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
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
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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