Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. These are the ironies of history on which Jacobson makes his gleeful pounce, without ever losing his grasp of what might be called a plot. SHYLOCK: I cannot tell, I make it breed as fast. Anna Livia Plurabelle Cleopatra a Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever Christine Shalcross is the queen of a reality TV empire. His mildest choices, for example, include giving the surname Shapiro as a possible original source of the name Shakespeare; the nod is to James Shapiro, a noted Shakespearean scholar. (P91). I’ll end with this video of David Suchet performing Shylock’s monologue, partly because it’s an excellent monologue but also partly because it’s David freaking Suchet and he’s awesome: And just because both performances are so strong, check out Al Pacino: Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. SHYLOCK: Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe, Hegel noted "Every Jew held himself responsible for the mistakes of his community and he behaved accordingly. It only takes seconds! (P151), SHYLOCK: I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk. Lastly, there was a lot, and I mean a lot about Jewish life. Here’s a winning solution for our challenging times, Employers can ease employee concerns by prioritising their wellbeing, Think cloud when you think digital transformation, Realist versus sceptic: Two takes on the climate crisis, Ghosts: Dolly Alderton’s debut novel haunts, but not in a good way, Roddy Doyle introduces head-turning young Irish writing, ‘Guernica’: 80 years on still a stark reminder of war’s horror. Antonio in the play is a representative of these Christian bourgeois who appeared after the economical revolution in the 16th century. I am not Jewish and I do not know much about Jewish life. Each encounter with Shylock encourages Strulovitch’s flagging sense of antagonism and victimhood, their shared grievances expressed mostly through a captivating dialogue of retorts, explanations, asides and reflections.

, Pingback: Review | New Boy, Tracy Chevalier | Literary Treats. The suspicion is that he relishes it, as well, for, in this treatment, the fine young buccaneers of Venice are reduced to vapid, self-serving nonentities, adrift in a sea of unrealised potential. I actually cheered when she escaped him to be with Gratan, even though Gratan is a total jerk himself, then found myself seriously concerned when Beatrice later admits missing her father and wanting him to take her back. thereby depriving d’Anton of the pleasure of calling him a usurer and rogue.”. Jacobson skewers Portia’s privilege without acknowledging her constraints, and while it’s possible I may not even have been really bothered by this as a stand-alone, when coupled with my feelings over Beatrice’s character, I can’t help wishing that female characters hadn’t been given such short shrift. The best food, health, entertainment and lifestyle content from the irishexaminer.com, direct to your inbox every Friday. In Jacobson’s book, the game becomes silly and senseless, and Plurabelle’s actions utterly aimless. SHYLOCK: Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
The novel captures the essence of the original. These mordant dialogues, swathed in layers of mutual suspicion, are at times soberly rabbinical, at others reminiscent of family flashbacks in early Woody Allen films.

Christina Hunt Mahony is a senior research fellow at Trinity College Dublin, Sign up to the Irish Times books newsletter for features, podcasts and more, For the best site experience please enable JavaScript in your browser settings, International Dublin Literary Award: Anna Burns becomes first Irish woman to win €100,000 prize, ‘Plenty to say, but no rooms to show it in’: Belfast festival makes a virtue of the virus, The Darkness Echoing: How the past is politicised and marketed, Borat 2: Rudy Giuliani’s trouser-reaching scene is the work of a daring young woman, Save for your retirement the right way with a responsible investment approach, Affordable homecare? (P91), What was important in Judaism was not the immortality of the individual but rather the immortality of Jewish people. Partly, it’s because my expectations were raised by the brilliance of Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap of Time, the first title in the Hogarth Shakespeare series to which Shylock belongs, and Shylock just didn’t quite measure up. Is he a ghost? Copyright © 2019 BloomyBooks. Judaism emphasizes the sacredness of work and the virtue of frugality. Shylock, the Jewish moneylender is the villain of the play and the audience response depends on how he is portrayed in performance. If Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, in 1598, with an eye to popular taste, he failed in his intention, for it is not the merchant, Antonio, who survives as the enduring character in the play; it is the Jew moneylender, Shylock, who, to this day, remains as important a Shakespearean character as Hamlet or King Lear. This causes us to feel sympathy for Shylock, even though we may feel him to be a villain. You take my house when you do take the prop, That doth sustain my house; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! (P27), SHYLOCK: For were he out of Venice I can make what merchandise I will.

( Log Out /  Despite a honeymoon in Venice itself, even his first wife is irritated by his ‘Yiddishims’, his insistence on his sad origins in Poland: ‘Your people are from Manchester. Rather he has amalgamated or refracted elements of plot and character. I just don’t know. Isn’t that sad enough for you?’. ", A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day by John Dryden: Analysis & Background, The Faerie Queene: A Critical Note on the Structure & Allegory, Ozymandias by Percy Shelley: A Critical Note on the Predetermined Structure of the Poem, Marianna & The Last Duchess: The Feminine Presence, The Merchant of Venice: Critical Analysis of Shylock's Character; Shylock A Nation in A Man.
Shylock is my name does a good job of taking the plot of merchant of Venice and bringing it to a modern day setting. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Merchant of Venice Act II: Blinded by Love, Shakespeare’s Macbeth’s Act V Scene V Soliloquy: Analysis, Shakespeare’s Sonnet Number 126: Analysis, Energy Content of Food Lab Report Answers, Billy Elliot: Conflict of Parenting & Pursuit of Personal Desire, Effect of Salt Concentration on Osmosis in Potato Cells Lab Answers, Sandra Cisneros’ Eleven: Summary & Analysis, Iron Pillar, New Delhi: Location, Inscription, Analysis, Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen: Poem Analysis, The Manhunt by Simon Armitage: Poem Analysis, Effect of Color of Light on the Rate of Photosynthesis: Lab Explained, Johannes Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring: Analysis, The Provisional Government and its Downfall. It’s the beginning of a remarkable friendship.

Because I Could Not Stop for Death: Analysis.

They have much in common, but where they differ is the space in which the novel’s meaty themes are worked. Howard Jacobson’s version of The Merchant of Venice bends time to its own advantage as it asks what it means to be a father, a Jew and a merciful human being in the modern world.”.

Strulovich’s relationship with his daughter Beatrice is particularly off-putting — he recalls her at thirteen as being “thirteen in fact, twenty-three in appearance. Whereas Shakespeare’s play focuses on mercantilist stereotypes of Jews, Jacobson flips the perspective around, with characters like Plurabelle and D’Anton playing with people’s lives to alleviate their boredom and ignoring the very real problems Jews have faced over time. So having a story where Shylock is finally given the hero’s role strikes me as a welcome form of literary justice, and I was thrilled to get a chance to hear his side.

But the character of Shylock has also been the subject of much critical debate: How are we meant to …

Readers of The Merchant of Venice, and those who have seen the play performed, may wonder if Jacobson isn’t pushing his own thesis just a little too far. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. He gave Shylock the ability to make us hate him at times, and sympathize with him at others. The villain that we see in Shylock is the greedy moneylender.

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