Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare, 118 pages

The Rape of Lucrece is one of Shakespeare's few narrative poems, written as a complement to his earlier Venus and Adonis.  Where that poem followed the comic pursuit of a beautiful young man by a lust-crazed woman, this one portrays the tragic violation of a virtuous woman by a lust-crazed man.  The subject is a tale from Livy's history, which begins with Collatinus' boasts of his wife Lucrece's proven devotion which provoke the cruel desire of Sextus Tarquin, the heir to the throne.  In the aftermath of his crime, Lucrece publicizes the outrage before killing herself, an act which provides the spark for the overthrow of the Roman monarchy and the institution of the Republic.  Shakespeare picks up the thread with Tarquin's arrival at Collatinus' villa while the master is away at war, pretending friendship while working himself up to assault.

     'Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating die!

     Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age!

     My heart shall never countermand mine eye:

     Sad pause and deep regard beseems the sage;

     My part is youth, and beats these from the stage...'

This provides Shakespeare an excellent opportunity to demonstrate both his legendary poetic gifts and keen psychological insight, and illustrates an understanding of the struggle between freedom and tyranny where freedom is oriented towards virtue while tyranny is slavery to vice, with ordered liberty opposed to lawless libertinism.

     While she, the picture of true piety,

     Like a white hind under the gripe's sharp claws,

     Pleads, in a wilderness where there are no laws,

          To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,

          Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.

The Steep And Thorny Way

The Steep And Thorny Way by Cat Winters, 335 pages

“A thrilling reimagining of Shakespeare's Hamlet, The Steep and Thorny Way tells the story of a murder most foul and the mighty power of love and acceptance in a state gone terribly rotten. 1920s Oregon is not a welcoming place for Hanalee Denney, the daughter of a white woman and an African-American man. She has almost no rights by law, and the Ku Klux Klan breeds fear and hatred in even Hanalee's oldest friendships. Plus, her father, Hank Denney, died a year ago, hit by a drunk-driving teenager. Now her father's killer is out of jail and back in town, and he claims that Hanalee's father wasn't killed by the accident at all but, instead, was poisoned by the doctor who looked after him--who happens to be Hanalee's new stepfather.The only way for Hanalee to get the answers she needs is to ask Hank himself, a "haint" wandering the roads at night.” This book was a little hard to read because of the subject matter but it was very well done.  Teens who like historical fiction need to read this book.

Queens of Innis Lear

Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton     575 pages

The erratic decisions of a prophecy-obsessed king have drained Innis Lear of its wild magic, leaving behind a trail of barren crops and despondent subjects. Enemy nations circle the once-bountiful isle, sensing its growing vulnerability, hungry to control the ideal port for all trade routes.

The king's three daughters—battle-hungry Gaela, master manipulator Reagan, and restrained, starblessed Elia—know the realm's only chance of resurrection is to crown a new sovereign, proving a strong hand can resurrect magic and defend itself. But their father will not choose an heir until the longest night of the year, when prophecies align and a poison ritual can be enacted.

Refusing to leave their future in the hands of blind faith, the daughters of Innis Lear prepare for war—but regardless of who wins the crown, the shores of Innis will weep the blood of a house divided.

The book is long, so I'll keep my review brief: Writing: amazing. Story: well constructed, based off of King Lear but retold in a clever way, slow going. Characters: Well rounded, flawed, full of angst (every last one) Overall, I can say I liked the book, but definitely not as much as I was expecting to. It was much too long, or the story took too long to grab hold. Lots of flipping back and forth from past to present and so much narration of people, places, things that it took a long time between moments of action. This book was 50% peoples inner thoughts and monologues, 40% people talking to each other but not doing anything, and 10% things actually happening. It was slow, but well written. Is that enough for me to give it four stars? No. For some, this may be a four star or even five star read. Not for me. I don't regret having read it, but I'd only recommend it to people who like long, methodical world building and character development in their high-fantasy.

