A persuasively argued book that provides a rich context for Shakespeare’s later years and works.
In his latest forensic biography, Nicholl tackles The Bard.
In a fashion similar to his previous explorations of such 16th-century luminaries as Christopher Marlowe (The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, 1994), Sir Walter Raleigh (The Creature in the Map: A Journey to El Dorado, 1996) and Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind, 2004), Nicholl examines a curious biographical shard unearthed in 1909 and largely ignored since: the brief deposition then-48-year-old Shakespeare gave on May 11, 1612, in a suit brought by Stephen Belott against Christopher Mountjoy, Shakespeare’s former landlord. Belott accused his father-in-law of having reneged on the £60 dowry (today worth about £12,000, Nicholl estimates) promised when he wed Mountjoy’s daughter in 1604 and was now seeking restitution. When called as a witness, Shakespeare, a tenant in Mountjoy’s London residence on Silver Street from approximately 1603 to 1605, said he knew Belott was promised a dowry but couldn’t quite recall the amount. “His statement,” writes Nicholl, “like the signature beneath it, is adequate and no more.” Intrigued by both the ambiguity and impartiality of Shakespeare’s testimony, Nicholl leaps from the court papers (transcribed in full in the appendix) of this mild domestic squabble into a comprehensive analysis of what Shakespeare might have observed during his stay in that unhappy household, and how he may well have drawn upon those experiences in creating Othello, Measure for Measure, All’s Well That End’s Well, King Lear, all written during or shortly after the Silver Street years. He suggests: “The ‘unconsidered trifles’ of domestic life are snapped up by the dramatist. They go into the mix, enriching it with secret flavours of particularity which are, for the most part, unknown to us.”
A persuasively argued book that provides a rich context for Shakespeare’s later years and works.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-670-01850-5
Page Count: 364
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2007
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
