by Arthur Phillips
This book is odd. It is set up as a memoir, but it's not. The author takes a fictional account of his family and includes the Arthur legend in it with some Shakespeare thrown in. It shouldn't have worked, but honestly the book as a whole really does work if you read the play first (it's in the back)...
Arthur Phillips is a novelist, the author, most recently, of the novels The Song is You and Angelica. He is also both the author of the novel The Tragedy of Arthur and, metafictionally, its main character and narrator as well. Both are from from Minnesota. Arthur, the character is married to an East...
I ought to write my review in blank verse, but I have a cold so you'll have to endure my prose. I enjoyed this faux memoir, but it wore on me after awhile. Arthur is whiny and aggrieved without much payback for the reader for having endured this. It should have been half the length. I don't at all b...
I'm wavering on this one. On one hand, I really don't like fake memoirs; but on the other, this book is clearly marked as a novel. And he does take a moment to rip on James Frey's fake memoir, so that is worth some bonus points. On the other hand, it is a unique idea and well told. I certainly w...
An interesting book which plays well with the idea of truth and all the interpretations therein. Phillips writes the novel as if has been given an unpublished play by Shakespeare. The problem is the play comes from his father, who not only knew Shakespeare's work well, but was also the ultimate con ...
The only thing that saves this from a one-star review is the fact that the play itself (although flawed and not as great of a pastiche as many reviewers make it out to be) is actually okay. Otherwise, this book was irritating and annoying. Full of itself while trying to be humble. Ridiculous plot...
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