From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Acclaimed journalist Rosenbaum,
New York Observer columnist and cultural omnivore (
Explaining Hitler), conveys the impassioned arguments of leading directors and scholars concerning how Shakespeare should be printed and performed. "Hearing Sir Peter Hall pound his fists in fury over the vital importance of a pause at the close of a pentameter line, for instance—wonderful!" Rosenbaum enthuses. Elsewhere he recalls how seeing Peter Brook's definitive 1970 production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream inspired Rosenbaum's "outsider's odyssey into the innermost citadels of scholarship" to investigate the painstaking work of Shakespearean textual experts as they convert the Bard's earliest published works into authoritative editions. Evoking the clashing methodologies and discourses of scholars, the dizzying depths of lexicographic databases and a rare instance of Shakespeare's voice transcribed in a court proceeding, Rosenbaum captures with clarity and wry humor the obsessive fervor, theoretical about-turns and occasional scholarly fiasco that characterize this arcane world. He considers the politics of portraying Shylock and Falstaff, appraises Shakespeare on film and provocatively comments on the work of such influential critics as Harold Bloom, Stephen Greenblatt and Stephen Booth. Balancing academic reportage with his own lively observations, Rosenbaum wrestles with the weightiest issues of Shakespeare studies in a down-to-earth manner that readers will applaud.
(Sept. 26) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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*Starred Review*
New York Observer columnist Rosenbaum has built a career on refusing to give easy answers to difficult questions; see, for example, his
Explaining Hitler (1998). Here he attends to the mysteries and controversies in contemporary Shakespearean scholarship. He begins this well-researched, nicely written tome with a discussion of Peter Brook's groundbreaking production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream, a production he credits with changing how he thought of Shakespeare's work, before turning to such current battles as the one raging over which, if any, of the three extant early versions of
Hamlet is the "definitive" one, a subject he discussed in a
New Yorker article. The beauty of Rosenbaum's work lies in his ability to discuss complex intellectual issues lucidly and often wittily in a manner that is the very antithesis of opaque, postmodern academic prose. You may not know by the end of the chapter on
King Lear which of the two existing endings is the one "Shakespeare intended"--it isn't Rosenbaum's intention that you do--but you will know the full spectrum of opinion on the topic and also how the current "stars of the academy" align on the subject.
Jack HelbigCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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