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The Late Mr Shakespeare
"'By the time I have finished I think you will have to admit it. There is no man or woman alive in the world who knows more than old Pickleherring about the late Mr Shakespeare.'"From a dingy attic above a brothel in Restoration London, aged actor Pickleherring tells all that's fit to know, and much that's not, about the life of the Bard. A child actor in Shakespeare's troupe, Pickleherring has heard every salacious story about the playwright's life, and is generous-spirited enough to repeat them all.
Was Shakespeare ever 'in love'? Did he write his own plays? Might he have had royal blood? Upon whom did he base the character of Falstaff? What were his last words? And who was the Dark Lady of the sonnets? Pickleherring has the answers to every question ever asked about his mentor. Audacious, bawdy and jaw-droppingly ingenious, "The Late Mr Shakespeare" deserves a place on the same shelf as Shakespeare's plays.
Was Shakespeare ever 'in love'? Did he write his own plays? Might he have had royal blood? Upon whom did he base the character of Falstaff? What were his last words? And who was the Dark Lady of the sonnets? Pickleherring has the answers to every question ever asked about his mentor. Audacious, bawdy and jaw-droppingly ingenious, "The Late Mr Shakespeare" deserves a place on the same shelf as Shakespeare's plays.
576 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1998
18 people are currently reading
310 people want to read
About the author
Robert Nye
72 books47 followersRobert Nye was an English writer, playwright and poet.
Nye started writing stories for children to entertain his three young sons. Nye published his first adult novel, Doubtfire, in 1967.
Nye's next publication after Doubtfire was a return to children's literature, a freewheeling version of Beowulf which has remained in print in many editions since 1968. In 1970, he published another children's book, Wishing Gold, and received the James Kennaway Memorial Award for his collection of short stories, Tales I Told My Mother (1969).
During the early 1970s Nye wrote several plays for BBC radio including “A Bloody Stupit Hole” (1970), “Reynolds, Reynolds” (1971), and a version of Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist (1971). He was also commissioned by Covent Garden to write an unpublished libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera, Kronia (1970). Nye held the position of writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh, 1976-1977, during which time he received the Guardian fiction prize, followed by the 1976 Hawthornden Prize for his novel Falstaff.
He continued to write poetry, publishing Darker Ends (1969) and Divisions on a Ground (1976), and to prepare editions of other poets with whose work he felt an affinity: Sir Walter Ralegh, William Barnes, and Laura Riding. His own Collected Poems appeared in 1995. His selected poems, entitled The Rain and The Glass, published in 2005, won the Cholmondeley Award. From 1977 he lived in County Cork, Ireland. Although his novels have won prizes and been translated into many languages, it is as a poet that he would probably have preferred to be remembered. The critic Gabriel Josipovici described him as "one of the most interesting poets writing today, with a voice unlike that of any of his contemporaries."
Nye started writing stories for children to entertain his three young sons. Nye published his first adult novel, Doubtfire, in 1967.
Nye's next publication after Doubtfire was a return to children's literature, a freewheeling version of Beowulf which has remained in print in many editions since 1968. In 1970, he published another children's book, Wishing Gold, and received the James Kennaway Memorial Award for his collection of short stories, Tales I Told My Mother (1969).
During the early 1970s Nye wrote several plays for BBC radio including “A Bloody Stupit Hole” (1970), “Reynolds, Reynolds” (1971), and a version of Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist (1971). He was also commissioned by Covent Garden to write an unpublished libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera, Kronia (1970). Nye held the position of writer in residence at the University of Edinburgh, 1976-1977, during which time he received the Guardian fiction prize, followed by the 1976 Hawthornden Prize for his novel Falstaff.
He continued to write poetry, publishing Darker Ends (1969) and Divisions on a Ground (1976), and to prepare editions of other poets with whose work he felt an affinity: Sir Walter Ralegh, William Barnes, and Laura Riding. His own Collected Poems appeared in 1995. His selected poems, entitled The Rain and The Glass, published in 2005, won the Cholmondeley Award. From 1977 he lived in County Cork, Ireland. Although his novels have won prizes and been translated into many languages, it is as a poet that he would probably have preferred to be remembered. The critic Gabriel Josipovici described him as "one of the most interesting poets writing today, with a voice unlike that of any of his contemporaries."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
December 2, 2022
Miens… Masks… Guises… Gestures… Grimaces… Posturing… Pretense…
And what about the seven ages of maestro William Shakespeare?
Like father, like son… William Shakespeare was master of his trade as well… One man omnium gatherum – a conglomeration and miscellany of ideas, a magnificent potpourri of words… And now, almost half a thousand years after, his popularity is much greater than in the days of yore…
How much there is of truth and how much there is of myth doesn’t matter… The heritage is what matters.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
William Shakespeare – As You Like It
And what about the seven ages of maestro William Shakespeare?
