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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Delightful Holistic Introduction to Shakespeare,
This review is from: Shakespeare on Toast. Ben Crystal (Hardcover)
Shakespeare on Toast: A Delightful Holistic Introduction to Shakespeare
Told in bite-sized scenes, and arranged into five acts, Shakespeare on Toast gives a wholesome helping of Shakespeare in each take. The book ranges on comprehensive topics from history and setting to language (quite detailed for an introductory book) to a rather idiosyncratic analysis of an entire scene from Macbeth, as well as incidental factoids... such as the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently got his first role in an American film when his friend convinced the producers that he was a famous Shakespearean actor back in Austria. But, also mentioned in the same breath in the book's "opening scene," he's perhaps better known as a "Shakespearean actor" playing Hamlet in the 1993 movie Last Action Hero, wherein he blasts away at Polonius with an Uzi and decides "not to be" in a rather explosive way. Throughout the volume, Ben Crystal gives several examples that Shakespeare is actually still quite alive. There's the hackneyed veneration he gets for inventing a plethora of words and sayings in modern English. There's the myriad modern incarnations in both everyday culture and other theatrical presentations. And also, Crystal weaves out an interesting allusion between jazz and Shakespeare's words, and even goes as far as to include figures of syllable-graphs, which visually show the variation in numbers of syllables per line, comparing it with the variations of a jazz master. By analyzing meter and language, Crystal suggests that Shakespeare is really quite with us--"directing from the grave," that verse (from the folios) is more like sheet music; thus lines with fewer syllables end with (musical) rests, where an actor pauses in speech and does a particular action associated with the line. Also covered is the mystery of the man, his plays and sonnets, and his times. There's the assertion an actor would make that the Bard, were he alive now, would be more of a soap opera writer than a Nobel Prize laureate (or perhaps a soap-opera-writer-become-Nobel-Prize-laureate). Indeed, this is also supported by the fact that, unlike Ben Jonson and others, Shakespeare never made efforts to ensure the longevity of his plays (the good folio was apparently published by two of his actors [while Crystal did not mention this, but incidentally, I might ask might they be the real author(s)?], and the quartos by rival companies and others wishing for a bit of the pie through his fame), suggesting that perhaps he really did write his plays purely for his times and to earn a living. Along with a review of many aspects relating to Shakespeare, though often told from a different perspective, the book is also filled with many interesting factoids. Some interesting ones include: The Elizabethan (and other earlier era) audiences were more gullible, and were more easily drawn into the world of the play (such that an audience member was so disgusted by Iago in a production of Othello in the 1800s that he shot him during the show!), whereas, nowadays, we take any spectacular sight to be CGI or just another special effect, and good acting to be just acting (and not a sign that a person really *is* like that). The tradition of richness in costume existed as early as then--when Phil Henslowe spent the equivalent of about $5000 (us dollars) on a fancy cloak. And also... when you read Shakespeare your Sylvian fissure "lights up like a Christmas tree."
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Revolutionary and Persuasive,
By
This review is from: Shakespeare on Toast. Ben Crystal (Hardcover)
"Shakespeare on Toast" is one of the very perfect books on Shakespeare I have ever read!
Crystal claims throughout the book that Shakespeare wrote for the actors and audience and expected his plays to be 'audited', not read - a perspective which Crystal makes very, very persuasive, and therein is REVOLUTIONARY. Reading "Shakespeare on Toast" you suddenly realize you cannot be proud of having read all of Shakespeare's 39 plays and 6 poems - they need be heard, seen, audited, enjoyed on stage!!! I particularly appreciate Crystal's frankness and open-mindedness, as he never claims every line of Shakespeare is sacred, but rather straightforwardly notes he was not enthusiastic about the Bard before, nor blindly accepts all the plays he wrote are equally brilliant. The fact that Crystal himself radically changed his attitude to Shakespeare from hatred to conscious admiration gains him experience to be so considerate of his reader's presence. And very often, hardly has a question formed in your mind, he immediately points it out himself and gives a satisfactory answer. The pages on iambic pentameter in a Macbeth scene are certainly one of the bestest interpretations of Shakespeare ever! Crystal compares Shakespeare or Shakespearean notions to modern artists, works and films to be more clear and accurate in what he means to say. But I very much appreciate that he does not depict Shakespeare absolutely modern but always notes we should remember there are 400 years separating us from the Bard and he need be understood within his own 'native' framework of Elizabethan England. Often Crystal introduces First Folio excerpts and is persuasive that old spellings too can help to keep the balance between Shakespeare's relevance to us and his own world. Crystal is a true pragmatist. There is not a line in the book which is a pure theoretical reflection. He calls for action, like Shakespeare. And like Shakespeare, despite the external 'easy' and relaxed reading of the book - you cannot fail but appreciate the enormous information gained by enormous research carried out by Ben Crystal. I highly recommend "Shakespeare on Toast" which cannot but have a revolutionary and permanent influence on its readership.
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