Customer Reviews

My Name Is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Often, historical characters in fiction are portrayed in the fullness of their achievement. In "My Name Is Will", Shakespeare is presented prior to his becoming a great and well known playwright; he is eighteen, just discovering his talent and starting to figure out his life. This can be a much more interesting period of a character's life I think than the later periods. In this case, it is made even more interesting because Shakespeare is portrayed as a Catholic actively involved with the Catholic underground in England. As Shakespeare is coming to understand his own character and getting to know the bonny maids of Stratford, he is also deeply involved in dangerous intrigues at a fascinating time in English history. All of which is quite a bit of fun.

Shakespeare's story is interspersed with the story of Willie Shakespeare Greenberg, a Master's student working on his thesis on Shakespeare and also discovering who he is. In parallel fashion, adroitly handled, both the historical and contemporary Shakespeares find themselves and get their lives going. I think this is one of the key narrative challenges of the piece -- making these parallel stories complement each other -- but it is adroitly handled and I would not want to give up the contemporary reflection of Shakespeare.

So...fun on many levels. The story of Elizabethan intrigue was very compelling and could have been a book in itself. The self-discovery of the lead characters was very well handled, making it a more personal and three-dimensional story. Winfield, who co-created and acted in the Reduced Shakespeare Company, has a flawless ear for Elizabethan language and punnery without which the book would not have worked; as it is, it does all come out perfectly, which greatly adds to the realism and charm of the work.

I recommend My Name Is Will to anyone who wants a little escapism, a bit of intrigue, a new look at Shakespeare and a lot of romance this summer.

Meet Willie Shakespeare Greenberg - a struggling thesis-writer, small-scale drug user and future scholar. Meet also William Shakespeare - a womanizing youth, closeted Catholic and future bard. Two men, 300 years apart in time, but joined by name and history.

My Name Is Will is the story of two Wills who have more in common than one would think at a first glance, because really - isn't it almost sacrilege to suggest that a 1986's pothead and wanna-be thesis writer should have anything at all in common with the greatest bard in English history? At the surface, one would think so, but then, how much do we know about Shakespeare's life before he became. well, Shakespeare?

Isn't it very logical to assume that his life couldn't have been all smooth sailing for him to be able to write of such passionate love and dysfunctional families as we see in his plays and sonnets? Jess Winfield clearly thinks so, and manages to weave a fascinating tale where every second chapter follows William Shakespeare in the weeks up to his marriage to Anne Hathaway, and every second chapter follows Willie Shakespeare in his quest for knowledge about himself, and his famous namesake.

In the beginning one has to get used to the jumping back and forth in time as each chapter ends, but like in Peg Kerr's The Wild Swans, the transitions work and the two stories in one mesh together very well as I constantly found hints in one of what would happen (or had happened) in the other.

My Name Is Will is subtitled "A Novel of Sex, Drugs and Shakepeare" for a good reason. It is not very reverent, and Shakespeare lovers who are easily offended should probably stay clear of the book. However, I appreciated seeing even a fictionalized human side of the legendary bard. It is perhaps not a very scholarly read, but definitely a very enjoyable one.

Oh and yes, we are given at least a hint of an answer to the old and burning question: why did Shakespeare leave Anne his "second-best bed" in his will.

Armchair Interviews says: Learn and laugh at the same time.

"My Name is Will" is an extraordinary piece of written theater. It has a magical pacing, serious one moment, hysterically funny the next. Jess Winfield knows how to work an audience masterfully--if you haven't see the Reduced Shakespeare Comany, rent the DVD. His writing reminds me of Neal Stephenson (with a lot fewer pages and much tighter action) and Joe Quirk's brilliant and wonderful "Ultimate Rush." There are very few authors who make me regularly make me break out in big belly laughs and gleeful giggling. Over and again, I had to put the book down until I could focus again.

The humanity of William and Willie moved me, bringing me back to the struggles and challenges I faced when I was younger (I would have been a few years behind Willie, majoring in English and rebelling against Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs in the mid-80s). The brilliant puns and playfulness were perfectly balanced, not too much, and as often as not needing a double-or-triple take to catch (and I'm sure I missed as many as I found).

The wonderful details of William's life created a picture a a real person, having the real experiences that would allow him to write what he did: His sassy, smart, strong-willed girlfriend Rosaline; the apothecary; the witch in the woods; the merry band of amateur players . . . wonderful characters you could imagine young William meeting in 16th century rural England, and later turning into some of his most wonderful characters.

I checked the book out from the library, inhaled it, and just returned it. I wish I'd hung on to it, as now I want to read it again--I never do that! I'll be back for it in the morning.

Loved it. Funny, irreverent, scholarly, silly, sexy... nay, erotic. All that and Shakespeare too! Lots of fun for the open-minded (the subtitle is its own disclaimer), this book will blow minds in many ways.

