When I was at school Shakespeare was a compulsory part of the English language curriculum. You had to do Shakespeare and you had to like it. If you didn't you would probably fail the exam. Despite this a lot of us really took to him and saw him not just as a playwright but as a good writer and poet. We studied his lines and found a lot of magic in them. We also studied Andrew Marvell another Elizabethan writer. These were great days. There were trips to the cinema, we saw Roman Polanski's Macbeth, Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, Henry the Fourth (part one) at the Round House in London, with Timothy Dalton as Henry.
My Mother arranged a family outing to Stratford on Avon and after looking at the Swans and visiting the Theatre (as you do) we wandered round some old bookshops where she bought an old copy of the Sonnets for me as a present. It was blue and strongly bound with gold lettering. I cherished it for a long time before throwing it away before a house move when I wanted to reduce my clutter. I wish I hadn't done this and very much regret it now after her death.
After the trip my Dad gave me a cheap but adequate Complete Works of Shakespeare. It wasn't just for the coffee table; I really did read and enjoy a lot of the plays. Later at a local jumble sale I found another copy of the Complete Works; on the flyleaf was written From The Vicarage in Mountain Ash. I didn't know where Mountain Ash was but found this quite exotic. Later on in my life I found the location of Mountain Ash in Wales and wrote to the vicarage about the book. To my surprise I got a reply from the vicar there. He knew nothing about this book but was pleased I had written. Over the passage of time I threw away both these copies; I wish I hadn't. There is a big empty hole of loss.
Recently I amended my mistakes by buying the Oxford Second Edition and I am leisurely and randomly dipping into it. Before each play that I have centred on there is a short analytical introduction and I am surprised that Shakespeare did not originate the plots; he nicked them from other sources. The history plays were a vehicle for propaganda for the Tudor dynasty and generator for public support of Queen Elizabeth 1 who was not totally secure in her place on the throne. There was also a lot of hidden antisemitism which I was not aware of.
In the last ten years or so I have seen a few plays performed on the TV, always the abridged Reader's Digest version; I confess that I find these much easier to sit through and understand by today's standards. I don't have a long span of attention.
What has this got to do with Shakespeare's Bear? Everything and nothing really. When I approached the book I did so with all this aforementioned history and baggage. I absolutely hate Disney-like cartoons where animals talk in unnatural-like human terms and wasn't expecting a lot. But I soon changed my mind. Who is to judge that animals do not feel emotions in the same way that humans do?
The plot is about the adoption of a bear cub called Mummer by Hamnet, son of Shakespeare, and this boy really did live (look it up on Wikipedia), and how the bear was assimilated into the Shakespeare household and his adventures through the years. I saw two strands here: the first being the reality of history, and the second being the artistic licence of the writer Harry Oxford in his manipulation of the plot. The history is based on things that actually happened eg daily routines of life, the effects of plague, the building of theatres, bear baiting, crime, historical characters. Around this the author writes of plausible things that really could have happened.
The third theme that I identified was how the bear, called Mummer, could feel feelings of love, gratitude, joy, sadness and how he formed a positive attachment to Hamnet. The plot discusses the subject of bear baiting and how cruel it was, how the bears hated it so much, their version of their exploitation. There is an interweaving between real history and the fantasy story telling of the author that smoothly melds together. This story is no Disney cartoon and is firmly based in reality.
I very much liked the ending which I am not going to give away here and spoil for you when you read the book. I liked the way the ending worked on more then one level. Again there was the ending based in adult human reality, and the ending as interpreted by Mummer; another believable blending of reality and fantasy.
This book is not long and is very suitable for children to read, but it also contains things for adults too. I am sure that, like me, you will find it delightful, uplifting and gently emotional.
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