From the Garret: Archives
Is the New York Times Book Review right?
A review of Will in the World
This was the question I asked myself as I read the titles listed on the
NYTBR's "10 Best Books of 2004".
How anyone can decide what the ten best books of any year are is beyond
me. To be truly fair, one would have to read every book published that
year to compare them all. Of course, the Times
doesn't even bother to cover certain rather significant genres, romance
being one of them. However, I decided to read the books the Times
had chosen and see if I thought their reviewers really knew what they
were talking about.
The list includes six works of fiction: Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson, The Master by Colm
Toibin, The Plot Against America by Philip
Roth, Runaway by Alice Munro, Snow
by Orhan Pamuk, and War Trash by Ha Jin. Completing
the list are four works of nonfiction: Alexander
Hamilton by Ron Chernow, Chronicles: Volume
One by Bob Dylan, Washington's Crossing
by David Hackett Fischer, and Will in the World by
Stephen Greenblatt. I instantly excused myself from reading the Bob Dylan
memoir because I'm simply not interested in his life (sorry, all you Dylan
fans, but you should probably read the book yourselves if you like him
that much).
Since I'm reading the books with a critic's eye, I thought I'd report
back to my own readers on what I think of these supposed masterpieces
of 2004 in a sort of literary blog.
 Which
book did I decide to read first? (Drum roll.) Will
in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt.
He should be honored, right?
We've all read those theories that the son of a middle-class glove-maker
from the backwater town of Stratford-Upon-Avon could not possibly have
written the glorious plays and poems that make up the works of William
Shakespeare. The literary skeptics say that some nobleman or other must
have written them and simply used poor old Will as a front man for their
disreputable literary activities.
Nonsense, says Stephen Greenblatt, a Harvard professor and author of
many prize-winning books (so he should know). Professor Greenblatt defends
the playwright's identity using a compelling combination of Shakespeare's
writing, Elizabethan social and cultural history, and the frustratingly
minimal records of the great author's personal and business life. At the
end of the book, this reader was convinced that Shakespeare really was
Shakespeare.
Touching on everything from Shakespeare's religious upbringing (were
his family members closet Catholics, a dangerous faith in those days?)
to an apparently unhappy marriage (a hasty wedding was required due to
Anne's pregnancy), Professor Greenblatt writes a very readable account
of the significant forces which shaped Shakespeare from his youth into
his old age. Shakespeare's work is quoted throughout, reminding the reader
of the magnificence of his language, the astuteness of his observations,
and the difficulties of reconstructing a writer's life from his own words.
I developed a new respect for the tenacity and patience with which Shakespearean
scholars comb through old and undoubtedly dusty records of legal disputes,
land purchases and sales, tax payments and business transactions in the
hope of finding William Shakespeare's name (which was often spelled in
different ways or even abbreviated) amongst them. Professor Greenblatt
references these to map Shakespeare's movements, his economic and social
status (he applied for a family coat of arms), and his family life. It's
quite illuminating to discover how much personal information can be gleaned
from a court case.
Despite its scholarly author and subject matter, Will
in the World is an accessible book, easy to read and fascinating
enough to make me keep turning the pages well past my bedtime. It also
inspired me to revisit The Merchant of Venice,
a play I thought I understood but which Professor Greenblatt presented
in a very different light.
For Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World,
I give the NYTBR's reviewers a gold star.
I'm glad I read it.
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