William Shakespeare was born in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon on St George’s Day, Sunday the 23rd of April, 1564. His father was a butcher. His father’s name was John. John Shakespeare said the sign over the door of his shop on the northern side of Henley Street, Stratford, John Shakespeare: Butcher & Whittawer. It was a busy crowded omnium gatherum of a shop, the sort of place where people like to stand and pass the time of day. Dealing in skins and leather as well as meat, Mr John Shakespeare was master of his trade, and a popular man.
Like father, like son… William Shakespeare was master of his trade as well… One man omnium gatherum – a conglomeration and miscellany of ideas, a magnificent potpourri of words… And now, almost half a thousand years after, his popularity is much greater than in the days of yore…
Imagine William Shakespeare in his prime. It is the April of 1594, say, and he is thirty years old today. He might be at his lodgings in London, though if he is there will be little enough for him to do here, the theatres having been shut down for over a year on account of the worst outbreak of the plague in living memory. (Fifteen thousand persons died of it in the last twelve months.) More likely, then, that he is in the provinces with his Company; or perhaps staying at Titchfield, the country house of his patron the Earl of Southampton; or he might even be at home with his wife and their three children…
The place is not important. Where he is does not matter.
How much there is of truth and how much there is of myth doesn’t matter… The heritage is what matters.
June 23, 2025
The last novel from the finest late-20th century purveyor of scandalous historical romps in the Rabelaisian tradition follows in the footsteps of Nye’s own masterpiece Falstaff. Recasting the lore of Shakespeare using biographical titbits from a host of authors, Nye creates a digressive lark where only the truly qualified scholars of Shakie’s works will be able to delineate between fabrication and facticity. The mischievous and filthy-minded narrator Pickleherring never quite scales the heights of comedy as in Nye’s earlier works, and the novel becomes bogged down in its own tangents and spurious scholarship, although the shortish chapters help to bounce proceedings along entertainingly, while Nye’s sharp prose and wit never dims for the duration. A fine swansong for an underrated writer.
July 20, 2010
Robert Nye's Mrs. Shakespeare sounds great - the Bard as seen by his razor-sharp nearest and dearest - but The Late Mr. Shakespeare reads like scraps from that table. Nye plods through the Stratford Tourist Board highlights of Shakey's life, never giving us any insight into the man or his work or his times (why else are we reading a historical novel about WS?). The void is filled by a clichéd narrator, the kind of jokes that were out of fashion even in 1600 and a couple of keyhole-peeped sex scenes that reminded me, unhelpfully, of American Psycho. Worst of all, it has the air of thinking itself terribly clever and modern. I found it neither.
April 16, 2008
I am a great fan of Shakespeare. I read this book strictly on the strength of the enthusiastic reviews on the back cover. It is very different. I'm no prude and I don't mind "bawdy" terminology, especially if it is descriptive of the times (as in Elizabethan England)...but I must say, it goes beyond bawdy in a few parts- especially in the chapter about Shakespeare's mother, where the playful tone of conjecture becomes outright revolting. It is true that the scholarship involved is amazing at times; there was obviously a lot of effort put into the research- yet, at times, the author's decision to make this a fictitional work almost seems to debase the value of the material. Yes, I comprehended early on that this entire tome was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, lyrical, nonsensical and full of literary devices- and that it was meant to bring the iconic worship of Shakespeare down to a more earthy level- an exploration of the experiences and ambiance of the time that shaped the man. BUT, gossip and innuendo have never been anything anyone should judge another human being by- and I would say that half of the book could have been torched and it would have done the reader a great service. I endured it to the end because I cannot stop reading something I started...I gave this book every opportunity to redeem itself and it failed. Entire paragraphs dedicated to demonstrating the author's comprehension of Shakespeare's literary devices seemed loose and out of context and incredibly boring. The phrase that kept coming to mind was "intellectual drivel"- and I suspected that this book was highly praised because intellectuals were afraid to call it a waste of scholarship and be accused of "not getting it".
February 19, 2009
This is one of those books that I have a hard time assessing after I've read it. Undoubtedly, TLMS is brilliantly written. It revels in puns and word-smithery. I acknowledge all of this. It's a great book, clever and well-constructed. But I didn't like reading it for the same reasons I dislike books like Catch-22. Eventually, novels as extended jokes wear me out, and I ultimately find them dull. meh. But I did enjoy the bawdy narrator's literary criticism of Shakespeare's plays. Most of his readings had a nice ring of truth about them, found in the best "real" criticism.
April 24, 2017
An absolute delight, I adore Robert Nye. This is one of a trilogy of Shakespeare novels he published, the others being Falstaff and Mrs. Shakespeare: The Complete Works.
It's interesting to look, many years later, at the elements of Nye's story that have become part of the standard Shakespeare narrative by 2016 (Lucy Negro? good pull, Mr Nye!) but must have been far more speculative when this was written. Many chapters of this book will be enjoyable to the average reader but only take on resonance if you are a Shakespeare fanatic, with seemingly hundreds of quotes from the plays often well hidden in the text, plenty of factual information as well as plenty of hilariously made-up business, and a fair number of astounding suggestions as to the relationship between Shakespeare's life and his work. I have to say, in all my years, I have never read a series of theories so completely believable. Nye is right on the money, I would argue, but he's built himself an (obscene, so very obscene!) elaborate narrative justification for any of the times that he is completely wrong. We'll never know most of the answers to the questions Nye asks, so I'm happy to take his answers. An hilarious, filthy, lived-in, mournful novel.
