Customer Reviews

Hamlet's Dresser

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This memoir that caught my eye at the library and I checked it out to see if it actually has anything to do with Hamlet. It does.

The author (who is the reader) is a Shakespeare aficionado who enjoys reading to old people. (He uses the term "old people" often, never calls them elderly or mature or some other euphemism). He also has a severely retarded younger sister.

The book is so lyrical and he reads it so well that you can see how he makes Shakespeare accessible by reading it aloud. It's a pretty heartbreaking story, but told poetically, with the repetition of phrases and the interspersing of Shakespearean quotes. Maybe some of the language is overly florid, but it works.

I'd like to listen to him read entire plays.

I am one of those old people fortunate enough to be in one of Bob Smith's Shakespeare classes.
He is a genius with a very wry sense of humor.
Shakespeare comes alive in his class along with a wonderful background of English history of the Bards' time.
This book gave me an insight into this authors' personality.