April 23: Favourite Shakespeare Books Post

I am a compulsive Shakespeare-related reader and over the years my bookshelves have filled and overspilled with biographies of the man from Stratford-upon-Avon and studies about his work, even with manga-like comic adaptations of dubious graphic quality. One has to fill her library with light and there's no light brighter than Will's words. So to celebrate today his 446th birthday I just thought I'd talk about some of my favourite (non-fiction) books about him.

1599: A Year In The Life of William Shakespeare, by James Shapiro.
Most Shakespeare biographies fail because there's so little we know for certain about the man that it all ends being conjecture without the honesty of admitting it. Flights of fancy are welcome, provided you don't try to pass them as academia. Here James Shapiro takes a clever, reductive angle. He writes about just ONE YEAR in the life of the playwright; but with a limited structure he lets his readers navigate the world of Elizabethan London on their own, letting the details of the period come alive and with a clear narrative flair. It also has one of the best opening scenes in any book, fiction or non-fiction: the image of Shakespeare and fellow company actors carrying the wood of their old theatre across a frozen Thames is obviously apocrypha, but unforgettable.

Shakespeare, by Anthony Burgess.
Word-boy and cleverest of the clever, novelist Anthony Burgess wrote the book I love most in the world (Nothing Like The Sun) on this very subject: an imagined life of Shakespeare. But here it's that novel's non-fiction twi - a sharp and concise biography of the poet, accesible to any reader. A thin, wonderful volume. It is a great book to kick off your Shakespeare readings, if you've never picked up a biography of the man.

Will In The World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, by Stephen Greenblatt.
A deep, lyrical, excellently-researched meditation on how the events in Shakespeare's life and the period he lived in could have influenced, coloured and facilitate the writer's work. With a fortunate focus on Shakespeare's language, this is a book to keep near you at all times.

Shakespeare's Language, by Frank Kermode.
If you are a word-geek like me, obsessed with the way Will Shakespeare was obssessed with language, this is the book for you. Kermode has a keen eye and explains things very well, even I - who doesn't have English as my first language - could get through the whole business easily. It explores the peculiar language of each play extensively, but never gets too academic for the average reader.

REVIEW: Saint Thomas's Eve, by Jean Plaidy

Title: Saint Thomas's Eve
Author: Jean Plaidy
Pages: 352
Rating: 2.5/5
Bought/Borrowed/Loaned: On loan from Kensington Library.

SUMMARY
The rise and (deadly) fall of Thomas More under the reign of Henry VIII is the central spine upon which the story of Jean Plaidy's Saint Thomas's Eve is constructed. More is first seen having left a life in the monastery for the possibility of starting his own family. We follow him from humble but respected lawyer and man of learning untile he becomes one of the King's most trusted advisors. The More family grows and changes as Thomas's first wife dies and he marries - children are born and adopted and we can see the love Thomas has for all of them, but particularly affectionate is his relationship with his older daughter Margaret who becomes his confidant and best friend.

For this is Margaret More's story as much as her father's. She goes from little girl to young woman, a loving and loyal companion to Thomas More. But then Henry begins his battle to divorce Queen Katherina and pursue a relationship with Anne Bolyen. The King becomes obssessed that nothing comes in the way of his desires and Thomas More becomes more and more fanatical in his religious views, the two of them colliding in a clash of faiths and wills that would send More into his unfortunate and infamous end.

REVIEW
Having finally read one Jean Plaidy book I can easily see the appeal of her novels to a wider audience. The simpleness of her prose makes for a quick, swift read and it's easy to devour the book in a couple of days. The story was easy to follow and provided with enough interest to make you want to turn the page.

That said, I must admit this kind of book wasn't my cup of tea. I read it, and I enjoyed it well enough while at it but it also frustrated me. I love historical fiction but too often I despair at how much of it is historical fiction for the sake of historical fiction and there's not enough literature in it. I will always seek literary value and style above anything else in what I read, that's why Jean Plaidy couldn't satisfy me. She is just not that much of a great writer. There is a diference between having an unintrusive voice and being colourless, and this book's prose didn't fly. A fun but underwhelming read.

The other thing that annoyed me was the use of an ommniscient narrator at times; I have real trouble with that sort of point of view, and the novel would have been much more interesting without the added psychology and the paragraphs and paragraphs about the character's inner thoughts. I liked the idea of the switching POVs but sometimes they weren't consistent and the telling of the story slipped into this omniscent narrator.

There are things I enjoyed about the book, nonetheless: I liked the portrayal of Margaret's relationship with her father, and that's the heart of the book. I felt they had good and touching scenes. It was a good thing to see how, while her feeling of devotion towards Thomas More remained untouched in Margaret as he grew up, she started questioning some of his more fanatical actions. As a side note it was a curious read, this book that portrays More as a very likeable and sympathetic character, after having read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, with its view of More as a dangerous extremist. Most of the story is seen through Margaret's eyes and I always have a soft spot for an external-to-the-action point of view and here it really works. The book makes good and constant use of parallel and opposite scenes - for example the scene where Henry VII decides to make Thomas More his enemy out of a grudge and the scene where newly-crowned Henry VIII warmly welcomes More and his poetry.

Bottom line, even though I had a good enough time reading this I'm not very likely to pick any other Plaidy in the future, unless the subject really interests me.

In any case, be sure to check out Jean Plaidy's Royal Intrigue (and its blog), an excellent site dedicated to the author that continues to delight.

Hilary Mantel - Author, Author: Unfreezing antique feeling

Wonderful article for the Guardian by Hilary Mantel on the presence of the past in our lives, and how some people are more atuned to the traces of time.

I have been reading enthusiatic reviews and raves about Mantel's latest book, Wolf Hall, winner of the Booker Prize. I am anxious to pick up a copy but poor and bohemian as I am I have to wait until second-hand bookshops quench my thirst or my local libraries have some copies available. I loved Mantel's Beyond Black and Thomas Cromwell is a figure I am intrigued by but know little about, so it should be a great ride.

The article is very unassuming but I think it raises a fine point about writers being in synch with the world in stranger ways than other people. I refuse the notion of writers somehow being "special" but I feel understably mystic about my profession sometimes, or at least about myself - being in the business of painting the world with words is an odd affair, moody, and sometimes we find ourselves weeping over ancient stones like fools. That's what I like about the article.