It's interesting to look, many years later, at the elements of Nye's story that have become part of the standard Shakespeare narrative by 2016 (Lucy Negro? good pull, Mr Nye!) but must have been far more speculative when this was written. Many chapters of this book will be enjoyable to the average reader but only take on resonance if you are a Shakespeare fanatic, with seemingly hundreds of quotes from the plays often well hidden in the text, plenty of factual information as well as plenty of hilariously made-up business, and a fair number of astounding suggestions as to the relationship between Shakespeare's life and his work. I have to say, in all my years, I have never read a series of theories so completely believable. Nye is right on the money, I would argue, but he's built himself an (obscene, so very obscene!) elaborate narrative justification for any of the times that he is completely wrong. We'll never know most of the answers to the questions Nye asks, so I'm happy to take his answers. An hilarious, filthy, lived-in, mournful novel.
June 15, 2008
This delightfully irreverent book offers the biography of Shakespeare, written many years after the fact by someone who actually knew him, which real-world history has been denied. That dry description aside, the writing, scenes, and situations are lively, witty and unforgettable. Where else can you find an imagined sex scene between a foul-mouthed Queen Elizabeth and the crude John Shakspere in the woods?
July 4, 2010
I was expecting a general romp throught the life of Shakespeare, kind of like King of Shadows. What I recieved was a dirty, sexual romp with some documentary-like analysis of some of the passages of Shakespeare. Nye dwells too much on the conception and childhood of Shakespeare, and not enough on his LIFE. Disappointing.
December 28, 2021
I would usually be all in on a historical fiction book about William Shakespeare, but this one definitely didn’t live up to expectations. There was surprisingly little about Shakespeare’s life or his work, and most was just conjecture and jokes. Or very odd voyeuristic sex scenes that were included for some reason. Can’t say I was a fan of this one.
March 6, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 4, 2019
"Who is Shakespeare? ... Where is he to be found? How can we tell the man from the work, and both from the stories about him? Why did the sly fellow leave so little information about himself, so few facts in the way of footprints made in Time?" Such questions are undertaken here, some years after the Bard's death, by an aged actor, who had in youth taken female roles in original productions of, for example, Romeo and Juliet, and who now prefers to call himself only "your servant Pickleherring." Echoing Hamlet in the famous Yorick scene, Pickleherring says of Shakespeare, "I knew him well."
But how to convey what he knows? He tells us there are two different ways of relating information, so-called town history and country history. The former "is believable and reliable. Offering proofs, it never strains credulity." The latter "is a tale told by various idiots on the village green, all busy contradicting themselves in the name of a common truth. It exaggerates and enflames what it talks about. It delights in lies and gossip. ... But sometimes it catches the ghostly coat-tails of what is otherwise ungraspable." Pickleherring acknowledges that his presentation of Shakespeare's origins and life is mostly country history. Thus for example he gives, with a straight face, an account of an animated corpse climbing out of the crypt in the Stratford-on-Avon church. At other times, he sounds almost like a modern-day scholar, preserving myriad different spellings of Shakespeare's name that (according to him at least) were common in his day:
... Shaxbere, Schaftspere, Shakeshaft, Shakespure, ...
One alternate spelling reportedly appears on the pedestal of a new bust at the University of Southern California, fwiw. WS himself always used the spelling with which we're familiar, but are archaic variations significant? Maybe! In one dramatized exchange, he has someone address Shakespeare's father as "Mister Shakestaff." Then at another point he reproduces a list of people said to be lying low "for fear of process of debt." On the list—along with Shakespeare's father—are names that show up in several plays as cronies of the fat, boastful knight Falstaff. Am I understanding this correctly? Is the suggestion being made that Falstaff is a disguised rendering of Shakespeare's father?
Well, this is billed as a novel. The normal standards of scholarly, academic work are thereby put aside. "I only tell you stories about Shakespeare," Pickleherring says. "You are not required to believe any particular one of them ... But from the over-all impress of the various stories may you perhaps come to know our poet thoroughly."
Incidentally, I've read Mark Anderson's scholarly treatment of the Shakespeare question, and based on that I'm reasonably comfortable with the theory that the plays and poems were actually authored by the Earl of Oxford. Not that it necessarily matters a whole lot at this point. At any rate, Robert Nye appears to be up to speed on that controversy, as he (or Pickleherring) cheerfully mentions the good Earl in passing.
For every similarity between what is known about the Earl's life and episodes in various plays, there are (according to Pickleherring) also local events in Stratford-on-Avon, which would have impressed young WS, that likewise prefigure other episodes. On the other hand, these are acknowledged to be "country history." Before accepting any of that as fact I'd have to confirm it by doing the research myself.
