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Nicholas Cooke #1
Nicholas Cooke: actor, soldier, physician, priest
NICHOLAS COOKE: ACTOR, SOLDIER, PHYSICIAN, PRIEST is the story of a brilliant but hot-tempered boy who grows up as an apprentice in Shakespeare’s theater troupe 1593 and to whom Shakespeare is a life-long mentor.
First published eighteen years ago by W.W. Norton, it was called “immensely moving” by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, “compelling reading” by the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, and “brilliant, bawdy, and utterly delightful” by MADELEINE L’ENGLE. The NEW YORK TIMES wrote, “Cowell has poured heart and a great deal of intelligence into her first novel about an impetuous, inquisitive young man in an impetuous, inquisitive age.”
From the dramatic opening lines, Nicholas Cooke grows, stumbles, and presses on through the theater, plague and the early attempts to cure it, the secret life of the court, many loves and the troubles of war. Yet he never can forget his early call to be a priest until in the depths of losses he cannot face, an unexpected door opens to him at last.
NICHOLAS COOKE was a choice of the History Book Club. It is the first part of a trilogy. The second book, THE PHYSICIAN OF LONDON, won an American Book Award. The third book, IN THE CHAMBERS OF THE KING, will be finished in 2013. More information and reviews are available on my web site and the Amazon link.
WEB SITE: http://www.stephaniecowell.com
First published eighteen years ago by W.W. Norton, it was called “immensely moving” by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, “compelling reading” by the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, and “brilliant, bawdy, and utterly delightful” by MADELEINE L’ENGLE. The NEW YORK TIMES wrote, “Cowell has poured heart and a great deal of intelligence into her first novel about an impetuous, inquisitive young man in an impetuous, inquisitive age.”
From the dramatic opening lines, Nicholas Cooke grows, stumbles, and presses on through the theater, plague and the early attempts to cure it, the secret life of the court, many loves and the troubles of war. Yet he never can forget his early call to be a priest until in the depths of losses he cannot face, an unexpected door opens to him at last.
NICHOLAS COOKE was a choice of the History Book Club. It is the first part of a trilogy. The second book, THE PHYSICIAN OF LONDON, won an American Book Award. The third book, IN THE CHAMBERS OF THE KING, will be finished in 2013. More information and reviews are available on my web site and the Amazon link.
WEB SITE: http://www.stephaniecowell.com
400 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1993
8 people are currently reading
103 people want to read
About the author
Stephanie Cowell
12 books339 followersTHE MAN IN THE STONE COTTAGE, a novel of the Brontë sisters, is set in 1846 Yorkshire, where the three sisters - Charlotte, Anne and Emily - navigate precarious lives marked by heartbreak and struggle. Charlotte faces rejection from the man she loves, while their blind father and troubled brother add to their burdens. No one will publish their poetry or novels. Amidst this turmoil, Emily encounters a charming shepherd on her solitary walks on the moor, yet no one else has ever seen him. Several years later, Charlotte, who is now the successful author of Jane Eyre, sets out to find him. THE MAN IN THE STONE COTTAGE is a poignant exploration of sisterly bonds and the complexities of perception, asking whether what feels real to one person can truly be real to another.
My previous novel, THE BOY IN THE RAIN, set in Edwardian England 1903, is a love story between two men, a shy young artist and a rising socialist speaker, as they struggle to build a life together against personal obstacles and the dangers of prosecution under the gross indecency laws. CLAUDE & CAMILLE: A NOVEL OF CLAUDE MONET is the story of Monet in his 20s and 30s as he struggles to sell his work and manage his love for the beautiful, elusive Camille who would die young and forever remain his muse.
My other novels MARRYING MOZART, THE PLAYERS, THE PHYSICIAN OF LONDON AND NICHOLAS COOKE all continue to find readers. They were translated into several languages and MARRYING MOZART was turned into an opera.
I was born in New York City and have lived in the same apartment for 50 years. My heart is half in England/Europe where I have family and consider myself an emotional citizen there.
Please do visit my website StephanieCowell.com
My previous novel, THE BOY IN THE RAIN, set in Edwardian England 1903, is a love story between two men, a shy young artist and a rising socialist speaker, as they struggle to build a life together against personal obstacles and the dangers of prosecution under the gross indecency laws. CLAUDE & CAMILLE: A NOVEL OF CLAUDE MONET is the story of Monet in his 20s and 30s as he struggles to sell his work and manage his love for the beautiful, elusive Camille who would die young and forever remain his muse.
My other novels MARRYING MOZART, THE PLAYERS, THE PHYSICIAN OF LONDON AND NICHOLAS COOKE all continue to find readers. They were translated into several languages and MARRYING MOZART was turned into an opera.
I was born in New York City and have lived in the same apartment for 50 years. My heart is half in England/Europe where I have family and consider myself an emotional citizen there.
Please do visit my website StephanieCowell.com
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 20, 2019
The year is 1593, in the city of Canterbury with its magnificent Cathedral, 13 year old Nicholas Cooke dreams of studying priesthood at Cambridge. But instead he is expelled from school and told that he needs to go into some trade. The apprenticeship lasts seven years. He despises just the thought of it. He goes into the lowest trade of wheelwright as he doesn’t have father to pay his indenture fee. As he grieves his fate as apprentice, one day he sees a post about a drama to be played. “…as the actors spoke I forgot both who I was and where I belonged. Never had I heard such English verse in all my life.”
