William Shakespeare Archives

King of Shadows, Susan Cooper

Published 21 Mar 2010 by Gin Jenny

I read this for the Time Travel Challenge. Yeah, I’m not adhering to my list. TOO BAD. I’m making King of Shadows part of a time travel mini-challenge that I call the Books I Like Because They Contain Time Travel and in Spite of Having Been Written by Authors I Do Not Like as Much as My Big Sister Does Challenge. I shall include Time Cat in this mini-challenge too, because I can do that. Nat Field, a twelve-year-old with a tragedy in his background, comes to London as part of a company of boys to perform at the newly…

33 Comments

Review: The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde

Published 20 Mar 2010 by Gin Jenny

Metafiction. That’s another challenge I should invent, if there isn’t one already, a metafiction challenge. I always expect to love metafiction passionately, and when it lets me down, I feel hurt and betrayed. Like the book of The Princess Bride. Why did you be so lame, book of The Princess Bride? Atonement. Wicked after they left school, but particularly after, um, a certain event? That I don’t want to say because some of you maybe haven’t read the book yet? Slaughterhouse Five. Giles Goat-Boy. And then sometimes it is great, like The Unwritten, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Ella…

45 Comments

Review: Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare

Published 8 Jan 2010 by Gin Jenny

They cut my head off in Titus Andronicus. When I write plays, they’ll be like Titus…I liked it when they cut heads off, and the daughter mutilated with knives. Plenty of blood. That’s the only writing. –John Webster character in Shakespeare in Love Oh, Tom Stoppard. You are so great. I wish you would write screenplays for thousands of movies. I wish you would have your own television show, and it would be called Tom Stoppard Is Not Ha-Ha-Funny But Everybody Loves Him Anyway, and on it, you could make wry comments about hermits who read newspapers and John Webster…

23 Comments

Review: The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare

Published 21 Nov 2009 by Gin Jenny

Here’s what you should understand before reading Comedy of Errors. My boy Shakespeare, he’s funny. He’s all about being funny; he’s got funny down pat. If you don’t believe me, I can only assume that it’s because you have never seen one of Shakespeare’s plays performed by actors with any hint of comedic timing. He can do it in many different ways – he can do slapsticky visual gags, he can do puns, he can do wry little digs and situational irony and gallows humor. And when he’s not being funny, he’s still being clever. Nearly always! He makes his…

14 Comments

Love

Published 18 Nov 2009 by Gin Jenny

Go watch “The Waters of Mars” and then come back here so we can have spoiler-filled comments about all how bleak and scary and crazy it all was, and how excited we all are that John Simm is coming back again. (I am very very excited. I would even go so far as to say very very very excited. I love me some John Simm.) You may think that you have seen David Tennant put on some crazy eyes previously, but in fact you have never seen David Tennant do crazy eyes until you have seen “The Waters of Mars”. …

15 Comments

Review: Henry VI, Part 3, William Shakespeare

Published 17 Nov 2009 by Gin Jenny

Okay, I did actually forget all about my project to read all of Shakespeare’s plays, but DO NOT WORRY. I have remembered it now and I shall carry right on with it. I just finished reading Henry VI, Part 3, which is nice because I’m all done with Henry VI and can move along to my boy Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Remember how I said Part 2 was more like it than Part 1? Not exactly like it, but more? I regret to report that I can’t say the same thing of Part 3. It’s all, Okay, now Edward is…

16 Comments

Booking Through Thursday

Published 5 Jun 2009 by Gin Jenny

I like this one: This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. So here are my fifteen books that will always stick with me, more or less in the order in which they entered my life: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte Emily Climbs, L.M .Montgomery Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card Macbeth, William Shakespeare The Chosen, Chaim Potok The Color Purple, Alice Walker Harry Potter and…

10 Comments

I will try not to squeal like a little girl

Published 23 Mar 2009 by Gin Jenny

But the Royal Shakespeare Company is making a DVD of David Tennant’s Hamlet! YES THEY ARE. A DVD. And, okay, yes, Hamlet is not historically my most favorite one of Shakespeare’s plays. I have been known to say that Hamlet needs to for God’s sake DO SOMETHING ANYTHING EVER; I have been known to quote Oscar Wilde about critics of Hamlet; I have been known to tell the story of how my senior English class drove any possible liking I might ever have had for that play out of me by spending days and days and teacher-sanctioned days discussing whether…

5 Comments

Henry VI, Part II, William Shakespeare

Published 11 Nov 2008 by Gin Jenny

Ah, this is more like it. Not – you know – exactly like it, but more. Much more political intrigue than fighting battles, and that always makes for a jollier play. It’s all about the political machinations going on around Henry VI’s rule – everybody wants to rebel against everybody else. Gloucester wants to carry on being Lord Protector but the queen and her lover don’t want that because they want to be the power behind the throne. The Duke of York and his pals want Henry deposed, because they feel that their claim to the throne is superior –…

Update

Published 4 Nov 2008 by Gin Jenny

Henry VI, Part II, is so much better than Henry VI, Part I. I just wanted to mention that. I’m not done with it yet but it’s way, way, way better than the first part. I’m not saying it’s the best play I’ve ever read, but I’m enjoying it, and I can envision a future in which I might read it again just for fun sometime. There’s so much political intrigue! Plus, shades of future plays – particularly Macbeth. Gloucester’s wife is extremely ambitious, and there are prophecies that are rather cryptic. One contains the line “Let him shun castles”,…

Tag: William Shakespeare

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