Present Books In Favor Of Nothing Like the Sun
| Original Title: | Nothing like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare's Love-life |
| ISBN: | 039331507X (ISBN13: 9780393315073) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Anthony Burgess
Paperback | Pages: 240 pages Rating: 3.8 | 1049 Users | 90 Reviews
Identify Appertaining To Books Nothing Like the Sun
| Title | : | Nothing Like the Sun |
| Author | : | Anthony Burgess |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 240 pages |
| Published | : | December 17th 1996 by W. W. Norton Company (first published 1964) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Literature |
Narrative In Pursuance Of Books Nothing Like the Sun
“For love is one word but many things.”Anthony Burgess has written a clever book in “Nothing Like that Sun, a novel that imagines Shakespeare’s love life during his teens and his early years as a young actor and playwright in London. This novel is a wordy, at times poetical, text and one that can require your focus to truly appreciate it. The initial reading is slow going and a little confusing due to Mr. Burgess’ style and word usage. It is not a novel that is easily penetrated (pun totally in line with the spirit of this text) but then you start working with the style and language and you and the book adapt to each other and the experience flows better.
The text goes from the late 1570s to 1599 (the year Shakespeare’s writing went to a whole other level). A great pleasure in the book are the numerous cleverly inserted allusions to Shakespeare’s work, the Bible, and other writers and writings of the period. They abound in this text, and it is a small joy in and of itself when you catch them.
Mr. Burgess imagines in the book that once Shakespeare moves to London and starts writing that he gets caught up in a love triangle of sorts between the Earl of Southampton (often thought to be the young man addressed in the Sonnets) and an African woman. He gets the impetus for this idea from the Sonnets which are divided between those addressed to a young man and a “dark lady”. It is a clever device and works well, especially for those who have read the sonnets. You will catch quite a few references in this bit.
Other highlights include a chapter where a young Will writes his first sonnet off the cuff while at the family dinner table. It is a great moment depicting the igniting of artistic impulse. Also fun is the depiction of Will and his wife Anne Hathaway’s early sex life. It is the stuff of Elizabethan kink.
As I finished reading “Nothing Like the Sun” I felt it was very Ecclesiastical in nature as the text constantly made me think of that book’s injunction that “all is vanity.” As I read the novel’s epilogue I am not sure that I “get” it, but I think that biblical verse influenced the themes of this text greatly.
Mr. Burgess’s style can make for dense reading, but I enjoyed this story. Those who love Shakespeare, and/or artful renderings of sex, lust, unselfish love and all those conflicting pulls of the heart that make us so wonderfully human will enjoy this book.
Rating Appertaining To Books Nothing Like the Sun
Ratings: 3.8 From 1049 Users | 90 ReviewsAssess Appertaining To Books Nothing Like the Sun
This rating should be qualified: a four for readers who are already fans of Anthony Burgess or who have the cast of mind to become so, and a two for readers not susceptible to his particular charms.This book is thrilling for readers who bemoan the increasing simplicity of language favored in modern fiction. When we reduce our prose to something any eight-year-old could understand, we lose much of the precise nuance and shades of color that are the great gifts of our language...we don't have theWe all know or think we know something about William Shakespeare: everyone knows the titles of at least a couple of his works, everyone knows some basic biographical facts about him, and everyone knows his portrait which is featured not only on the cover of Burgess novel but also in probably every single high school textbook of literature.The main character of Nothing Like the Sun is William Shakespeare, and the novel is about his life and artistic career. Just like a regular biography, the book
For love is one word but many things.Anthony Burgess has written a clever book in Nothing Like that Sun, a novel that imagines Shakespeares love life during his teens and his early years as a young actor and playwright in London. This novel is a wordy, at times poetical, text and one that can require your focus to truly appreciate it. The initial reading is slow going and a little confusing due to Mr. Burgess style and word usage. It is not a novel that is easily penetrated (pun totally in line
This book is a fictional biography of Shakespeare, Burgess paints a brilliant and realistic portrait of WS. Shakespeare. Burgess explores his complicated family and love life. This is the core of the Story. This is where Burgess creates a dynamic character...a balding, sometimes self loathing middle aged WS. Frustrated by circumstance and aware of his own mortality.
Read this while I was taking a college Shakespeare class. I enjoyed it then. I would like to reread it after 40 years tho...
My third time through, to supplement stories for the Veritas Shakespeare class, which was canceled in the Coronavirus scare. The second time I recall not caring for it, but this time through, I liked it a lot. The focus is on his early life and career, before Hamlet and the tragedies, but ending on a note that looked toward them. Here we are largely in WS's head, a poet from the start, able to crank out verse even when being hounded by his family at the supper table. The details of how he got
Summary:Anthony Burgesss Nothing Like the Sun is a highly fascinating, albeit fictional, re-telling of Shakespeares love life. In 234 pages, Burgess manages to introduce his reader to a young Shakespeare, developing into manhood and clumsily fumbling his way through his first sexual escapade with a woman, through Shakespeares long, famed (and contested) romance with Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton and, ultimately, to Shakespeares final days, the establishment of The Globe theater, and
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