Love Poems and Sonnets

Love Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare, 154 pages

TS Eliot famously declared that "Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them, there is no third."  Harold Bloom, slightly less famously, observed that this line is almost invariably quoted as praise of Dante, thus demonstrating the Englishman's ultimate preeminence.  Of course, much of that is based on the plays, rather than the poetry, but although this collection includes selections from the former as well as the latter, it is the sonnets that form the bulk of the book.  Most of these poems share the same voice, that of the imploring lover, although that lover is by turns seductive and adoring, hopeful and despairing, playful and earnest, a fool and a genius - a cast nearly as rich as that of the plays.

Will's Words

Will's Words: How William ShakespeareChanged The Way You Talk by Jane Sutcliffe, 40 pages

"Shakespeare loved words. He picked up phrases; he made up new words-- and then he put them together in extraordinary ways and used them in his plays. We bump into his words all the time, four hundred years later, and we don't even know it! Discover the ways that his words changed the way we talk."  This was a nice book for elementary students about Shakespeare.  

Tutor

The Tutor by Andrea Chapin
356 Pages

"The year is 1590, and Queen Elizabeth's Spanish Armada victory has done nothing to quell her brutal persecution of the English Catholics. Katharine de L'Isle is living at Lufanwal Hall, the manor of her uncle, Sir Edward. Taught by her cherished uncle to read when a child, Katharine is now a thirty-one-year-old widow. She has resigned herself to a life of reading and keeping company with her cousins and their children. But all that changes when the family's priest, who had been performing Catholic services in secret, is found murdered. Faced with threats of imprisonment and death, Sir Edward is forced to flee the country, leaving Katharine adrift in a household rife with turmoil. At this time of unrest, a new schoolmaster arrives from Stratford, a man named William Shakespeare. Coarse, quick-witted, and brazenly flirtatious, Shakespeare swiftly disrupts what fragile peace there is left at Lufanwal. Katharine is at first appalled by the boldness of this new tutor, but when she learns he is a poet, and one of talent, things between them begin to shift, and soon Katharine finds herself drawn into Shakespeare's verse, and his life, in ways that will change her forever."

Supposedly Katharine is the dark lady of Shakespeare's sonnets, his muse... however you would never expect it from this book.  A snore of a historical fiction novel I didn't feel any chemistry between the fictional Shakespeare and Katharine de L'Isle.

The Serpent of Venice

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore, 326 pages

So what would happen if you mixed together The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and The Cask of Amontillado, and threw in a foul-mouthed fool from King Lear's court? Um, The Serpent of Venice, that's what. This is Moore's second foray into Shakespeare, the first being Fool, which told the story of King Lear from the point of view of Pocket, the king's fool. Pocket (and his dimwitted apprentice Drool and his monkey Jeff) is back for The Serpent of Venice, weaving together the two Shakespeare works and Poe's tale seamlessly and with a lot more humor than either Bill or Ed intended. I like Serpent much better than I remember liking Fool, which struck me as a little too heavy on the crude humor. (Also, I'm not at all familiar with Lear, and I have at least a passing knowledge of Othello and Merchant, which probably helped immensely.)

Some of the highlights here are the narrating Chorus (and the fact that Moore has the characters interact with the Chorus) and the way that Moore magnifies the absurdity of the characters, Iago in particular. As he notes in the afterword (which is definitely worth a read), Moore fought hard to not use the word "sociopath" in describing Iago. A couple of things that bugged me: some of the chapters were in first person (from Pocket's POV) though most weren't, and the titular serpent, Vivian. While I appreciate the nod to Arthuriana in her name, I kind of think that the main purpose of her existence in the novel springs from two things: the fact that The Serpent of Venice is a clever title, and Moore's fascination with semi-anthropomorphic sea creatures (see: Fluke, Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove).

Generally speaking, however, this is a good one from Moore. He seems to churn out his best work when he delves into historical settings, and this is no exception. I still like Lamb and Sacre Bleu best, but this one's pretty good too.