Month: October 2009

http://thebooksmugglers.com/2009/10/joint-review-prospero-lost-by-l-jagi-lamplighter.html Now, see, how come I don’t get to review stuff like this?

More than four hundred years after the events of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the sorcerer Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and his other children have attained everlasting life. Miranda is the head of her family’s business, Prospero Inc., which secretly has used its magic for good around the world. One day, Miranda receives a warning from her father: “Beware of the Three Shadowed Ones.” When Miranda goes to her father for an explanation, he is nowhere to be found.

I’m dying to make a joke about Ethan Hawke playing Miranda, you realize. 🙂

For those in the Boston area:  I note with serious interest that Commonwealth Shakespeare, the wonderful people who bring us Shakespeare on the Common every summer, are sending out mysterious messages on Twitter about another play, coming in November.  How exciting would *that* be?  I highly doubt it’ll be free and outdoors, but then again, who knows what they’re up to?

How’s *that* for an attention grabbing headline?  Such is the premise of Myrlin A. Hermes’ coming novel, “The Lunatic, The Lover, And The Poet,” waiting for me this morning.  The book comes out in January, but sometimes I get sneak peeks like this 🙂

A 16th-century Divinity student at Wittenberg University, Horatio prides himself on his ability to argue both sides of any debate–but does not fully believe in anything. Then he meets the beautiful, provocative, and quite possibly mad Prince of Denmark, who teaches him more about both earth and Heaven than any of his philosophy books.
But his patroness, the dark and manipulative Lady Adriane, employs her own seductive wiles to test whether the "platonic true-love" described in Horatio’s poetry is truly so platonic–or so true. And when a mysterious rival poet calling himself "Will Shakespeare" begins to court both Prince Hamlet and his dark lady, Horatio is forced to choose between his skepticism and his love.
Laced with quotes, wordplay, thespian in-jokes, bed-tricks, cross-dressing, and a steamy bisexual love-triangle inspired by Shakespeare’s own sonnets, this witty, sexy new novel will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about the Bard.

There’s a video trailer up on her site, if you’re curious.   What’s got me thinking is that right at the end the word ‘satire’ flashes on the screen.  Is the whole thing a joke? A comedy?  At first I thought it was just traditional net slash fiction gone book length.  But now I wonder …

http://shakespeareplace.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-old-is-too-young-for-shakespeare.html Over at The Shakespeare Place, regular commenter JM has finally put up a topic that’s near and dear to my heart : kids and Shakespeare.  Regular readers know my answer.  Cruise back through the archives (sorry, I am way too busy at the day job to bring up the links) and you’ll find recordings of my kids – as young as 2 – reciting Sonnet 18.  Or my 3yr old naming her Barbie dolls Regan and Goneril, and asking to sleep with King Lear under her pillow.  Or my 5yr old asking me to explain Hamlet’s ghost.  Or drawing the shipwreck scene from The Tempest on the back of her placemat at breakfast. The all too common response to Shakespeare among schoolchildren is “Oh, no.”  What I get from my children is “Oh, cool!” I think that most people start late, and then only come to appreciate what Shakespeare really means later in life.  I am hoping beyond hope that my kids get the kind of jumpstart I never had, and who knows, maybe go on to discover depths as yet undiscovered.

[ ADMIN : For some reason I cannot access any of the key articles about this breaking topic, even though it’s all over my newsfeeds.  I’ll try to update this post with pointers when I figure out what the problem is. ] When I go on vacation, I like to seek out used bookstores.  When I find those, I like to seek out Shakespeare books.  I recently found a 100yr old Venus and Adonis that I have to get around to blogging more about. But once I saw Edward III, by William Shakespeare.  “Odd,” I thought, “Shakespeare never wrote an Edward III.” According to today’s news, that’s half right.  A researcher claims, with the help of his computers, that Shakespeare worked with Thomas Kyd to write this play. I want to see the original articles because I want to see how frequently people are saying “did write” and how often they’re saying “may have written.”  Because if it’s the latter, well then, didn’t we already know that?  And haven’t we proven nothing?  May have also implies may not have, after all. But if it’s pitched as conclusive prove, definitely did, then I think that’s just silly.  No amount of textual analysis is going to *prove* anything.  It’s going to raise your confidence higher, perhaps so high as to be indistinguishable from proof, but that still doesn’t make it proof. More info on the story when I get some links to work.