The observations and meditations on all of WS's writings are numerous and detailed. I'm not a scholar, but at least some of it rings true to me. For example, he says of one play "You can see two hands at work in it. Both of them are Shakespeare, but the second is Shakespeare in a ruthless mood." To me that suggests Twelfth Night, in which a character is treated very cruelly in a context that's otherwise lighthearted. Anderson claims Malvolio represented someone in Elizabeth's Court whom Oxford hated. That could be true—and it could also be true that the playwright came back in an altered frame of mind, say, after arguing with the fellow in real life, to revise an earlier draft.
It's all fun, with an academic flavor that's so intermittent that I continually felt off-balance. There are references to lines of dialog that Pickleherring says acknowledged his own breaking adolescent voice. Then, in suggesting various ways WS might've been occupied in the years for which no record exists, Pickleherring hypothesizes he could have been in jail, and, just for the fun of it, offers an old-fashioned gothic tale about a serial killer, which might conceivably have been recounted to him by a fellow prisoner. As a whole, maybe it doesn't entirely work (I confess to putting this aside more than once, for extended periods of time, to read numerous other books, although it remained on my table), but a mixture of "sentence" (serious matter) with what they called "solas" is typical of literature dating from Pickleherring's day and before. It kept drawing me back.
And when I opened it again I found a worthwhile examination of the likely identity of the mysterious "Dark Lady" of the Sonnets, and a thoroughly interesting account of how an Italian scholar exposed young WS to as-yet untranslated literature from that country, providing him with a wealth of new story material to draw upon as well as inspiration for many of his most famous lines. For example (according to Pickleherring at least), this phrase taken from Italian "That is quickly done, that is done well" reappeared in Macbeth as "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." (Safe to say Shakespeare improved on the source. "He only ever needed a few bits and scraps like this to set his mind in motion.")
As long as I'm thinking about those other, competing books crossing my table, let me emulate Pickleherring by going off on a tangent and mentioning two that are set in the modern day but draw heavily upon Shakespeare's legacy, The Labrador Pact and Nutshell .
But how to convey what he knows? He tells us there are two different ways of relating information, so-called town history and country history. The former "is believable and reliable. Offering proofs, it never strains credulity." The latter "is a tale told by various idiots on the village green, all busy contradicting themselves in the name of a common truth. It exaggerates and enflames what it talks about. It delights in lies and gossip. ... But sometimes it catches the ghostly coat-tails of what is otherwise ungraspable." Pickleherring acknowledges that his presentation of Shakespeare's origins and life is mostly country history. Thus for example he gives, with a straight face, an account of an animated corpse climbing out of the crypt in the Stratford-on-Avon church. At other times, he sounds almost like a modern-day scholar, preserving myriad different spellings of Shakespeare's name that (according to him at least) were common in his day:
... Shaxbere, Schaftspere, Shakeshaft, Shakespure, ...
One alternate spelling reportedly appears on the pedestal of a new bust at the University of Southern California, fwiw. WS himself always used the spelling with which we're familiar, but are archaic variations significant? Maybe! In one dramatized exchange, he has someone address Shakespeare's father as "Mister Shakestaff." Then at another point he reproduces a list of people said to be lying low "for fear of process of debt." On the list—along with Shakespeare's father—are names that show up in several plays as cronies of the fat, boastful knight Falstaff. Am I understanding this correctly? Is the suggestion being made that Falstaff is a disguised rendering of Shakespeare's father?
Well, this is billed as a novel. The normal standards of scholarly, academic work are thereby put aside. "I only tell you stories about Shakespeare," Pickleherring says. "You are not required to believe any particular one of them ... But from the over-all impress of the various stories may you perhaps come to know our poet thoroughly."
Incidentally, I've read Mark Anderson's scholarly treatment of the Shakespeare question, and based on that I'm reasonably comfortable with the theory that the plays and poems were actually authored by the Earl of Oxford. Not that it necessarily matters a whole lot at this point. At any rate, Robert Nye appears to be up to speed on that controversy, as he (or Pickleherring) cheerfully mentions the good Earl in passing.
For every similarity between what is known about the Earl's life and episodes in various plays, there are (according to Pickleherring) also local events in Stratford-on-Avon, which would have impressed young WS, that likewise prefigure other episodes. On the other hand, these are acknowledged to be "country history." Before accepting any of that as fact I'd have to confirm it by doing the research myself.
The observations and meditations on all of WS's writings are numerous and detailed. I'm not a scholar, but at least some of it rings true to me. For example, he says of one play "You can see two hands at work in it. Both of them are Shakespeare, but the second is Shakespeare in a ruthless mood." To me that suggests Twelfth Night, in which a character is treated very cruelly in a context that's otherwise lighthearted. Anderson claims Malvolio represented someone in Elizabeth's Court whom Oxford hated. That could be true—and it could also be true that the playwright came back in an altered frame of mind, say, after arguing with the fellow in real life, to revise an earlier draft.
