautiful voice, and he can really, really sing.
The story of Edgar's name will shed some light on the year that has passed, more meaningfully perhaps than all the straightforward stuff I have written above.
Edgar's serial number begins with MX16. I looked up the coding patterns and, sure enough, this means that the guitar was built in 2016, so this year is his 'birthyear'. (Wonderful year indeed!)
Hitherto, I had long been scratching around for a name. My custom is to name my guitars like I name my cars: after characters from Shakespeare's plays. My older guitar was an easy case, for his lean and hungry looking body shape ideally suited Caesar's description of Cassius's 'lean and hungry looks': so, Cassius it was.
But look at Edgar. He's beefy, but stately; muscular and athletic, but also comfortable and smooth. I thought of Prince Hal; but inexplicably, he just isn't Hal.
But then the mood around this year fell upon me, and I was put in mind of that most distressing of tragedies, King Lear. Basically, most people die; Lear having first gone mad and left for dead in a howling storm, and Gloucester having been blinded and attempted suicide. But at the end, there is a small band of survivors, on whose behalf young Edgar, who endured and survived betrayal, a man-hunt and near fatal exposure to the elements, speaks the closing lines:
The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most. We that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
These elegiac words, so tenderly phrased, seemed to me more apt a summary of the times than any sneer, whine, rant, GIF, meme or any other cyberflotsam I had seen drifting around the interweb. After an especially fatal time, Edgar here acknowledges the passing of a whole generation, and not just a particular band of characters. His imperative that we must express what we 'feel' rather than what we 'ought to say' acknowledges also that the times have changed, that the ground has sifted, and that those surviving must face facts and take it all in hand, as ordinary protocol will no longer suffice. The fact, then, that Shakespeare has a young man speak the final words of the play is an expression of optimism, for the burden now falls to young Edgar and his generation, and Edgar acknowledges the future as his, with humility.
So, Edgar it is. Wonderful year, i'faith.
Wishing everyone a happy 2017.
