Customer Reviews
Makes the most of what little there is to know - By: E. Potten, 26 Sep 2008 
A neat little book exploring what little we know about Shakespeare's life. Bryson hasn't had the easiest of tasks, trying to work a coherent life out of such scant information & vague references to Shakespeare during his lifetime, & allin all he's done well.
It starts a little dry, & the small details get a bit overwhelming - but then, there is little emotive material to work with so detail is there is to offer. Where Bryson excels isin fleshing out these patchy details with other interesting information about the theatrical conventions of the time, lifein Stratford & London, & other literary types who surrounded Shakespeare. In doing so he turns this into a much more interesting biography than it would otherwise have been. The last chapter, relating to the various theories that Shakespeare didn't write the plays & sonnets attributed to him, is where Bryson's wit & sharp humour really come into their own as he batters them down one by one, & the book thus ends on a vibrant note which made me laugh aloud & left a lasting smile!
Much Ado About Nothing - By: Jamie Beckwith, 21 Sep 2008 
Although his name is oft bandied about as a must read this is the first time I've ever had the chance. Bryson that is not Shakespeare! This serves as a nice intro to Shakespeare the man with a "just the facts ma'am" approach. And as he admits, this slim volume is a testament to the fact that what we can take as absolute fact about Shakespeare is very little at all.
For a giantin literary terms Shakespeare has left very few footprints. However as Bryson points out this isn't as odd as it might sound, one can't reasonably expect records dating 400 years ago to either bein a sturdy condition or to be legible or even to have survived numerous calamities over the years from natural fires to German bombing campaigns. The fact that the actual early copies of manuscripts of Shakespeare's plays account for about 15 % of all surviving plays from the late Elizabethan / early Jacobean period is pretty remarkablein & of itself.
The author obviously allows room to discuss the speculation of other scholars or this would be a very very slim volume indeed, but he clearly demarcates between what is established fact & what is theory. From his early years we get the speculation of his education & whether he was a secret Catholic, to the sparse yearsin London before becoming an established writer takingin such romantic fancies that he sailed with Drake.
The one thing Bryson holds no stockin at all is the theory that Shakespeare is not the author of the plays & though he dutifully covers all the potential others he is quite clear on the lack of any tangible evidence that anyone other than William of Stratford wrote the plays
The Perfect Layman's Biography of Shakespeare - By: Mr. David Thomas Moore, 13 Sep 2008 Well, I suppose the big beardy Anglophile yank had to do it sooner or later.
As Bryson himself saysin his introduction, the world doesn't really need another book on Shakespeare. From the incredibly specific & obscure to the uselessly vague & general, from the trivially lightweight to the inaccessibly somber, the Bard of Stratford is the subject of literally dozens of new books of facts, biography, analysis, opinion, theory & conjecture, every damn year.
For all that, this was a worthwhile book to have written, which is more or less all we'd expect of Bryson, who is a clear, clever & witty writer who rarely fails to please.
Bryson has chosen biography as his goal. The book is writtenin more or less chronological order, with chapters covering distinct periodsin Will's life. Bryson starts by characterising the period, analysing the (usually scant) evidence available, then raising & scrutinising the various popular interpretations about what is known. He detours occasionally into anecdotal discussion about his researches or funny or impressive stories about other people's attempts at research, which all over helps it from getting too dry & to remain a very Bryson book.
Throughout he's diligent about the distinction between evidence & interpretation. The problem is, we actually have pretty slender information about Shakespeare's life: a veritable wealth of data by the standards of Elizabethansin general, but still very little from which to derive any reliable idea of the facts of his life. Inevitably, this means foraying into conjecture from time to time; a practice at which Shakespearean academe excels, but a dangerous one. Bryson gives an example of the famous deer-poaching incident, a romantic guess madein the eighteenth century that was repeated as solid factin Shakespeare scholarship for more than a hundred years after. Bryson, by contrast, while happy to include reasonable & useful guesses as to how to interpret what is known, is very careful to let you know what's fact - & where it's from - & what's conjecture & how it was arrived at.
If you're seriously into your Shakespeare scholarship, this book probably doesn't have anything new to tell you (although Bryson's research is up to date, & he has access to facts I didn't have at Uni), but if you're only likely to buy one Shakespeare biographyin your life, this isn't a bad one to choose.
A good introduction to the Bard! - By: J. Sutton, 11 Sep 2008 As someone who has only `discovered' Shakespearein her 40s, I think this book is the perfect introduction to him & his life.
I didn't really know an awful lot about Shakespeare apart from the fact that he died on St George's day, & that this date is popularly given as his birth date too. This is taken from the Christening records which show he was baptised on 26th April. It was usual for babies to be baptised within a few days of birth due to high infant mortality rates. Oh, & obviously I knew he was the Bard from Stratford-upon-Avon, but there my knowledge ended!
This book also contains interesting facts about the Elizabethan & Jacobean periods of history, all told with Bryson's trademark wry humour, albeit that it's not as funny as some of his other offerings. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone know knows Shakespeare's life well, but to a novice, it's definitely a great place to start.
There's small choice in rotten apples - By: Mark Slattery, 11 Aug 2008 Bill Bryson is more or less supermanin today's literary world. He transcends subjectsin a single bound & the globein another. He's a talented critic, writer & humourist. It's a good job, to use modern vernacular, that he's the daddy because, with this one, he's taken on the mother of all literary subjects.
He's done so wisely. He's not attempted to become an original researcher & posit new theories about the man's identity or his plays & other works. He has essentially evaluated & sumamrised the existing state of Shakepearian debate & study, providing his own critique of what is compelling & credible. Thankfully, Bryson was born without a 'boredom gene' & the book reaches any audience, reading so easily. The man does not do dull.
Typically, Bryson's prose is litered with diverting & revealing anecdoes, we get a potted physical history of the theatre alongside the exposition of the central figure. Bryson is expert at demonstrating the lack of hard information about Shakespeaare (I spelled that incorrectly, but then, so did the Bard...) & the vulnerability about the claims & surmises made about his life & character. That will no doubt ruffle feathers. I found it interesting to learn that Shakespeare had thieved so many of his stories from others. As also did I find the battle for written English over Latin. The fact there were lost plays is new to me too. So to non-Shakespeare scholars this offers a lot.
To those who are scholars I am not sure it will be depthy enough to satisfy but they are not the prime audience I'd suppose. Bryson's great economy of expression, wit & clarity mean he is less self-indulgentin this book than perhaps any other of his that I have read (which is all but one, that being the African diaries). Although always near the surface, his trademark wit is lessin evidence, reserved for a full scale assault on those who feel Shakespeare was somebody else. That business is clearly a cottage industry & I know Bryson has trodden on somebody else's cucumbers here by reason of the ridicule he heaps on the alternate theories.
It is a short book. There could have been more. But how much more was truly needed? And at whatever point should he have stopped on an almost inexhaustible subject populated by many including purists & pedants? Nevertheless one gets the impression he made a judgement about the length that possibly excluded a little more hard work examining various omissions from the life of the Bard & those who knew or worked with him.
Bryson's book has one central curiosity. It is really the oppositite of a biography - more a book about what we don't know than what we do - & that is refreshingin itself. I think he's done a first rate job here given how well aired the subject is.
And for his next trick...?
Incidentally, the title I gave to this is a quote from one of the Bard's plays & seems to convey Bryson's attitude to much of the literature he discovered!