It's all fun, with an academic flavor that's so intermittent that I continually felt off-balance. There are references to lines of dialog that Pickleherring says acknowledged his own breaking adolescent voice. Then, in suggesting various ways WS might've been occupied in the years for which no record exists, Pickleherring hypothesizes he could have been in jail, and, just for the fun of it, offers an old-fashioned gothic tale about a serial killer, which might conceivably have been recounted to him by a fellow prisoner. As a whole, maybe it doesn't entirely work (I confess to putting this aside more than once, for extended periods of time, to read numerous other books, although it remained on my table), but a mixture of "sentence" (serious matter) with what they called "solas" is typical of literature dating from Pickleherring's day and before. It kept drawing me back.
And when I opened it again I found a worthwhile examination of the likely identity of the mysterious "Dark Lady" of the Sonnets, and a thoroughly interesting account of how an Italian scholar exposed young WS to as-yet untranslated literature from that country, providing him with a wealth of new story material to draw upon as well as inspiration for many of his most famous lines. For example (according to Pickleherring at least), this phrase taken from Italian "That is quickly done, that is done well" reappeared in Macbeth as "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." (Safe to say Shakespeare improved on the source. "He only ever needed a few bits and scraps like this to set his mind in motion.")
As long as I'm thinking about those other, competing books crossing my table, let me emulate Pickleherring by going off on a tangent and mentioning two that are set in the modern day but draw heavily upon Shakespeare's legacy, The Labrador Pact and Nutshell .
August 29, 2018
Nye is a poet and novelist who has written a number of works of historical fiction, including two related to William Shakespeare. This bawdy yet erudite tale proports to be a biography of the playwright by one of the actors in his troupe of players, written some decades after the master’s passing. Robert Reynolds (aka Pickleherring, apparently stage names weren’t what they would become once studios and press agents took charge) is an entertaining story teller whose notion of biography (and history) includes facts and documents, eyewitness accounts, rumors, legends, slanders, inference, myths, fancy, lies, and truth in its most generous and inclusive sense.
Like the Bard, Reynolds is from the country and prefers country history to town history. “Country history is faithful and open-ended. It is a tale told by various idiots on the village green, all busy contradicting themselves in the name of a common truth. It exagerrates and enflames what it talks about. It delights in lies and gossip. It is unwise. Wild and mystical and passionate, it is ruled by the heart. Beginning by the glow of the hearth, at the end of the night your country history tends to pass into balladry and legend—it becomes poetic. Country history is fanciful and maggoty. Easy to mock, it always strains belief. But sometimes it catches the ghostly coat-tails of what is otherwise ungraspable.” By contrast, town history is “cynical and exact. It is written by wits and it orders and limits what it talks about. It relies on facts and figures. It is knowing… [it:] rests on the premise that the facts tell the truth.”
Nye’s narrator/biographer insists country history is the only way to capture someone like William Shakespeare and he is pretty convincing, though sometimes digressively wearying, on the point. I liked the book much more in the early going, when it was freshest, than over time as its premise wore a little of its welcome out. But it remained brisk (nice short chapters), witty, unseemly and oddly reliable despite all the tall tales, lies, and gossip, fictional and nonfictional—that is, stuff that was truly gossiped about and stuff Pickleherring introduces on his own. It also motivated me to consider reading The Complete Plays, a nice reading project I thank Pickleherring and Nye for prompting me to undertake.
Like the Bard, Reynolds is from the country and prefers country history to town history. “Country history is faithful and open-ended. It is a tale told by various idiots on the village green, all busy contradicting themselves in the name of a common truth. It exagerrates and enflames what it talks about. It delights in lies and gossip. It is unwise. Wild and mystical and passionate, it is ruled by the heart. Beginning by the glow of the hearth, at the end of the night your country history tends to pass into balladry and legend—it becomes poetic. Country history is fanciful and maggoty. Easy to mock, it always strains belief. But sometimes it catches the ghostly coat-tails of what is otherwise ungraspable.” By contrast, town history is “cynical and exact. It is written by wits and it orders and limits what it talks about. It relies on facts and figures. It is knowing… [it:] rests on the premise that the facts tell the truth.”
Nye’s narrator/biographer insists country history is the only way to capture someone like William Shakespeare and he is pretty convincing, though sometimes digressively wearying, on the point. I liked the book much more in the early going, when it was freshest, than over time as its premise wore a little of its welcome out. But it remained brisk (nice short chapters), witty, unseemly and oddly reliable despite all the tall tales, lies, and gossip, fictional and nonfictional—that is, stuff that was truly gossiped about and stuff Pickleherring introduces on his own. It also motivated me to consider reading The Complete Plays, a nice reading project I thank Pickleherring and Nye for prompting me to undertake.
