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Shakespeare by Bill Bryson
by didau @ Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008 - 07:56:14

Have now added Bill Bryson's 'biography' of Shakespeare to the read pile. I've put inverted commas around the word biography because, frankly, he doesn't really tell you anything about the bard himself. He lets us know early on that all anyone knows for certain about his subject is the date he was born and christened in Stratford, that he married Anne Hathaway, that he lived in London and that he almost certainly wrote a load of plays. Oh, we also know the day he died. Bryson sets out to tell us all the things we don't and can't possibly know and takes the time time to debunk a lot of popular myths about the great man. The one thing he seems absolutely certain about is that Shakespeare's plays were in fact written by Shakespeare (this reminds me of a probably acropophical story about an academic who spent his life's work trying to prove that the Iliad wasn't written by Homer, but by another Greek of the same name!) He's quite amusing, as well as pretty convincing, in the final chapter where he pokes holes in all the theories ascribing Shakespeare's works to Francis Bacon and sundry others. I felt particularly pleased to learn that some of the leading proponents anti-Stratford conspiracy theories have names such as Looney, Silliman and Battey. Wonderful. I also found the details of the First Folio's printing a fascinating subject - apparently no two copies were the same! But, and it's a big but, I didn't really learn anything about Shakespeare beyond the fact that the there isn't anything to be learnt. And that's just frustrating. I don't really know why Bryson took the trouble to write this - obviously it's sold very well and thus made him a few quid - but still. It's not half as much fun as Shakespeare in Love

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PurpleDragonPurpleDragon [Member]
27/08/08 @ 15:42

I quite liked Bryson's travel books, which were very entertaining. However, the other books he has written have left me cold. The one about the English language was dull as dishwater.

didaudidau [Member]
27/08/08 @ 16:07

horses for courses. N'est pas?

menhirmenhir [Member]
23/10/08 @ 19:11

I would be suspicious of a writer who asserts facts are what they are and what he says they are. There has been some highly respectable research into Mr Shakespeare et al. I do not think Bill Bryson is in a position to set himself up and all knowing.

I read how Bryson described one place in these Isles, I know very well. It was selectivity at its pinnacle and ignorance personified.

That will be one book I shall avoid unless I wish to utilise it for research purposes to demonstrate the shallow nature of face-value writings.

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