Shylock is My Name
- Author Howard Jacobson
- Narrator Michael Kitchen
- Publisher Random House
- Run Time 7 hours and 29 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Classic and pre-20th century plays, Humorous fiction, Modern and contemporary fiction.
Titles Purchased
- 1-5
- 6-10
- 11-15
- 16-20
- Over 20
Price p/Title
- €9.95
- €8.95
- €7.95
- €6.95
- €5.95
Listen to a sample
What to expect
‘Who is this guy, Dad? What is he doing here?’
With an absent wife and a daughter going off the rails, wealthy art collector and philanthropist Simon Strulovitch is in need of someone to talk to. So when he meets Shylock at a cemetery in Cheshire’s Golden Triangle, he invites him back to his house. It’s the beginning of a remarkable friendship.
Elsewhere in the Golden Triangle, the rich, manipulative Plurabelle (aka Anna Livia Plurabelle Cleopatra A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever Christine) is the face of her own TV series, existing in a bubble of plastic surgery and lavish parties. She shares prejudices and a barbed sense of humour with her loyal friend D’Anton, whose attempts to play Cupid involve Strulovitch’s daughter – and put a pound of flesh on the line.
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.
Critics Review
-
For him to write about and inside of The Merchant of Venice seems to me a marriage made in heaven
Stephen Greenblatt -
Inspired…It does what any good literary subversion should do: deepens and enhances one’s appreciation of the original.
Guardian -
Jacobson’s writing is virtuoso. He is the master of shifting tones, from the satirical to the serious. His prose has the sort of elastic precision you only get from a writer who is truly in command … There’s also deep and sincere soul-searching going on here
Independent -
A brilliant conceit… A powerful reimagining and reinvention of Shakespeare’s character.
The Sunday Times -
Howard Jacobson’s reworking of The Merchant of Venice is a sly success… Irascible, eloquent Shylock is a man transplanted from the play to today.
Daily Telegraph
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