February 28, 2013
I must admit that I'm coming at that book as a bit of a Shakespeare know-nothing. For years, the only Shakespeare I've been able to quote has been "If music be the food of love play on. Give me excess of it that surfeiting my appetite may sicken and so die". And I only remember that because I'm a huge music geek, and I studied "Twelfth Night" in school. It's probably even wrong. Anyway, this was on my radar because I thought Nye's take on "Faust" was rather magnificent, I thought he might grasp my attention through use of language alone. And he sure does. For the most part.
You see, even though this is a hugely well researched piece of writing, from a man who clearly loves Shakespeare, it's at its best when he's not really writing about him. At its best, this is a scurrilous, debauched piece of unreliable (or even duplicitous) narration, which conjours up all the sights, sounds and smells of the era. There's set-pieces present here that were clearly based upon scant evidence of ludicrous rumour, and you get the feeling they've only been included to amuse the author. These bits, unlikely as it sounds, are the best bits. The more scurrilous, the more scandalous, the better with this work, as the author clearly loves letting his imagine run wild (incidentally, Robert, I've got worries about your state of mind, considering some of the filth on display here, but that's an aside), which he does most freely in the early chapters, as he sets the scene and introduces characters.
Later, after Shakespeare starts to become if not the central character, then the enigma around which the writing revolves, the tone of the book settles down, and the narrative occasionally even becomes scholarly. These bits were interesting, but rarely entertaining, and never as vivid as the codswallop put forth by Pickleherring. Very good, but not quite consistent enough to be on my favourites shelf.
You see, even though this is a hugely well researched piece of writing, from a man who clearly loves Shakespeare, it's at its best when he's not really writing about him. At its best, this is a scurrilous, debauched piece of unreliable (or even duplicitous) narration, which conjours up all the sights, sounds and smells of the era. There's set-pieces present here that were clearly based upon scant evidence of ludicrous rumour, and you get the feeling they've only been included to amuse the author. These bits, unlikely as it sounds, are the best bits. The more scurrilous, the more scandalous, the better with this work, as the author clearly loves letting his imagine run wild (incidentally, Robert, I've got worries about your state of mind, considering some of the filth on display here, but that's an aside), which he does most freely in the early chapters, as he sets the scene and introduces characters.
Later, after Shakespeare starts to become if not the central character, then the enigma around which the writing revolves, the tone of the book settles down, and the narrative occasionally even becomes scholarly. These bits were interesting, but rarely entertaining, and never as vivid as the codswallop put forth by Pickleherring. Very good, but not quite consistent enough to be on my favourites shelf.
February 17, 2008
Robert Reynolds, alias Pickleherring, narrates this memoir of his life as a boy actor in Shakespeare's troupe, hoping to dispel the many rumors and lies about his older friend and mentor's life. Robert Nye has based this fictional biography on a variety of legitimate sources, but relies most on a healthy dose of sheer tall-tale-telling and bawdy reconstructions of Elizabethan London. His reconstruction of Shakespeare's childhood and the infamous "lost years" in particular abound with rich detail about life in suburban Stratford. Pickleherring also offers provocative theories about the sources for Shakespeare's greatest characters and speeches, and gossipy commentary on other luminaries of the Elizabethan stage, like Kit Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and the mysterious Dark Lady of the sonnets. Take this sometimes silly but immensely entertaining story for what it's worth -- and be prepared for some pretty raunchy scenes -- and you'll have a great time. You'll have an even better time if you know a little about Shakespeare and his world before you read the novel. Nye also subtly interweaves quotations from the plays into his narrative, so real Shakespeare devotees will enjoy this book most of all -- if, of course, they aren't offended by a portrait of their idol that sometimes exposes his all-too-human nature.
July 6, 2018
Part fact, part fiction, part fable, part fantasy, The Late Mr Shakespeare is a must-read for all who like me worship at the feet of the Bard. Because for those of us who admire the great enigma, there is much truth to be found in this rollercoaster-ride of stories, anecdotes, rumours and just plain lies, beginning with the narrator's childhood meeting with an on-tour Shakespeare to the death of much of what remains of Tudor London in the great conflagration of the Restoration period. This is not Bardolatry - Shakespeare is shown as a real man, with not a few unlikable traits. It evokes wonderfully the atmosphere of the city, of the theatre and of the circles Shakespeare moved in. Pickleherring is a shamelessly unreliable and obscene storyteller, and thus this novel is not for the easily offended, but if like Will himself, you did not object to a bit of smut, then I urge you to seek this out. Finding the path of truth within the labyrinth of obfuscation and occasionally Fibonaccian complexities is very much part of the fun of reading this beguiling book. Sadly, it is out of print in the UK, but I found my second-hand copy in - appropriately enough - an Oxfam shop in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
December 16, 2013
Finding myself at a store (the excellent Mercer Street books), that did not have Nye's 1976 Falstaff (from the Burgess Ninety-Nine Novels list), I settled for this (plainly) similarly-themed book. This might be called historical fiction, but it very freely adapts anything resembling fact, starting with the narrator, an actor known as Pickleherring, who is writing many years after Shakespeare's death from the perspective of an old man who had joined the troupe as a boy. Hence enough years had passed that he could already start reporting on how Shakespeare's posthumous reputation was shaping up, including the many myths and rumors that evolved.
