Mini Reviews: Starlings & Lear

Starlings is a collection of short stories, some hardly more than extended jokes, all with a sci-fi/fantasy bent. Some were entertaining, others confused me. I enjoyed the longer sci-fi story best.

Most of the shorter works had an ironic twist a la' Twilight Zone, including a letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra, waylaid and delivered to the Greek myth Cassandra, who writes back to Jane.

I did not feel propelled to read these selections and I lost access to the ebook before finishing it.

I don't think they are 'my thing.'

But what a great cover!!!

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

*****

I read Shakespeare's King Lear in high school, and in two college courses, and I taught it to my son while homeschooling. It is my favorite tragedy. So when I saw NetGalley had Harold Bloom's Lear: The Great Image of Authority I thought, cool! A chance to revisit my favorite tragedy!

And it was wonderful to read those familiar lines again. But I am sad to say...I did not enjoy Bloom's interjected comments about the play. I was lifted by Shakespeare's words then dunked in cold water, trudging through commentary until I got back to the Bard.

Not to say that Bloom did not offer ideas or insights or connections new to me. And he communicates his personal responses and joy. 

I am shocked that I did not enjoy this. What can I say?  But this presentation may work in a classroom lecture with students who had read the complete play and come ready to dissect it did not work for me. 

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Lear: The Great Image of Authority

by Harold Bloom

Scribner

Pub Date 24 Apr 2018

Hardcover $24.00

ISBN: 9781501164194

"King Lear is perhaps the most poignant character in literature. The aged, abused monarch—a man in his eighties, like Harold Bloom himself—is at once the consummate figure of authority and the classic example of the fall from majesty. He is widely agreed to be William Shakespeare’s most moving, tragic hero.
Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom writes about Lear with wisdom, joy, exuberance, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character."  from the publisher

Margaret Atwood's Hag-Seed, Retelling Shakespeare's The Tempest

Margaret Atwood's bestselling novel Hag-Seed is now out in paperback. It is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, in which contemporary novelists reimagine the classic plays for a new age.

The brilliant, original, artistic director Felix was about to direct The Tempest when he was disposed from his job by self-seeking men. He retreats to an isolated primitive cabin, his only companion his sensing of the presence of his deceased daughter Miranda.

After many years he takes a job under a false name and becomes Mr. Duke, literacy teacher in a local prison, teaching inmates Shakespeare through performance of the plays.

When Felix learns his old enemies are now Ministers who want to end the prison literacy program he decides the time has come for him to take his revenge. The Ministers come to the prison to see a video of The Tempest performed by the inmates. But Felix and his prisoner actors plot a live theater experience that will bring his enemies under his power.

I loved the play within a play structure, so Shakespearean. The intricate structure of the novel knocked my socks off.

The prisoners become essential characters. Hag-Seed, a Shakespearean curse, is their name for Caliban, and the actor playing Caliban writes his own lines:

My name's Caliban, got scales and long nails,I smell like a fish and not a man--But my other name's Hag-Seed, or that what he call me;He call me a lotta names, he play me a lotta games:He call me a poison, a filth, a slave,He prison me up to make me behave,But I'm Hag-Seed!

"The last three words in the play are 'set me free'," says Felix." Felix has identified nine prisons within the play, and so we understand how Atwood conceived of Hag-Seed.

I received a free book through Blogging for Books in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Hag-Seed
Margaret Atwood
Hogarth Shakespeare
$15 paperback
ISBN: 978-0-8041-4131-4

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro

"Shapiro effectively shows how the beliefs, fears, and politics of Shakespeare’s day were reflected in his plays. Highly recommended for readers interested in Shakespeare or British History."

– Library Journal

1606 was an eventful year in the history of England. King James, son of Queen Mary of Scotland, was on the throne after the death of Queen Elizabeth. The kingdom struggled with what it meant to have a king who ruled both England and Scotland. England's Anti-Catholic repression spurred a rebellion, the Gunpowder Plot, foiled at the last minute. All of England was shaken knowing how close they were to the destruction of government and most of London. It spurred and enforced Anti-Catholic legislation and a search for closeted Catholics, who had a pamphlet on how to 'equivocate' to sidestep direct questioning. Plus, the reoccurring Plague took its toll and closed the theaters and demon possession took even the king's interest.

