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Shakespeare: The World as a Stage (Eminent Lives) | 
 enlarge | Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £2.50
You Save: £5.49 (69%)
New (34) Used (12) from £2.05
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 212
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 000719790X
EAN: 9780007197903
ASIN: 000719790X
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
There's small choice in rotten apples August 11, 2008
Mark Slattery (London, UK)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bill Bryson is more or less superman in today's literary world. He transcends subjects in a single bound and the globe in another. He's a talented critic, writer and 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 and posit new theories about the man's identity or his plays and other works. He has essentially evaluated and sumamrised the existing state of Shakepearian debate and study, providing his own critique of what is compelling and credible. Thankfully, Bryson was born without a 'boredom gene' and the book reaches any audience, reading so easily. The man does not do dull.
Typically, Bryson's prose is litered with diverting and 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...) and the vulnerability about the claims and surmises made about his life and 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 and clarity mean he is less self-indulgent in 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 less in evidence, reserved for a full scale assault on those who feel Shakespeare was somebody else. That business is clearly a cottage industry and 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 and 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 and 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 - and that is refreshing in 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 and seems to convey Bryson's attitude to much of the literature he discovered!
Informative, entertaining and readable August 6, 2008
P. Matthews (UK)
Any biographer of Shakespeare is faced with a problem: the known facts about Shakespeare's life would only fill one rather short chapter. Some biographers discuss at length various speculations about possible events in his life, but Bill Bryson wisely avoids most of this, briefly dismissing, for example, the story that he was caught poaching.
Instead, Bryson fills the book with a colourful depiction of life in Elizabethan England, describing for example food and drink, religion, the theatre, and the city of London. My only criticism of the book is that some of the historical stories, such as the Spanish Armada, the Essex rebellion and the gunpowder plot, will already be known to many readers.
Bryson has clearly taken his research seriously, and interviewed leading Shakespeare scholars as well as visiting the Folger library where many of the First Folios are kept.
Particularly entertaining is the final chapter where Bryson debunks the various theories (one of them proposed by a Thomas Looney) that the plays were written by someone else.
This is an informative and enjoyable book, and much easier to read than the more substantial Shakespeare biographies.
Enjoyable and informative August 4, 2008
Mr. R. Lewin (London, England)
This is an easy to enjoy book offering the latest thinking on the world's greatest playwright, written in Bryson's typical witty and brisk style. It can be read over a short period of time - in fact, you find yourself wishing it was longer.
One of the most common phrases in the book is 'nothing is known about...' or 'very little is known about...' Bryson does not include information that is not fully backed up, or if he does, he discounts it. So there are times when you become a little exasperated at the lack of information. But the book is never less than highly entertaining, and full of piquant anecdotes and nuggets of information.
Combining facts and humour August 2, 2008
Linda Oskam (Amsterdam Netherlands)
When Bill Bryson is going to tackle a subject like William Shakespeare, you know that it is going to informative and very funny, an excellent combination. In his usual wry style Bill Bryson tries to unravel fact and fiction about Shakespeare's life, time and works. Because of the scarcity of facts, people have over the ages made up whole stories based on no evidence whatsoever. Also, there was (and is) a strong movement that Shakespeare's plays were not written be Shakespeare, because they consider him too much of a country yokel to write about the sophisticated topics covered in his plays. Bill bryson describes the times in which Shakespeare was alive, including the way in which theaters and plays were run, and makes a convincing case for not over-fantasizing, but also a realistic believe that Shakespeare has actually existed. A very readible book that combines fact and humor in a very pleasant way.
Excellent ...but... July 26, 2008
An uncommon reader
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am a great Bill Bryson fan ...and I did enjoy this book.
When you see the Bryson name on the front, you know it is a mark of quality. What is contained within will inform and carry with it the trademark Bryson wit. This book will not disappoint. There is much to inform here but there is also rather a lot of assumptions. I don't actually believe that William Shakespeare was the actual author of the plays that bear his name, but all that is academic - Bryson offers us a lively debate.
This is a good book - worthy of 4 stars, but I can't help wishing that Mr Bryson would go back to what he excels at.
In his absence, a new book called 'Shakespeare My Butt!' by a new author on the block, debunks the Shakespeare argument in just one chapter and the rest of the book takes us back into the a Brysonesque world as it tours around the bizarre named places in Britain, amongst other things.
Quick Mr Bryson - excellent book and all that, but get back to your travel writing before someone steals your throne.
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