There is no pretense at verisimilitude, so I don't even know which of the stories were current in the late 17th century, but every question of authorship, speculation about where and how he spent the undocumented years, every interpretation of his will and so forth, is present - plus a good deal more; retellings of stories from The Mabinogion with Shakespeare's mother as a witch, clever nods to Dylan Thomas - a Joycean farrago, one might say!
There is no pretense at verisimilitude, so I don't even know which of the stories were current in the late 17th century, but every question of authorship, speculation about where and how he spent the undocumented years, every interpretation of his will and so forth, is present - plus a good deal more; retellings of stories from The Mabinogion with Shakespeare's mother as a witch, clever nods to Dylan Thomas - a Joycean farrago, one might say!
June 27, 2016
What more can I say? I love just about everything Shakespearean, and am always looking for new ways to appreciate the Bard. This was an interesting take on Shakespeare for sure and certainly not for everyone. It is "written" by a older man nicknamed Pickleherring who played many of Shakespeare's heroines when he was a young man. So the premise is that he intimately knew and associated with the writer through his professional life. Robert Nye--through the persona of Pickleherring--invents other details about Shakespeare's parents, friends, rivals, and members of Stratford and London society that round out the story, while also telling his own bawdy experiences as he lived in the attic of a London whorehouse with a peephole. It is this section that may not be for everyone, however some of the most popular parts of Shakespeare's plays including bawdy and dirty jokes written for the illiterate groundlings, so it is not entirely amiss in a "biography" of Shakespeare. There are plenty of beautiful and lovely tributes to the man and the myth of Shakespeare though that any lover of the Bard would appreciate.
May 7, 2019
This is such a weird, weird book. Difficult to review because I don't know how I feel about it. Some parts are funny, some parts plain revolting. The book looks all conspiracy theories about Shakespeare's life and teases what if they were true. Combined it makes for a very strange read. Might pick up more of the author's work and come back to this again later.
September 5, 2016
Both bawdy and beatific, opinionated and objective, The Late would shine a light on not only one of history's most renowned if enigmatic artistic talents but the discipline in which he labored. It is not just a tale of a writer and his writing, however, but the world of the theater that brought (to its fullest effect, and still brings) that writing to life.
It is this, Mr. Nye's approach to his subject, that makes his novel the gem it is. Through the recollections of the aged Pickleherring, a boy-actor in Shakespeare's original troupe, the man and the stories behind his plays are illuminated, yes, but also the nuts and bolts of the dramaturgy of those times, its personalities and peccadilloes, and in many ways (unexpected, some of them), that of the Elizabethan Age in which it and they flourished.
An intimate romp through an era so different and distant from ours it seems a fiction itself. The Late is so true to human nature and its timeless quirkiness, so boldly penned, one can't help feeling the Bard wouldn't have only approved but saw little need to improve.
It is this, Mr. Nye's approach to his subject, that makes his novel the gem it is. Through the recollections of the aged Pickleherring, a boy-actor in Shakespeare's original troupe, the man and the stories behind his plays are illuminated, yes, but also the nuts and bolts of the dramaturgy of those times, its personalities and peccadilloes, and in many ways (unexpected, some of them), that of the Elizabethan Age in which it and they flourished.
An intimate romp through an era so different and distant from ours it seems a fiction itself. The Late is so true to human nature and its timeless quirkiness, so boldly penned, one can't help feeling the Bard wouldn't have only approved but saw little need to improve.
did-not-finish
September 20, 2019DNF - 13%
We have established I love Shakespeare almost to obsession, yes? So I saw this book for the first time in HPB and I was excited to read it (ages ago).
But I couldn't do it. I skimmed and skipped the first 5o pages, but I just... There are elements that are quite stylized, which I tend to like, but the narration was just awful. Extremely character-voice-driven to a fault, a very frustrating voice to read. Much of it is very theoretical, what if Shakespeare...? And I really couldn't stand it.
There is a VERY unique voice here and I urge caution when going into it. I know there are some people who will enjoy this book, but I know many others who would also struggle with it.
We have established I love Shakespeare almost to obsession, yes? So I saw this book for the first time in HPB and I was excited to read it (ages ago).
But I couldn't do it. I skimmed and skipped the first 5o pages, but I just... There are elements that are quite stylized, which I tend to like, but the narration was just awful. Extremely character-voice-driven to a fault, a very frustrating voice to read. Much of it is very theoretical, what if Shakespeare...? And I really couldn't stand it.
There is a VERY unique voice here and I urge caution when going into it. I know there are some people who will enjoy this book, but I know many others who would also struggle with it.