Forty-two-year-old William Shakespeare had been in a lull for several years. He wasn't publishing his new plays and few of his old ones were available at the bookstalls. He wasn't appearing on stage consistently. He was a ripe old age (for those days) and he had amassed enough money to retire. Were his most productive days behind him?

Not at all. For in 1606 Shakespeare finished his masterpiece King Lear and wrote Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.

James Shapiro's book Year of Lear links these three plays to the events of 1606, showing how Shakespeare used buzzwords, current events, and the fears and concerns of his time. Because there is so little information about Shakespeare's life and thought, it is Shapiro's deep knowledge of the plays that enable him to link them to their times. His exploration of King Lear is most successful and of the greatest interest. Readers learn about Shakespeare's sources, how he altered and improved the stories, when they were acted, and about changes made over time. While King James quested for Union, Shakespeare wrote about a king who divided his kingdom with dire consequences.

I am no Shakespeare scholar, and knew only the basics about the Gunpowder Plot and Anti-Catholic repression. I studied King Lear three times during the course of my education, but never have read Antony and Cleopatra. I found the book very interesting and accessible, and I enjoyed it very much.

Read an interview with the author at folger.edu.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Year of Lear
James Shapiro
Simon & Schuster
Publication Oct 6, 2015
$30 hard cover
ISBN 9781416541646

Shakespeare Obsession: The Millionaire and the Bard by Andrea Mays

It was 11:00 pm and I was sitting up in bed reading, unable to put the book down, biting my fingernails in anxiety.

I was not reading a thriller. No character was in a life or death situation.

I had to laugh at myself. I was reading to see if Henry Folger's quest to purchase a rare Shakespeare First Folio was successful.

The Millionaire and the Bard: Henry Folger's Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare's First Folio by Andrea Mays was an informative and interesting read. Mays "tells the miraculous and romantic story of the making of the First Folio, and of the American industrialist whose thrilling pursuit of the book became a lifelong obsession."

In Shakespeare's day plays were not published. The theater was about as well respected as network television is today. Paper was expensive and publishing was a long process. Plays were not 'set in stone' but adapted and altered and improved constantly. Without legal protection of intellectual rights a theater troupe's repertoire was jealously protected. Actors were given their lines, but no complete script circulated.

Shakespeare wrote plays for twenty years then returned to Stratford where he died in 1616. It was seven years after his death that his business partners in the theater, John Hemings and Henry Condell, gathered all of his work to publish thirty six plays--the First Folio. The book took years to print, one page at a time, 750 copies, and took nine years to sell out.

With each new publication of the Folios changes were made. Plays were added that were not by the Bard. Older folios were discarded, replaced by the new. The books ended up in personal libraries across Britain, often forgotten or unidentified.

One of the Gilded Age's nouveau riche industrialists was William Clay Folger, who worked with Standard Oil. He didn't make unlimited money like his employer John D. Rockerfeller. Folger and his wife Emily agreed in their early marriage to live frugally, keep their lives private, and to spend all their money on Henry's dream of building a world-class collection of Shakespeareana. Mays chronicles Folger's life long quest for all things Shakespeare with particular consideration on his First Folio acquisitions. He ended up with a third of the surviving, known First Folios. Folger was lambasted by the Brits for taking their native son's legacy out of country.

The Folgers put their collection away in warehouses across New York City, unseen for years, until in 1932 the Folger Shakespeare Library was built in Washington, D.C.

Mays points out that Folger is an example of hoarding 'done right'. The Folgers' ashes reside in the library along with their collection.

I enjoyed reading about Shakespeare's career, how books were published, the early collecting by Folger, and the building of the library. Because he bought so many First Folios it would get tedious reading about each sale, but the lesser important Folios are quickly noted. I also found interesting the viewpoint on the Standard Oil antitrust act and Ida Tarbell's journalistic attacks--a far cry from how things were perceived in The Bully Pulpit by Goodwin from the perspective of Teddy Roosevelt and the McClure's magazine staff.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Millionaire and the Bard
by Andrea Mays
Simon & Schuster
Publication May 12, 2015
ISBN: 9781439118238
$27.99 hard cover

Can Reading Shakespeare Change Lives?

"Shakespeare Saved My Life."

The title of Dr. Laura Bate's book is a quote by a prisoner in super maximum security. Dr. Bates volunteered to teach Shakespeare to prisoners.