I was excited to read this book. I really was. Winfield has a prominent position in the Shakespeare community, and the idea of intertwining a modern day graduate student and Shakespeare himself is a brilliant concept. Ultimately, this book doesn't deliver.

The main character, other than Shakespeare, is a failing graduate student who spends his days getting high and avoiding scholastic responsibilities. This seems a far cry from the Bard, whose humanist education was obviously one of the most revered aspects of his life. His plays were full of classical references and questioned the authority and culture of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. The modern day Will studies Shakespeare, and only Shakespeare. I understand the modern day reader's demand for flawed characters, but the lack of sympathy for the main character drove this book for me. His lack of effort and lazy personality made me want this Will to fail.

The earlier Shakespeare (if indeed he existed), has a more absorbing and rich plotline, almost redeeming the other half.

The book doesn't fail on every level. One of Winfield's main attacks is on the literary criticism that plagues the academic community at the moment: New Criticism.

New Criticism excludes any biographical information about the author, forcing the critic to focus solely on the text. In this sense, it is better for the reader to know absolutely nothing about the author's background or experiences. Instead of opening up more understanding or ideas the author is trying to give, I find it to be more restricting. How would we read Paradise Lost, for instance, if we didn't know about Milton's religious background and previous works? For years other criticisms have relied heavily on these aspects, and in my opinion, New Criticism has caused the critic to be blind of the author's social and religious beliefs that could expose seemingly innocuous themes in a work. Winfield blasts this technique, and chooses to have lazy Will have a obsession with Shakespeare the man, and dig through the Shakespearean past, encouraging the reader to see the strife the Shakespeare family had with religion and social status to see its effects on the works.

Ultimately, however, one feels unsatisfied with Will's flawed character, and the story drones on with his rather mundane situations, and enticing the reader to skip ahead to the Shakespeare sections. You have to appreciate the attempt to introduce a new side of Shakespeare to the public, but be weary. Sex, drugs, and Shakespeare sound exciting, but instead you get tedium, and possibly a nice long nap.

Synopsis:

Set simultaneously in California in 1986 and in England in 1582, My Name is Will introduces us to two young William Shakespeares.

Willie Shakespeare Greenberg, a graduate student in UC Santa Cruz, hasn't been focused on his thesis on William Shakespeare. Instead, he occupies himself with drugs, women, and agrees to deliver a large psychedelic mushroom to a client at a Renaissance Fair. While evading DEA operatives, Willie juggles his longtime girl friend in UC Berkeley, his sexy teaching assistant in UC Santa Cruz and a few willing women along the way.

While in 1582, William Shakespeare is an eighteen-year-old Latin teacher busy with women, drink and drugs. Shakespeare is also beginning to flirt with writing and Winfield gives us glimpses of the seeds of famous speeches, plays, and sonnets. Around young Will, the persecution of Catholics is on the rise. Family members, teachers and friends, and even Shakespeare himself are at risk as the local sheriffs hunt for practicing Catholics. Despite the danger, Shakespeare agrees to deliver a sacred relic from Rome to the family of an executed priest.

Review:

Full of double entendres and puns, this is Jess Winfield's debut novel and makes full use of Winfield's deep knowledge of Shakespeare and his experience in the Reduced Shakespeare Company. "A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare" describes it well.

My Name is Will is quirky, funny, silly, sexy, and well executed.


Publisher: Twelve, Reprint edition (July 3, 2009), 320 pages.

I liked all the Shakespeare references, and the such. But if you haven't read a lot of Shakespeare you will find this book boring. The fun of this book is reading about a fictional Shakespeare. Well, it was fun for me to read about a fictional Shakespeare.

There is no question Jess Winfield is a Shakespearian guru. It is a fun and entertaining read. OF COURSE the story line of William Shakespeare is gorgeous with a greater richness about it, but the story of Will is generally compelling as well. Enjoy!

I really like reading this book. I was a Literature major at UCSC myself and can visualize many of the campus setting Winfield references. His fusion of Elizabethan imaginings and psychotropic, sexual escapades in the modern day are well supported by his irreverent with, subject matter knowledge, and passion for the play. Well done Winfield, you've made the Bard blush.

I loved this book so much, I searched for the author online and found his contact information so I could tell him myself. The next best thing is writing a good review on Amazon, so I will tick that off the list, too. I was uncertain at first. The story swaps between the 1980's Bay Area with the hero being a student called Will, and the early adulthood life of Shakespeare. Modern Will is a student who spends most of his time avoiding writing his thesis, hunting for magic mushrooms, becoming an unwitting drug runner, and avoiding the feds with Regan's War on Drugs. Shakespeare is caught up in religious politics. Their lives intersect in random and strange ways, and thus you have a captivating story. I couldn't put it down.

Totally irreverent and strange, kind of in the style of Christopher Moore in terms of wackiness, and funny as heck. I loved it!