Not much to say about this story (of the same title), except “How come I never find myself in situations like this?” The ending is particularly nice, since I’m sure that anybody that’s a Shakespeare fan like myself will agree with what the cabbie has to say.

No, not novelizations of Shakespeare. Novels, original works, starting with Shakespeare as a foundation. It’s provided fodder for Grace C. Tiffany to do four novels. Her first, “My Father Had a Daughter”, is about Shakespeare’s daughter. Her second, “Will”, is about the man himself and his relationship to his wife. The latest two are “The Turquoise Ring” (Merchant of Venice) and “Ariel” (The Tempest).

It’s a neat idea, I will have to keep an eye out next time I need reading material. In general I’m more of a contemporary / science fiction sort, and it seems like this woman is doing more of a feminist alternate history sort of thing, but I’ll definitely look more into it and see if any of them are something I might want to read. “Will” could be good, it would be interesting to see his life done as a novel instead of as the plot of countless half hour television shows about bringing him into the present in a time machine.
More Shakespeare-inspired Novels…

• 9 Shakespeare novels and one piece of ***
• Shakespeare Fiction Recommendations
• Review : The Master of Verona

No special allusion to the text here, just spreading the links for Tim Bray who periodically drops a Shakespeare reference into his otherwise highly geeky blog.

Oh, all right:

First, from the park let us conduct them thither;
Then homeward every man attach the hand
Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon
We will with some strange pastime solace them,
Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
For revels, dances, masks and merry hours
Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
– Biron, Love’s Labour’s Lost

Upon hearing that we’re about to experience Hamlet in a wading pool wearing water wings, a coworker and I got into a discussion about why Hamlet seems to be the play that has the wildest interpretations. I attribute it to the underlying theme of Hamlet’s dementia, feigned or otherwise, and the overall emphasis on what’s going on in his head as opposed to reality.

But it did bring up the question of just how odd a presentation of Shakespeare can get. I once saw a performance of I believe Midsummer Night’s Dream, if I’m not mistaken, where Oberon periodically lapsed into what turned out to be Klingon. Or the “post Apocalyptic” Macbeth where poor Banquo lost his head courtesy of a powered automobile sunroof.

Does anybody know where all the Shakespeare Forums are hiding? I’m surprised to discover very few. I see Savage Shakespeare, but is that all?

A friend who runs a popular Hemingway site told me that his attempt to start up a forum was a big disaster as it was rapidly swamped with people wanting answers to their homework questions, instead of people who wanted to actually discuss Hemingway, so he took it down. I wonder if Shakespeare sites suffer from the same problem?