The students were taken to private cells with small openings. They knelt on the cement floor and spoke through the opening to join the discussion. One student, Larry Newton, was convicted for life without parole for his participation in a murder, Newton had survived years in isolation.

Although Newton's education was sketchy and incomplete, he excelled at connecting the plays to his experiences. The plays made him confront his own actions and gave him a feeling of power over his thoughts and actions. He found self esteem and a reason to live.

"Prison is being entrapped by those self-destructive ways of thinking."

"Everyone puts themselves into so many prisons."

--Larry Newton

Newton became a teacher himself, writing curriculum and plays for at-risk teens and prisoners.

"The idea is not to give the the answers, but to make them question."--Larry Newton

The prisoners were eager to participate in the program. They told Bates that by delving into the plays they were confronted their own decisions and thoughts. One prisoner admitted that the plays had saved lives--two.

A prisoner in the Shakespeare program was also a quilter and made Bates a quilt: 228 squares of black, white, and denim cloth. The black and white photograph in the book shows medallion style quilt with four printed bandannas in the center. It was surrounded by borders of squares in a checked pattern, and set with four more bandannas in the outside corners of the quilt. It is 6 feet by six feet according to Bates.

The prisoners who participated in both the Shakespeare program and the quilting group recited Shakespearean text while sewing, entertaining the other quilters and memorizing lines. The quilts were donated to charitable causes, including battered women's shelters and the families of deceased veterans. The quilts had been in the Indiana state fair and in the news.

The book is the choice of OverDrive's first Big Library Read, a global ebook club. The e-book can be downloaded for free between March 17 through March 31. Read about it at http://biglibraryread.com/

See Dr Bates on this news story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3JNobjeLjU

National Geographic's Innovators includes Dr. Bates in this story with photos
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/04/140428-innovator-laura-bates-prisons-solitary-confinement-shakespeare/

"He said he'd been through all sorts of programs in prison, and nothing worked. But Shakespeare did. Why? Because all those other programs start with the premise that you're broken and need to be fixed—need to become another person. Shakespeare starts with the premise that you're not broken if you can handle the language and grapple with the issues. Once you do, you can start to get past whatever personas you've been hiding behind and examine who you really are."

The Reading Group Guide on the OverDrive website poses questions about the prison system, rehabilitation, and the impact of teachers. Then things get personal.

• What 'prisons' of habitual patterns are we caught in? 
• How would we react to the situations described in the book? 
• What Shakespeare plays you have read and can you discover personal relevance in the four-hundred-year-old text? 
• What are your personal prisons--and how can you overcome them?

To read an excerpt of the book check out
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/shakespeare-saved-my-life-excerpt-_n_3133831.html?

The book is compelling to read and often it is moving and hard to read. Dr. Bates does not put forward judgment on the prison system or about the rehabilitation of Larry Newton. Reading about Newton's background and experience growing up I did feel upset that he had been failed by society, and felt that his treatment in juvenile corrections was harsh and unhelpful.

Dr. Bate's work engages the prisoners who truly struggle with the text and how it applies to their own lives. It appears that because of their experiences the prisoners gain deeper insight into the plays than most college students coming from a more protected and supportive background.

I enjoyed my classwork in Shakespeare and have enjoyed seeing his plays in adulthood. My high school teacher made King Lear understandable to me, and I also covered that play in two different college courses. I learned that one should not give away power thinking that those who gain it will keep your best interests at heart. In other courses we read Hamlet, Henry V Part I and II, A Winter's Tale, The Tempest, as well as having read Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Cesar in high school classes. How has Shakespeare been relevant to my life? I haven't been as impacted as Larry Newton has been. I feel poorer in comparison.

I cannot imagine entering a prison as a volunteer. As a quilter, reading about a quilting group in prison sends chills up my spine. We work with scissors and needles and pins! Small objects that could be used as weapons, easily hid away. Dr. Bates grew up in a tough neighborhood, a child of immigrants, and was was not afraid of the men. She was careful and thoughtful, dressing drably and keeping relationships on a professional level.

As a book for discussion Shakespeare Saved My Life would excel. The comments left on the OverDrive website are varied and diverse.

I would not have discovered this book without the OverDrive promotion. I am glad I read it and I look forward to the next Big Library Read.