Nothing Like the Sun (Norton Paperback Fiction) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "IT WAS ALL A MATTER OF A GODDESS - dark, hidden, deadly, horribly desirable..." (more)
Key Phrases: Dick Burbage, New Place, Master Quedgeley (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Implicitly, Burgess is making the case that Shakespeare's talent had its origin in his sexual drives and that his topless towers of words were founded on his immense desire and will. Fascinated but resistant, I reread the sonnets and found that the novel illuminated them so much as to justify his case. This is to me a measure of Burgess's talents--that he can remake reality not only in his own writing but also in a new perception of the writings of his subject. (New York Times Book Review )

Shakespeare [is shown] in his own stirring times. . . . A brilliant book. . . . Taut and forceful. (Aileen Pippett - Times Literary Supplement [London] )

Product Description

Before Shakespeare in Love, there was Anthony Burgess's Nothing Like the Sun: a magnificent, bawdy telling of Shakespeare's love life. .

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; 1st THUS edition (December 17, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039331507X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393315073
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,658 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Like The Sun, January 5, 2001

By	Melvin Pena (Evanston, IL United States) - See all my reviews

Anthony Burgess's "Nothing Like The Sun" is a linguistic marvel. It is a philosophically oppressive look at William Shakespeare's foray into literature and the world. Starting in the small 'borough' of Stratford, WS (as he is called) is an apprentice leather craftsman. He spends his days and nights dreaming of plays, gentility, and idealistic love.

Most of the novel shows WS trying to figure out what kind of love he is after. His notions of love come from Plato's "Symposium" - will it be common, physical lust, or contemplation of absolute beauty leading to his best poetic and dramatic works? The relationships that the novel explores these questions with are with the youthful noble Henry Wriothesly and the exotic, colonial Fatima.

Burgess delights in wordplay throughout the novel, using for the most part, the language of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets in the narration and dialogue. Unlike "Shakespeare in Love" Burgess's novel does not build around any specific text, instead making his works almost marginal to the drama of Shakespeare's fictional biography. Burgess presents Shakespeare's works as the results and expressions of a desperate life.

Burgess augments Shakespeare's story with an almost post-colonial historical setting. With Fatima allegedly from the Indies, and a backdrop of English oppression of the Irish, "Nothing Like The Sun" complicates Shakespeare's historical moment. Class struggles, plagues, and political sterility also mark the temporal setting as the novel moves from the country (Stratford) to the coast (Bristol) to the capital (London).

Reading "Nothing Like The Sun" was a welcome experience for me, having only ever read Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange" before. The writing style takes a little getting used to, but that is the price you pay for art. I highly recommend it.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A dark alternative to "Shakespeare in Love", March 24, 1999

By A Customer

Lacks the tragic inevitability of "Dead Man in Deptford", but still a good read. Brilliant language, Elizabethan England nicely evoked, well-drawn characters, clever speculation to fill in the gaps in what we know of Shakespeare's life. A bit crazy, especially at first, but that's what you pay for with Burgess, right?

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Nothing Else You've Read, April 26, 2008

By	Dana Huff "English Teacher" (Georgia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'm sure Anthony Burgess's Nothing Like the Sun is like nothing I've ever read before. The novel is subtitled A Story of Shakespeare's Love-life; Burgess's essential claim is that Shakespeare's literary genius was borne out of his lust. It's an interesting thesis, as desire can be quite a motivator, and Burgess manages to convince.

The novel is rich with period detail and dialogue; indeed, it might take some time for the casual reader to become accustomed to Burgess's use of Early Modern English. For readers familiar with Shakespeare's sonnets and plays, the novel is a delight of allusions. I found myself wishing I were much more familiar with Shakespeare even than I am, having taught several of his plays (and some of them many times) because I feel sure that some allusions passed me by.

Burgess crafted a plausible, entertaining narrative from the few scraps of information we have about Shakespeare's life and in the process, held a lens up to Shakespeare's work and times, exposing both work and times as sublime and filthy at the same time. I would recommend this book highly to anyone interesting in learning more about Shakespeare or about Elizabethan England.