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Title: The Friendly Shakespeare: A Thoroughly Painless Guide to the Best of the Bard by Norrie Epstein ISBN: 0-14-013886-2 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.76 (17 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "More Sinned Against than Sinning"
Comment: "Shakespeare is very good in spite of all the people who say he is very good": Epstein thus quotes Robert Graves in her preface and notes that she wrote the book for people who are not familiar or comfortable with Shakespeare. Fortunately, this companion is delightful for longtime fans as well. Epstein discusses twenty-three of Shakespeare's thirty-six plays (unaccountably skipping 'Julius Caesar' because, she says, "I don't like it and felt it was time to give the play a rest". She offers the most insights into the best-known tragedies (35 pp. on Hamlet, 24pp. on 'Othello', and useful thoughts on the difficult 'Tempest'), and discusses film adaptations, actors, the cult of Shakespeare, puns, sex, and the Elizabethan era. In short, she provides wonderful, readable color to enhance plays that many have read over and over and others have avoided all their lives. Divided into a series of accessible articles of a few pages each, the book need not be read in any particular order. Thumb through and you'll find something to catch your fancy. Thumb through again tomorrow, and you'll find something else. Epstein is a great place to start before seeing or reading a play, and if you don't have tickets for a nearby production, reading this book will induce you to fall in love with Shakespeare or remind you why you fell in love the first time.
Rating: 5
Summary: SHAKESPEARE IS THE MAN!
Comment: The bard will be your best friend after you read this aptly titled and titillating book. Ok - yeah, it's one of those reference books for the works of "he of literary genius" but WITH A TWIST!! Aside from the commnetary on over twenty plays, famous quotes, famous performances, celebrity commentary, and myriad pictures/illustrations/maps/photos, what else is there you might ask? This would be the best question because it's all the hearty extras that make this book memorable:
Shakespeare's famous insults, celebrity interviews, sexual slang, quibbles or wacky word meanings gone awry, chronology, the argument over the credibility of his authorship, his signature, birthright,and education, popularity of his sonnets, was Shakespeare gay, his cryptograms, his music....END
Rating: 5
Summary: The perfect guide for the beginner
Comment: I can't imagine a better guide to Shakespeare than this. It's like a "for dummies" book, but better. The author covers just about everything, but she never bores you. In fact, I could hardly put this book down.
After a very lively introduction (about Shakespeare's life and the Globe theater), the author lists the plays in the order in which they were written. She divides them into four groups: the romantic comedies, the historical plays, the tragedies, and the romances. Then she tackles each of the four groups, writing about some of the plays. She tells you why the play is famous, she covers key characters (like Falstaff), and she explains the controversies that surround some of them. (For example, the charge of anti-Semitism about Merchant of Venice.) She makes a point of not covering every play --- if she covered them all, the reader would eventually lose interest.
Instead of getting bored, you are starved for more. The book is packed with trivia and intelligent observations. The author isn't shy about the sex and violence in the plays, either, which keeps things interesting. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants an overview of Shakespeare's work. If you don't know about his plays, you probably want to, but you need a guide that was written specifically for you. This is the book.
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