Beautiful language that takes your breath away- shows the seedy side of Shakespeare set in the seedy times of an accurately portrayed Elizabethan England. Burgess becomes the Bard.

С голямо желание почнах биографията на Уилям Шекспир. Много харесвам пиесите и сонетите му още от дете. Помислих, че книгата е като романтичния филм преди време с Гуинет Полтроу „Влюбеният Шекспир", защото за тази пишеше, че е за любовния живот на поета. Останах разочарована в очакванията си, Бърджес не се оказа "мой" писател, а книгата не е "моята" книга. Не успях да я харесам.
Авторът много въображаемо тълкува живота на Шекспир, което за мен не изглеждаше напълно вярно. Никой не знае къде е истината, но имах чувството, че този писател изпадаше в делириум на моменти, които приписваше на Шекспир. Интересуваше го само мръсната страна от живота на Уил, пикантериите и похотта. Даже като гротеска ми звучеше на моменти. А поезията на поета е прекрасна и винаги го чета с удоволствие, но в тази книга някак си беше опорочено всичко, свързано с него. Може аз да бъркам, защото други хора казват, че творбата на Бърджес е върховна и поетична. Но аз опр

Anthony Burgess' novel succeeds where many of Shakespeare's biographers fail. He tells us of what life might have been like for William Shakespeare, arguably the greatest and most influential writer in human history. The life of William Shakespeare has been documented and chronicled by some of the greatest minds in culture. However, the bard's true identity still remains a mystery. He never kept a journal and the characters in his plays are hardly autobiographical. The lack of first-hand documentation has even caused some schools of thought to believe he never existed or if he did exist, that he was the 18th Earl of Oxford. In Nothing Like The Sun, Anthony Burgess gives us an imagined look into what Shakespeare may have believably thought - not about his art - but about his life and the actual events that transpired in the society which he succeeded in entertaining.

This rating should be qualified: a four for readers who are already fans of Anthony Burgess or who have the cast of mind to become so, and a two for readers not susceptible to his particular charms.

This book is thrilling for readers who bemoan the increasing simplicity of language favored in modern fiction. When we reduce our prose to something any eight-year-old could understand, we lose much of the precise nuance and shades of color that are the great gifts of our language...we don't have the natural prosody of Italian or Spanish; we lack the exquisite structural evasions that make French so perfect for courtier and diplomat; we cannot create great centipedes of sewn-together meaning like German. But English is an incredibly rich language, a hodgepodge, a portmanteau, a thief and a wily borrower, and with the effortless bravura natural to a linguist and translator of high caliber, Burgess exploits every gift that English offers him, with a dazzling result that is a mosaic composed of everything from diamonds of the first water to thrown-away bits of aluminum foil.

Secondary to this pleasure of language is Burgess' fantastic knowledge of his subject; those educated about the Elizabethan and early Jacobean age, and who have a lot of Shakespeare rolling around in their heads, will be stunned and delighted. The story is, however, a boat swept along on a great tide of language, and if you are sometimes unwilling to be carried along without some idea of where this all is leading, you may find yourself sometimes frustrated. Your craft will run awkwardly aground here and there, and although your helmsman navigates adeptly enough, you may be vexed by your own inability to tell a crocodile from a fallen log. Wipe the spray off your compass and put it away; you're along for the ride, and the destination is perhaps less important than your willingness to drown a little.

A carnival of language! Burgess had a life-long love affair with words, as witness A Clockwork Orange, and this glorious pastiche of 16thc idioms is a poem to the Bard. Forgive the copious in-jokes that only scholars might detect, not least its cryptic nods to Ulysses and Freud. Enjoy the wit, fun and vibrant color!

Awesome, top shelf stuff. After reading the disapointing Malaysia Trilogy, I was dumbfounded. Could this be the same author who produced the genius of Clockwork Orange? So I gave Burgess another chance and it paid off. This is a fictional account of a bit of Shakespeare's life, his nutty wife, his rascally patrons, etc. The language is quasi-shakespearean and Burgess's imagination is up to the task. Wow. This rocked.

As I didn’t know the biography of Shakespeare at all it was interesting for me to learn his life path and features of the time which he lived in. If you read the title and imagined some sweet romantic story - forget. After the book even those well known sonnets acquire a dirty tint against the background of the environment where they were written. :)

I really loved this book. You really have to know your Shakespeare history though, as I don't know that I would have enjoyed it as much if I hadn't read Will In The World. I thought the word play incredibly fun and thoroughly enjoyable; although I'm not sure the ending was as strong as I would have liked. Maybe just me...

An odd book, that's almost three separate short novellas in one. The best, and first, is the beginning of the book, which follows young Will on his youthful amorous adventures, hoodwinked into a hasty Elizabethan shotgun marriage with an older bride at the precipice of spinsterhood. This is a Joycean like feast of language and becoming; comedy and bawdyness.

The second phase is a paraphrased version of his relationship with Southhampton, and the composition of the sonnets. Some decent dialogue, but the richness of the prose and language of the first third is lost, and everything is compressed.

The third phase is even more compressed, and mostly about the dark lady, who is a whore from Africa (it seems), and lamentations etc. of Will. It didnt work for me, but did propose the cuckolding of Will by his brother, as a basis for Hamlet.

Had the first third made up the entire novel, this would have been genius. It's almost as if Burgess got tired or overwhelmed with his subject (easily understood), and decided to dash off a novel anyway.

The language was gorgeous. I'd recommend it just for the language alone. If you haven't read a lot of Shakespeare, some Shakespeare biographies, and probably a bit of Marlowe and some other Elizabethan playwrights, oh yes, and some history of the period, you will miss a lot of the richness of the book.

On the other hand, you might not find Burgess's rather dodgy speculations about Shakespeare's character and his life, quite so improbable as I did, and would enjoy the book a lot more for it.

This book is a fictional biography of Shakespeare, Burgess paints a brilliant and realistic portrait of WS. Burgess explores his complicated family and love life. This is the core of the Story. This is where Burgess creates a dynamic character...a balding, sometimes self loathing middle aged WS. Frustrated by circumstance and aware of his own mortality.

It’s not Anthony Burgess’ fault that this wasn’t my favorite story. He is a masterful storyteller and this would be a great book… if the topic interests you.