Modern re-telling of “The Merchant of Venice“ transposed to Cheshire explores antisemitism but I was never really sure whether Shylock was really there or just a mental construct of Simon Strulovitch's.
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Modern re-telling of “The Merchant of Venice“ transposed to Cheshire explores antisemitism but I was never really sure whether Shylock was really there or just a mental construct of Simon Strulovitch's.
so-soPart of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, this is Jacobson‘s reinterpretation of The Merchant of Venice. The novel has two aspects. One, a reworking of the plot of the play, gives a bizarre alternative plot that fell flat for me. The other, Shakespeare‘s Shylock brought into the 21st century, provided much insight into anti-semitism, and is by far the more interesting part of the book. Shylock steals the show.
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I don't know why I chose a gnome as a backdrop for this book photo. Maybe it's just because he's ridiculously cute.
Anyway, starting another book from the Hogarth Shakespeare project! 🤓 This one is a retelling of The Merchant of Venice.
so-soAnother one from the Hogarth Shakespeare series. A retelling of the Merchant of Venice, a play I haven‘t read since high school, fell a bit flat. I was pretty bored throughout, but when I was able to pay attention, Jacobson does have a way with conveying the Jewish identity.
“Light is to be cherished in the way great painters like Leonardo and Caravaggio cherished it: as an illumination of meaning, as a way of distinguishing between the mundane darkness of things and the glow that can come with understanding and discrimination. You lose a sense of beauty and volume if everything is light.”
pickI'm giving this a "pick" with a caveat. I have not read The Merchant of Venice and so can't speak to this as a retelling. The plot here is secondary (almost non-existent), but as a discussion of (1) anti-Semitism and (2) parent-child relationships, it's quite interesting. There are a couple of passages---one about light, the other about mercy---that I found especially compelling. I'll try to transcribe quotes from the audio and post.
"It is one of those better-to-be-dead-than-alive days you get in the North of England in February, the space between the land and sky a mere letterbox of squeezed light, the sky itself unfathomably banal."
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Two new sources of befuddlement today: the sourdough starter I was gifted and the tagged book. It's possible that some familiarity with The Merchant of Venice would help elucidate the latter, but I doubt it would help much with the sourdough starter.
