Customer Reviews

Chasing Shakespeares

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I think this is a great book. I read many plays by Shakespeare, but knew almost nothing about the authorship controversy, and would be unlikely to ever gather enough interest to read a non-fiction article or book on this subject. It takes great skill for an author to introduce such a topic in a work of fiction. While I only partially followed her discussions about good and bad verse, the arguments were rich and entertaining. Also, I greatly admired the author's ability to spin such a spectacle of wild tales, and yet keep the story together in the end. Her knowledge of nuances of the academic environment is also precise. I give this book a definite ``thumbs up''.

I remember vaguely hearing about the authorship mystery in high school, but had never really read about it. This book was in my amazon.com recommendations, and I bought it because it seemed interesting.

I have a degree in history and know a lot about British history, having also lived there for a while. But I've never been a huge Shakespeare fan, so a lot of the references were really obscure and didn't really mean much to me. I liked this book, though, because I could sort of skim over a lot of that obscure stuff and still not feel like I missed much.

I absolutely loved the writing - I lived in London, and her descriptions took me right back. The character development was stunning. The plot twist totally shocked me. And it got me really interested in the authorship mystery and has inspired me to read further about it.

My only gripe would be that there were times when it did move a bit slow for me, but that was mostly because it was when Joe was doing some bit of research which was being described in great detail, so I would just skip ahead a few paragraphs.

Definitely a great book!

I read this book during a trip to Hawaii. I read it on the plane, in my hotel room (in fact, the pages are now warped because I dropped it in my bath), on the beach, and then, after I got home, I read it all again.

I bought the book hoping it would be a bit like "Possession" by A.S. Byatt, a literary mystery with a romance, yet more interesting because the author of the disputed material would be real, would be Shakespeare.

What I found was that the characters were real, too.

I could identify with Joe, trying to imagine himself as a biographer of Shakespeare, trying to imagine who he might be, could be, while not realizing that his life - as it was - was also a story worth writing. And when he loses his religion - ah, I could identify with that as well.

The mystery of the authorship question was quite enough to keep me reading. The scraps of paper, the little crumbs of clues, certainly intrigued me, as did the unfolding drama between the characters - Joe, Mary Cat, Posy, the Goscimers. I liked the contrast between Joe's Dad and Posy's father, between Mary Cat's dilemma and Joe's and Posy's, all trying to determine who they were, and overcome the barriers on the way. All defining themselves, even as Joe tried to define who Shakespeare really was.

But ah, the treachery. As insidious as Cecil's. It took me by surprise and was the direct cause of the aforementioned book-dunking.

Having reached the end of the story, I immediately wanted to reread it, to catch for myself more of the clues. To me, that's the sign of a good, involving book - that I don't want it to be over.

I highly recommend the book. Read it twice. And oh, one note of correction - the 1947 Buick was actually highly reliable.

What do we read -- and what do we read into the books we love? These are the big questions facing Sarah Smith's two academic detectives, the blue-collar Joe and upperclass Posy, as they set out on a race to prove the authenticity of a Shakespeare letter that Joe has stumbled across in his research. The letter could change scholarship as we know it: it purports to be from the Avon-based player, and it seems to say that he didn't write the plays attributed to his name but that a nobleman borrowed his name. Joe, of course, wants the real working-man to be the plays' author, but Posy is leaning toward someone more of her own social standing, and both have good cases that draw them from Boston to England and into each others' arms. So -- did Shakespeare write the letter? Did he write the plays? Drawing on actual, ongoing literary debates, Smith creates a lively, contemporary mystery with two engaging characters who end up finding out as much about themselves as they do about the playwright they both love.

For me, Chasing Shakespeares isn't as much about who wrote Shakespeare as it is about why we want to know. In this regard, Joe Roper is an admirable character and a memorable hero. Some of the other characters are less admirable, less heroic, but still interesting. Sarah Smith made me want to know more about all of them. And certainly, there's plenty left unresolved at the end to fill a sequel. Let's hope! I also recommend her mystery series that began with The Vanished Child.

