Two of my favorite things, receiving mail and reading books combined, what could be more perfect? A very generous literary blogger and publisher Scott Pack of The Friday Project, (an imprint of HarperCollins) sent me an interesting novel of historical fiction. Here’s my review.

The Sonnets by Warwick Collins

(Image courtesy of The Friday Project)

Warwick Collins writes, in his fictional novel “The Sonnets”, about a few years in the life of “The Bard”, William Shakespeare. This imagined account of events works as a setting for the great poets sonnets.

The story takes us to the household of the young Earl of Southampton, who becomes the patron of “Master Shakespeare”, as he calls the poet. The plague has closed the doors of theatres in London, and Shakespeare is in desperate need of a living, so he writes for the Earl and lives as his employee.

While beautiful and seemingly careless, the Earl is also a strong warrior and an intelligent conversationalist in Shakespeare’s mind. Despite of the differences in class and breeding, the two men seem to have a deep respect for each other. Their connection is at least strong enough for the poet to be giving advice to the Earl, who in return teases Shakespeare heartily.

Relationships inside the Earls household and the politics of the time, cause storms that challenge Shakespeare in this oasis he has found during dark times.

Collins uses 32 of Shakespeare’s original sonnets as the “colour” while attempting to “frame the landscape of Shakespeare’s mind”, and creates two imitation sonnets to support the fictional narrative.

William Shakespeare bares bits of his soul in his works, but for better understanding, the reader often wishes for a clearer image of the person behind the masterpieces. This novel offers that desired biographical background to reflect the sonnets against.

In this novel, Collins manages to bring the sonnets to life. He does not make implausible leaps of imagination, but seems content in shedding just enough light on the poets life, to make his work more accessible to a contemporary reader. While in awe of the skill Collins demonstrates in this difficult task, I am not entirely convinced of the necessity of the two imitation sonnets. The amount of sonnets used within the novel, is a little taxing on the subtleties of the story, and adding two more that are not originals by Shakespeare, seems a bit much.

As I was reading this book, I kept imagining it as a movie or a miniseries. The reading of 32 sonnets, might be a brave attempt, even in a BBC quality drama, but one I would love to see. The casting of the Earl of Southampton, whom Shakespeare apparently compares to Adonis, and favourably, should prove interesting.

(Shakespeare’s Sonnets can be read online at “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” operated by The Tech, MIT).