Teaser Tuesdays: Contested Will by James Shapiro

Still prepping for arguments about Anonymous -- which still hasn't made it to Key West -- by reading up on the Shakespeare authorship issue. My current title is Contested Will by James Shapiro, acquired via Interlibrary Loan (thanks, Alachua County!). Here's my teaser:

"This was no parlor game for Twain, nor was his interest in Shakespeare and the authorship question a passing fancy. Quite the contrary; no writer of his day had wrestled longer with both." - p. 131

Want to play along? Check out all the Teasers in the Comments section of the Should Be Reading blog -- post your own link or, if you don't have a blog, just post your teaser in the comment. Happy reading!

Good dog

My review of Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean ran in Solares Hill today. Here's the brief version: I really liked the book. This despite the fact that I usually avoid dog books because of the inevitable problem of the dog's lifespan relative to the people. I already felt that way and going through a dog tragedy of my own recently just strengthened the conviction. But this is a different kind of dog book -- it's really a social history of 20th century America, told through the lens of a German shepherd who started out as a silent film star and, through his onscreen if not biological progeny, continued in movie serials and TV shows to become part of the culture. I think it's Orlean's best book. I liked the Orchid Thief although I thought that one worked better as a magazine story than a full-length book. This tale, with all its succeeding generations and interesting background and context (like the history of the German shepherd breed and the evolution of dogs from work animals to pets in American society) did not feel stretched out at all. I'm hoping there's a documentary in the works -- with lots of footage, including whatever is available of the original silent film star Rin Tin Tin, a dog so dominant in that new medium that when the first Academy Awards ballot was held in 1927, he won the most votes for Best Actor.

As long as I'm praising books I've read recently I'll throw in a link to my recommendation of The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta, written for the Key West Library's Staff Favorites page.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Leftovers by Tom Perotta

I gave up on The Victorians by A.N. Wilson yesterday and turned to some newly published fiction -- Tom Perotta's The Leftovers. As I expected, his engaging style had me humming along in no time -- 116 pages in without realizing it. The novel, in case you haven't read the reviews, takes place about three years after a Rapture-like event in which millions of people are taken up. Actually they simply disappear, without regard to religious affiliation or devotion level. The titular leftovers are those left behind and they cope in a variety of ways.

"Laurie wanted to do her part for the G.R. [Guilty Remnant], she really did. But the thought of walking over there, ringing the doorbell, and asking Kevin for half of everything she'd turned her back on filled her with shame."

Want to play along? Post your own teaser on your blog and then link to it int he comments section of Should Be Reading. Don't have a blog? You can just post the teaser in the comments.

*10/29 update: Finished the book, liked it a lot, wrote a recommendation for the Staff Favorites section of the Library's website, which you can read here.

Who is this guy?

Even though I'm certain the movie "Anonymous" is going to irritate the hell out of me, I will see it. Mostly because I will watch just about any Elizabethan costume drama. And because some weird voyeuristic part of me gets a kick out of seeing people get all worked up over the Oxford vs. Stratford argument. This is the century-old debate over whether William Shakespeare as we know him -- the author of all those comedies, tragedies, histories and sonnets -- was a glovemaker's son-turned-actor from Stratford or the aristocratic Earl of Oxford, who merely used the actor's name to shield himself from potential social and political reprisals. The movie tells the Oxford version of the story and will doubtless create endless new arenas for debate, a bunch of new Oxfordians and irritate the hell out of Stratfordians (which includes the vast majority of the scholarly establishment). I only hope longtime Oxfordians get equally riled up because now most of the public is going to believe Roland Emmerich -- a guy best known for disaster pics like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 -- came up with this theory. My position is: I don't really care. I'm a sentimental Stratfordian merely because I like the idea that a schmoe of ordinary birth could turn out to be the greatest literary genius of the English language. I'm also cynical about conspiracy theories, especially those that would require conspiring on behalf of a whole lot of people. (This piece in the New York Times has a great line about the ability of Shakespeare scholars to pull off conspiracies.) But I think the plays are the things -- what matters is that we have this treasure trove of literary genius, not which guy's hand held the pen.

At least the whole tantalizing question of Shakespeare's identity and his legacy, and all the unanswered questions around him, has left us with so much material for so many interesting books, fiction and non. If you'd like to read a Shakespeare biography without signing over a couple weeks of your life, I highly recommend Bill Bryson's. It's part of the Eminent Lives series of briefish biographies by popular writers (as in nonacademic specialists, not potbiolers). The Key West Library has a large print copy which is 240 pages and it concludes with a chapter dealing with the various "claimants," ie. people who are not Shakespeare that people have proposed as the writers of Shakespeare's work. Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World and Peter Ackroyd's biography also come highly recommended, though they're both quite a bit longer than Bryson's. And after reading this ringing Stratfordian defense by Simon Schama I've put in an Interlibrary Loan request for James Shapiro's Contested Will. Shapiro himself has also weighed in on the movie, in a New York Times op-ed.

But what I really like are modern crime novels where a long-lost Shakespeare talisman serves as the MacGuffin.  My favorite is The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber. In that one, the Shakespeare artifact that has mysteriously surfaced after the centuries is a lost play about Mary Queen of Scots. Another that goes directly to the Stratford-Oxford question is Chasing Shakespeares by Sarah Smith. So does The School of Night by Alan Wall though it's less effortlessly entertaining (though highly intelligent) than the previous two. I'm told good things, too, about The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips -- not so much a crime novel as a literary puzzlebox, from the descriptions, but it's got its own lost Shakespeare play, this one about King Arthur.

One thing I have not yet done, the stuff I have not read -- though I really should, if only justify lugging the giant Riverside Shakespeare around with me for the last 25 years -- are the works of Shakespeare. (I have read most of the works of Shakespeare -- I was an English major -- but not in adulthood, which I find makes a big difference in how you understand a lot of stuff they made you read in high school and college. Wasted on the young, as they say.)

Change is in the air

If you're in Key West, you know that we just experienced The Change -- that marvelous moment each late October when the humidity suddenly drops considerably and you think, oh yeah -- that's why we live here. To me, this means reading weather -- more on the back deck than in summer (which is also reading weather, because it's too freaking hot to do anything active, only then it's inside in the air conditioning). Which means, yes, it's always reading weather. But the change of seasons and a couple of upcoming literary events have me thinking about changing up my reading list. And there are some good titles on the way if you want to take part:

1) The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss -- historical fiction set after the Revolutionary War, as the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians duke it out for the future direction of the young country and regular folks are collateral damage to some of the duking. It's the title for the November Book Bites Book Club at the Key West Library so we have lots of copies. The group meets Nov. 10 at the Library.

2) Last Train to Paradise by Les Standiford -- it's going to be our One Island One Book choice for 2012, timed to the Centennial of the Overseas Railway reaching Key West. Les will be coming to talk about the book and we'll have other programs around that time -- there will be lots more information in the future at our One Island One Book blog. Bookmark it!

3) Any or all of the writers coming to the Key West Literary Seminar in January 2012 -- it's an amazing bunch especially if you're into the speculative fiction -- superstars like Margaret Atwood and William Gibson, Pulitzer Prizewinners like Jennifer Egan and Michael Cunningham, new voices like Dexter Palmer and Charles Yu, guys with hot new zombie titles like Colson Whitehead. It's going to be extraordinary. It's sold out, I'm afraid, but there will be free sessions on Sunday afternoon, as always. And the Seminar will post the audio from as many sessions as we can on our ever-expanding archives.

So read, dammit!