The good points: I enjoyed Smith's writing greatly (her descriptions of people and places are economical, sharp, and original); she generally presents the evidence for the Oxfordian case effectively; and she creates well-realized, unique characters who held my interest throughout. (Given Joe's background, I didn't find his profanities surprising: it's how he would have talked with his childhood buddies, so he slips back into it at emotional moments.)

The not-so-good points: The plot, aside from a couple of interesting twists, isn't much; Smith raises some issues that could potentially have made the story more engaging, but doesn't pursue them (e.g., why Posy's father is ... well, the way he is towards her); and I found the historical details hard to follow at times (a family tree would have been really helpful in sorting out all the Cecil/de Vere cross-connections).

Also, to me, some of the characters' dilemmas seemed quaint: Why is Mary Cat convinced that becoming a nun is the only way for her to accomplish what she wants to do in life? (Surely the past 4 decades have amply demonstrated that women have other options!) And why does Joe feel that his Ph.D. dissertation has to reveal some Profound Truth? (Yeah, I knew a few such people when I was a graduate student 30 years ago. But most of us saw the dissertation as just another requirement we had to fulfill; and students have, if anything, grown more cynical since then.) It seemed that Smith was writing, rather anachronistically, about her own education rather than about present-day students.

In general, this novel reminded me of Tey's *The Daughter of Time*: a fascinating historical mystery, investigated by a group of engaging characters, in and of itself doesn't make for much of a plot. Tey's novel, at least, made a point about the way history is written (or fabricated); Smith's novel seemed to dribble away inconclusively at the end.

Joe is a scholar, first in his family, eager to prove himself in the cutthroat world of academia. Posy is a spoiled little rich girl who has learned the fine art of manipulation from her daddy. Sarah Smith does an excellent job here in taking the reader through the grueling, time consuming, and often tedious process of researching the literary past. Although the plot does sometimes bog down in detail, some of which is a bit obscure for the average reader of Shakespeare or anyone else, it was fascinating to trace the development of a theory from beginning to, well, middle, not end. Posy's combination of Valley Girl and Friends-speak becomes annoying, but she is consistent, you have to give her that. Joe's sudden philosophical awakening at the end is interesting to watch, as he adapts to his disappointment and readjusts his sails. Will Cat and Joe become a couple? I'd love to be able to find out. Did Shakespeare write Shakespeare? We may never know for sure, but I'd love to be able to find that out even more.

I don't read a lot of fiction for the simple fact that I have not found much of it that teaches me anything new.
I found myself reading this book as it came highly recomended and found myself very pleasantly surprised.
The charecters are interesting,the story is engrossing and upon finishing it, the first thing I wanted to do was run out and find out more factual information on the subject of the story.
Was William Shakespere actually the man who wrote "Shakespere"?
I would have never even known that famous authorship was in question til I read this book.
Lovely, lovely lovely made up story made even more fascinating by the fact that much of the tale is in fact, quite real.

I have an amateur interest in anything Elizabethean or Shakesperean, so the premise of this book sparked my interest. And I have to say it started out as a page turner. Fortunately I did know enough English history to catch some of the names, and once they arrived in London (my favorite city in the world) I was in second heave reliving my many trips there. However....About midway through (after they meet Dan Cannon) it falls apart. There are so many connections between so many names and dates that it really is rendered unreadable even by those who are knowledgable. Its obvious that she did her research - she knows her history, and her converage of the Straford/Oxford controversy is on target. But by the end it became so convulted that it reminded me of Da Vinci Code and I started skimming just to see the end.

This is certainly not the best book in the world, as one reviewer said. Its not total trash. It has its redeeming features. But unless you have Elizbethean background and/or are patient enough to climb through the web of names, I'd pick something else.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I got very caught up in the historical references and the intrigue. Although the author freely admits to embellishing or fabricating some of the literary references and historical events, I found this story to be very thought-provoking. Even folks who don't consider themselves to be Shakespeare fans would enjoy this one - a little romance, a little mystery, and a lot of literary education. Anglophiles will love the description of modern-day London!