Review: ‘Mrs Shakespeare’ by Robert Nye
Writing her memoirs seven years after her husband’s death, Anne Hathaway reminisces about her now-famous husband, recalling in particular that week in April, 1594, when the still-struggling poet and playwright invited her to London to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, and what happened to her in a certain strange bed in his lodgings above a fishmonger’s shop. In telling that story, and any others, she casts a brilliant new light on Shakespeare-a very close look at the master by one who shared his bed but never bothered to read him. This is a riot of scholarship and bawdy writing. (Goodreads Summary)
The attraction of this book is without doubt the wonderful character and narrative voice that Nye has created for the eponymous Mrs Shakespeare. She is earthy and practical, writing with a straightforward and direct tone which is full of bathos and the perfect contrast to her husband’s elegant, playful tones. I enjoyed the way that she deliberately avoids using metaphor and simile as she considers these dishonest ways of speaking, and her down to earth deconstruction of the sonnet Shakespeare gives to her is a stroke of comic genius.
This book uses one fictional event, the visit of Anne Hathaway to her husband in London in 1594, as a lens through which to examine the possible relationship between Shakespeare and his much neglected wife. Throughout her story are anecdotes and thoughts taken from Shakespeare’s plays and I had fun spotting and identifying these. In particular, this book creates a reason behind Shakespeare’s odd-sounding bequest to his wife of the second best bed. I thought that this section of the novel, focussing on the unusual relations enjoyed my Mr and Mrs Shakespeare in the second best bed, was useful in that it explored the different reactions to and motivations for physical pleasure of the two main characters. However, it did become rather overstated and was a disproportionately long section in what is a short novel. On the whole though, I enjoyed the irreverent tone of the whole book, and found it to be a good read.
Mrs Shakespeare by Robert Nye. Published by Souvenir Press, 2000, pp. 224. Originally published in 1993.
N.B. This is an old review written in 2010 and posted on Goodreads and LibraryThing before I started keeping track of all the books I read here at Old English Rose Reads. I’ve decided to keep copies here so that this remains a complete record of my reading since I started reviewing books for my own pleasure.