monagustafsonaffinito   CONVERSATIONS

If I were an English teacher conducting a writing course, I’d assign this book as an example of exquisite writing. Often when reading a novel I’ll skim over the descriptive parts to get to the essence of the story, but here I couldn’t help lingering on the way as I was drawn into seeing, feeling, and hearing the historical time and place. I’d also ask for an analysis of the purpose and accomplishment of the story and I’d look for the answer that the author has drawn me into the time period as if I were living it. I liked “seeing” the streets and the homes of Stratford in that period. I’d also note its relationship to our own pandemic time. And certainly there’d be room for a student paper on the gender biases of the period.

I’d ask for an opinion on the believability of the story. Here I’d be aware that I’d just recently skimmed my way through a tome on the life and works of Shakespeare so I liked the way the author made a sensible story of some of the major questions – most especially why he married Anne (Agnes) and why he was almost never home with her and the children. I liked the way his talent appeared to emerge from him as if he were surprised to find it. Overall I’d be satisfied with her construction of the creatively imagined life.

But I’m not an English teacher, so I’ll fall back on my own experience of teaching psychology. I wouldn’t be assigning the book, but I’d be finding the character development especially interesting when it came to Agnes and Hamnet, primarily in the influence of beliefs of the time. Not the deepest of character developments, but sufficient to the purpose of the story.

I loved this book and gave it to my daughter with the encouragement to read it. Wouldn’t it be neat if we could have posted our reviews next to each other? Oh well, we can’t have it all, and besides, she hasn’t finished it yet.