I decided that my knowing Shakespeare is deficient and that it is time to correct it. It is a very tall order, but thankfully there is a solution I believe I might be up to. The Hogarth Shakespeare Project commissioned modern versions of many of the Shakespearean plays and I thought that I will read the new versions. My long-standing reverence for Virginia Woolf made my intentions to read books published by Hogarth Press symbolic and attractive. By the way, The Hogarth Press was established by Virginia and Leonard Woolf.
The first step was to get the right books, published by the right people. This has not worked 100% as some of the books were not available and had to be replaced by soft cover substitutes of Penguin. I am happy in spite of the small imperfections of my original plan and as my books arrived the other day I proudly spread them on the table to get into the mood and anticipation of future reading pleasures.
I started with the re-telling of The
Merchant of Venice – Shylock Is My Name by Howard Jacobson. And what an
unexpected pleasure and challenge! Anticipating light reading as the original
is a comedy I found the book a heavy duty intellectual writing with Antisemitism
as the major theme. I, boastfully believed that my English is rather good and
here I find myself going for help to Google or my long not used dictionary to
look up words. Not that I normally do not need or want to do it, but this time
the frequency of the lookup is rather significant. There is hardly a page that
I do not need to look up at least one word. Hm… A humbling experience. Good for
me as well. However, this is not going to be a widely read book. Too intellectual,
convoluted and deep. I am glad that I found out about the re-telling initiative
and I have to thank my Polish literary guru for that. Raf, the mentioned
friend, has already six books that have been translated into Polish. We will
compare the notes soon.
I have not read enough to write about my impressions of the book already, but this will soon come. For now, I think that I would like to read another book of the author. When will I find the time?
I have given up such indulgences and for fiction strictly use kindle. I buy hard copies of only those books that I wish to use for reference purposes later. I still have the same problem that you have. When will I find the time to read them all?
ReplyDeleteYes, this is a problem which seems to be easier when you go through a shake up as I have gone through. I believe that I use my time better, even though there is a lot of indulgence that sneaked in. I have been thinking of what you wrote to me that if I blog about my current experience it may be of some use to others. I may start another blog as this one I want to keep a little less personal.
DeleteGood to see you blogging again. I thought that maybe you escaped already to Poland.
ReplyDeleteHogarth Shakespeare - interestingly I found Shakespeare inspired book , which is not listed in this project, but looks like will be the best book I read in a long period of time - The Nutshell by Ian McEwan.
Accidentally I started reading Shylock is my name and after few chapters I resigned. I agree , it is a linguistic challenge for not native English reader, but in my case it was not the main reason. I found this book pretentious and could not find any essence nor sense in it.
As for linguistic challenge I recommend books by Julian Barnes - it is a challenge, but a great fun at the same time.
No, no Poland to me this year, at least not now. Maybe Christmas??
DeleteI am more than half way through the book and it to easier to read and the impression of being preciousness changed. It started to make sense to me and the way I understand it, it is about how Jews see the world and how they are formed by the experience of the holocaust. Interesting book.
I find Barnes stories not that convincing but he has been translated into Polish lately many times and Raf, my friend, also likes him. I may tray another one. What would be your suggestion?
And Tokarczuk! Man Booker prize. I may want to read it in Polish even if there is a translation to English. I may send it to you once I get and and finish with it. And if you want it.
Barnes, firstly I recommend reading in English as the beauty lies in a very refined language and I am afraid that translation will flatten it.
DeleteMy suggestions - The Noise of Time - because of the subject - Shostakovitch. Barnes' interest in classical music is another attractive for me side of his writing. And - Talking it over - this is probably the best demonstration of author's linguistic perversity, very funny. On the other hand, in this and other Barnes' books, I find the plot very weak, naive and artificial, just a pretext to demonstrate language skills. Therefor my final rating of Barnes' book is not too high.
As for Tokarczuk - I am very pleased with her winning Booker Prize. I read 2 her books, Prawiek and Historie Jakubowe. I am impressed with her writing style, which probably is more fitting shorter literary forms, thus I did not like Historie Jakubowe.
As for Bieguni - this is definitely a first category - short flashes and reflections. The book is quite sizable, but contains dozens of short quite loosely connected pieces. So definitely - reading in Polish.
Reception of the book by Polish readers was very mixed, it looks like a piece not easy to crack.
I will be quite grateful if you would pass it to me after reading.
My other Polish friend Rafal, also finds the Shylock pretentious. I loved it though, maybe because I am a Philo-Semitic fascinated and very sympathetic to Jews? This books discusses Jewish nature in big details so I was fascinated. I liked the meandering around the subject and I liked its humour. Not to mention the diabolic turns on the last three pages of the book. I am also worried about the current antisemitic atmosphere in the world. I am not sure where this comes from in me. I am aware that I may be losing objectivity here.
ReplyDeleteI will pass on Bieguni, but it may take some time. First to get it then to read it.