In Progress

Finished Ackroyd's biography of the Bard yesterday. The only thing wrong with it is the rather jarring title, which a number of reviewers saw as presumptuous - implying it really is 'The' Biography. Actually Ackroyd makes it clear he's simply an extremely well-informed amateur in this field and writes a generally speculative but highly entertaining sort-of-introduction to Shakespeare. He's brilliant, of course, on the London of the period, but rather less expectedly completely convincing on the plays as theatre (as opposed to texts for study.) What a relief to have someone sturdily stating the obvious: the plays are never really fixed but works in progress and we can't pin down their definitive forms.

He also makes a number of convincing points about Shakespeare the man. I buy into the idea of a Shakespeare without sentiment, particularly, a writer for whom the whole idea is that the material must work on stage and that's about as far as it goes in terms of any deeper meaning or message involved. And the notion of a man for whom speed and movement were irresistible has a powerful resonance.

The only difficulty I found reading the book was that I was continually wanting to break off and read the particular play under discussion.