The Tutor
فرمت کتاب
audiobook
تاریخ انتشار
2015
نویسنده
Elizabeth Knoweldenناشر
HighBridgeشابک
9781622316397
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی
Both Chapin's novel and Elizabeth Knowelden's performance are competent but not deeply engaging in this story of a chance relationship between William Shakespeare and the noblewoman Katharine de L'Isle. The story is the primary problem, as the relationship seems to move forward by the author's assertion rather than by any true growth, change, or deep feeling on the part of the characters. In such cases, truly great narrators can often tip the balance and make a book more than it would otherwise be, but Knowelden--talented as she is with voices and accents--fails to imbue Chapin's story with any greater feeling or emotional truth than is present in the words themselves. J.L.K. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
December 22, 2014
Chapin’s debut novel imagines the shaky romance between a widow and her nephews’ tutor, a budding actor and poet named William Shakespeare, against the background of family strife and religious persecution in 16th-century England. After losing her husband and babies, Katharine de L’Isle throws herself into reading and devotes herself to her kindly uncle Sir Edward, who wishes her to be happy and to marry again. When their priest is killed, Sir Edward decides to make his way to France (having already once been imprisoned by the Protestant queen); Katharine, who is feeling vulnerable among her other nutty relatives, initially finds Will irritating, but quickly succumbs to his charms. The sexual tension between them increases when he asks for her help in creating a long poem about Venus and Adonis. Meanwhile, there are signs that Will might be a heartless social climber and not the loving, trustworthy sort that Katharine imagines him to be. Though the beginning is rife with obvious meet-cute and will-they-or-won’t-they tropes, Chapin manages to construct a moving account of Katharine’s plight. The backdrop of family in-fighting and petty power-seizing also underscores how Sir Edward’s departure put Katharine, a single woman of modest means, in a true predicament among her unbalanced relatives. Unfortunately, the heroine makes some head-scratching choices as her family plummets into further mayhem and melodrama—moves that pull the story into territory that’s more silly than tragic. Despite this, Chapin’s inaugural work offers a fun portrait of Shakespeare as a cad.
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