May 16, 2021
I love Elizabethan historical fiction when I can find it, especially of the Shakespeare variety. This book started off strong and I was so sure I was going to give it 5 stars. Alas, halfway through I found myself becoming disinterested in the often repetitive dull narration. In the other extreme, while I certainly don't mind a bit of obscenity or bawdiness, I felt like it was often ill placed in the book. To be honest I really didn't need to know about the old man narrator's sexual fantasies with the young girl downstairs. Whatever point it was trying to make in being woven into the narrative was lost. The bits that actually dealt with the personality and "first-hand account" of Billy Shakes were great and there should have been more of that.
August 3, 2009
i think i like novels about shakespeare as much as the plays themselves - which is to say, quite a lot. it's like anglican choral music: i grew up with it, and it's an aesthetic i've come to feel immensely comfortable with. (not that i'd lead you to believe this book bears any resemblance to an anthem by stanford ... )
irreverent, chaotic, just barely hanging together at the seams and full of random, crunchy oddities. certainly not tame, definitely not boring. includes one of my favourite quotes about religion: 'there is no rule on how to talk to god.'
irreverent, chaotic, just barely hanging together at the seams and full of random, crunchy oddities. certainly not tame, definitely not boring. includes one of my favourite quotes about religion: 'there is no rule on how to talk to god.'
December 23, 2013
Oh dear Lord. This book looked great, sounded like a ton of fun, but turned into a novel by a poet - and that's not a compliment. The scattershot narrative only caught fire a few times, notwithstanding the events of 1666. I think a better description of this book would avoid characterizing this as a novel, but rather a fictional player's memoir as he tries to write a biography of Shakespeare. Two and a half stars. Into the resale pile.
December 14, 2020
Accessible, absorbing
Imaginative and erudite! A. Delight! A joy to read and enormously info
Rmative. Recommend to all lovers of Shakespeare everywhere
Imaginative and erudite! A. Delight! A joy to read and enormously info
Rmative. Recommend to all lovers of Shakespeare everywhere
February 13, 2024
This is an odd book. I still can’t really decide whether I enjoyed it or not. It purports to be a biography of the playwright by an actor who played the female characters in Shakespeare’s company from the late 1590’s onwards. Now in his old age, he is writing after the Commonwealth and the return of the monarchy during the plague of 1665 and the Great Fire the following year.
I was familiar with some of Robert Nye’s style from the past. Bawdy, irreverent and full of wordplay. At the back, Nye lists a lot of authors whose words he has used or misused throughout the book. I spotted a number of these but certainly not all. For example, one of the suggestions for Shakespeare’s last words is an adaption of those ascribed to Dylan Thomas. All very amusing.
Nye also manages to shoehorn in several old folk tales, sometimes making Shakespeare one of the characters. He also brings in a lot of the theories around the writer, who wrote the plays, who are the young man and the dark lady of the sonnets. And this is part of the confusion. How is the reader to respond to multiple accounts of the same incident, all contradictory.
And then there are the rather unnecessary rude bits, usually part of the pseudo author’s life, rather than Shakespeare’s. So what do they add?
3.5 stars maybe.
I was familiar with some of Robert Nye’s style from the past. Bawdy, irreverent and full of wordplay. At the back, Nye lists a lot of authors whose words he has used or misused throughout the book. I spotted a number of these but certainly not all. For example, one of the suggestions for Shakespeare’s last words is an adaption of those ascribed to Dylan Thomas. All very amusing.
Nye also manages to shoehorn in several old folk tales, sometimes making Shakespeare one of the characters. He also brings in a lot of the theories around the writer, who wrote the plays, who are the young man and the dark lady of the sonnets. And this is part of the confusion. How is the reader to respond to multiple accounts of the same incident, all contradictory.
And then there are the rather unnecessary rude bits, usually part of the pseudo author’s life, rather than Shakespeare’s. So what do they add?
3.5 stars maybe.
Read
August 12, 2019nyewise this one combines some of the principal strengths of falstaff (the ribaldry, the sensory detail & outrageous lists, the knowing way in which it plays fast & loose w/ historical fact) with some of the chief weaknesses of merlin (in a book about shakespeare why is the playwriting only, like, a scant third of the novel? moreover if the narrator was a member of his acting company why is the only fully realized scene from the playwriting days a backstage hj?) in all i'm not not glad that i read it; if nothing else you gotta check out the list of insults & oaths that w.s. supposedly uttered on the tennis court ("leprosy o'ertake!")
September 13, 2020
Robert Nye follows his previous books about musing on literature heroes. He tackles the protean author, William Shakespeare. Nye plays with conceits and hints from Shakespeare's life. An enjoyable, historical or mythological romp by the author . If you have read his Faust or Merlin or John Falstaff biographies, you know what to expect.
March 23, 2022
The rambling, scurrilous reminiscences of Pickleherring, boy actor to the Bard, now living out his last days over the knocking-shop, surrounded by memorabilia and unreliable memories. Lots of factoids about the playwright, gossip and conjecture.
December 9, 2020
An entertaining book, although I'll never believe that Queen Elizabeth I was Shakespeare's mother.
January 4, 2023
So far, not so good. Rambling. I'm setting it down for now.
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