Shakespeare
Bill Bryson
HarperPress, Rs 325

So sue me but I have never been a huge fan of the Bard. If you study English under the CBSE, you are much more likely to learn about the dimensions of a bullock-cart wheel than the merchant of Venice. Luckily for me, it didn’t kill my love for reading but it didn’t draw me to pick up William Shakespeare either.

I have always held the conviction that you have to study the playwright because you are never likely to pick him up just for fun. But if you do want to tickle your funny bones, Bill Bryson is the one. He is sarcastic, humorous and has the bite of an English humorist. In short, the perfect choice to tackle a “brief” biography of “English’s greatest playwright” because you know that now at least he will come to you in a language you will understand.

You also realise right at the beginning that there is not much known about Shakespeare that can be put down as fact. In fact, Bryson tells you that no one is even sure if the man existed — and if he did, he may not even be the writer. There are only three portraits that exist of Shakespeare and they don’t hold a lot of weight since two were made by artists long after his death and the third could well be of another man. Also, since Shakespeare refused to spell his name in the same manner — favouring Willm Shaksp and Wm Shakspe, among others — there is no way to verify his existence. Bryson hits the nail on the head when he describes him as a “literary equivalent of an electron — forever there and not there”.

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