Petri Salin: McB3
(Portti Special English Issue #1)
 
In the Macbeth tragedy, the most often borrowed elements are the predictions, but as a narrative figure, Mr. M. is chiefly remembered as a reckless upstart incited by his wife.  The drama of Macbeth is based on personal counter-forces; according to the classic interpretation, on Macbeth having too much imagination and his wife, too little.

Petri Salin's McB3, a prose-poem version of Shakespeare's play is, in Finnish circumstances, a unique interpretation, especially as to its structure. On the other hand, the familiar narrative elements are included as such, very much corresponding to expectations. Especially the avenger figure not-of-woman-born is, for an sf fan, quite easy to anticipate.

Salin combines in a well-balanced way the merchants' war of the domination of Mars with space opera tradition and history play. The atmosphere, the expectation of eternal fame, uses an advertising and technology emphasis in its expression. Without checking with the original, one cannot always be sure where in a sentence Salin is directly quoting Shakespeare and where he's speaking himself, though indeed inspired by the original tragedy. Salin preserves a frenzied elevated style throughout his prose- poem, which already is an achievement.

It is another matter entirely, how cute or meaningful an English speaking reader might consider the recycling of the basic anglophone story. I am also not quite sure about breaking up the expression into sentence length lines that serve the intention of a lyrical structure with interpretive space. Were the reader to leave every second line out of Salin's text, s/he'd notice how an elliptic expression might provide even better for the lyrical and myth-utilizing features of the work.

Macbeth as a figure would especially have profited from details making him more corporeal. That's what an interpretation of myth is at its best, re-figuration. Unless one re-comprehends the figure, the interpretation of a classic easily shrinks to just recycling the plot. So, while Salin's text at first reading is full of Shakespearean sound and fury in space opera scenery, it doesn't tempt one to re-reading. It rocks, but it doesn't expand you, and perhaps it doesn't need to.

Markku Soikkeli
(Translated by Liisa Rantalaiho)