David B. reviewed Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess
Review of 'Nothing Like the Sun' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Nothing Like the Sun (1964) imagines the life of Shakespeare from his coming of age to middle age. To me it seemed more of a word-drunk Joycean jeu d'esprit than a historical novel, although I believe it's faithful to known historical and biographical facts. How credible to those who truly know their stuff is what that Burgess invented? I couldn't tell you. Some of the fiction is concerned with positing solutions to "known unknowns" about WS's life, the big one being, who was the "Dark Lady." Although I have some background in WS and his period, as I read I could feel a lot of whooshing as jokes and vocabulary and historical references went over my head, and the metaphysical terms in which WS's artistic development was couched were often too convoluted for me to follow. Still, the erudition and verbal pyrotechnics were grounded in a coherent story supported by …
Nothing Like the Sun (1964) imagines the life of Shakespeare from his coming of age to middle age. To me it seemed more of a word-drunk Joycean jeu d'esprit than a historical novel, although I believe it's faithful to known historical and biographical facts. How credible to those who truly know their stuff is what that Burgess invented? I couldn't tell you. Some of the fiction is concerned with positing solutions to "known unknowns" about WS's life, the big one being, who was the "Dark Lady." Although I have some background in WS and his period, as I read I could feel a lot of whooshing as jokes and vocabulary and historical references went over my head, and the metaphysical terms in which WS's artistic development was couched were often too convoluted for me to follow. Still, the erudition and verbal pyrotechnics were grounded in a coherent story supported by interesting quotidian details of Elizabethan life. On the whole, I liked it a lot. I might even return to it again someday, if I can do so with a greater knowledge of Shakespeare's plays.