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Shylock Is My Name

The Merchant of Venice Retold
Mar 23, 2016KateHillier rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
We're in the second book of this series of Shakespeare reimagings from Hogarth and though I may not being loving them so far I am enjoying them. I was especially excited about this one being the second one up since it's a play I've read, a play I love, and a play have mixed feelings about liking for a bunch of reasons I won't go into here. This rendering by Howard Jacobson definitely brings up a lot of those thoughts. Jacobson has characters that are stand ins for the classic characters here as you would expect: art dealer Simon, wild daughter Beatrice, reality tv mediator Plurabelle, etc. Shylock himself is also present, however. At first I thought he was just a hallucination of Simon's (who is a Shakespeare fan) but other characters interact with him as well. At first I was confused but it really works as Shylock speaks for himself, both what we see in the play and what we don't, and at people. Jewish and non alike. I imagine reading the book as a Jewish person would be an entirely different experience. Especially considering such emphasis is based on being Jewish when the family in question doesn't really practice. It's really quite fascinating, the series as a whole so far and this entry in particular.