His aggressive master learns of Nicholas' idling instead of working and in self-defense Nicholas stabs him. Then he runs off to London. While on the run, he realizes: “I should be neither priest nor scholar: I should be carnage and dust.”
After entering London, the road takes him uphill to the walls and gates of St. Paul’s Church. He sings by the church to earn some pennies and his voice catches ears of a playwright Kit Morley. He gets Nicholas apprenticed to a theater.
Up to this point the story is gripping. The author is clearly a master storyteller. But once Nicholas meets other playwrights and actors and their wives and sexuality enters the scene, I lost interest in the story.
@FB/BestHistoricalFiction
His aggressive master learns of Nicholas' idling instead of working and in self-defense Nicholas stabs him. Then he runs off to London. While on the run, he realizes: “I should be neither priest nor scholar: I should be carnage and dust.”
After entering London, the road takes him uphill to the walls and gates of St. Paul’s Church. He sings by the church to earn some pennies and his voice catches ears of a playwright Kit Morley. He gets Nicholas apprenticed to a theater.
Up to this point the story is gripping. The author is clearly a master storyteller. But once Nicholas meets other playwrights and actors and their wives and sexuality enters the scene, I lost interest in the story.
@FB/BestHistoricalFiction
November 3, 2021
Nicholas's civilization - passionate, materialistic, spiritual, and exploratory - was very much like our own, only a little smaller. We share our frustrated stand on the edge of scientific discovery and new conceptions of the infinite. These Stephanie Cowell's words, from her Historical Notes at the end of the book, fit perfectly with my thoughts and feelings. Reading the novel I was constantly thinking how erratic, whimsical was Nicholas and his times. His yearning to comprehend was fascinating to the boundaries of annoyment, like the era he had lived in.
The point is, it was splendid historical fiction. Very accurate, brilliantly intertwining historical facts and figures with fictional characters, showing me how people in the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries probably lived and thought.
I know that some readers had problems with the language they used, but as the author said in mentioned Notes: Elizabethan speech was slangy and difficult to capture, both flowery and casual, irreverent and respectful. These were men and women in a hurry to get on with life, lingering for very little except love. (...) The speech between men was that of passionate friendship. So, the language to me was an integral, necessary part of the story.
The point is, it was splendid historical fiction. Very accurate, brilliantly intertwining historical facts and figures with fictional characters, showing me how people in the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries probably lived and thought.
I know that some readers had problems with the language they used, but as the author said in mentioned Notes: Elizabethan speech was slangy and difficult to capture, both flowery and casual, irreverent and respectful. These were men and women in a hurry to get on with life, lingering for very little except love. (...) The speech between men was that of passionate friendship. So, the language to me was an integral, necessary part of the story.
October 15, 2012
In the late 1500's a young man, whose father was hung as a thief and mother a woman forced to sell herself, is traumatized by a brutal childhood. He dreams of becoming a priest but due to his volatile temper he reacts before he thinks and must flee his boyhood village because he believes he has murdered the man to whom he was apprenticed. So begins the story spanning over thirty years in which this tortured young soul seeks love and guidance from others older and wiser. Yet always on the cusp of seeming to attain maturity, his yearnings and guilt arise and propel him elsewhere, frequently inflicting great frustration and pain on others who forgive him far beyond the threshold point of most human beings.
Arriving in London, he becomes an actor apprentice, falling in love with Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and other great writers and actors of the time who at the time are fledglings in their craft and subject to the favor of Queen Elizabeth and those who fawn at her throne for power and riches. He must learn swordplay, tumbling, and other necessary skills and that he does very well indeed, also exhibiting an intellectual curiosity unusual for one in his social class. Years pass and after betraying his master's trust he flees to become a man by fighting with Lord Essex against the Irish who are rebelling against the Queen. Although he makes a great friend, Toby, he grows up fast after seeing the horrors and stupidity of warfare, a scenario of unprepared soldiers outnumbered and out-skilled by rebels passionate for their cause.
Returning to London, he takes up acting again. The coming of the plague begins to bring out his compassionate desire to be a healer and find a cure for this devastating illness that he himself will survive. Then follows a period of aspiring to be a deacon where his wife follows him into a bleak and lonely existence, compounded by a terrible, unspeakable loss that will scar and yet form him anew. He will thus meet scientists and clergy who will lead him back to what they believe is his clear call to become a priest.
The plot seems simple, yet Stephanie Cowell is a master at exposing every conflicting and inspiring thought that transpires in our hero's mind and soul. Multiple riveting details fill out the synopsis briefly stated above. Historical events of the times are cleanly and clearly interwoven naturally into the plot. One meets the grand and the poor in all their glory and squalor, scenes where the lines frequently cross mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The reader feels he or she is right there in England as the theater develops from its shameful beginnings into its final professional status, when new discoveries in learning and science are thrilling the minds and spirit of this revolutionary century, and when men are learning to think for themselves about spirituality even in the midst of the "darkest" hours of their lives. The outcome is painfully positive and yet one couldn't imagine it any other way, and there are twists and turns that keep the reader alert and flipping the pages for more...more...more! There is so much more to say about Nicholas and his friends/ foes and the only way to catch it all is to read this magnificent historical story!
This reviewer loved this novel from beginning to end and believe it to be a true classic of historical fiction! Highly, highly recommended!
Arriving in London, he becomes an actor apprentice, falling in love with Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and other great writers and actors of the time who at the time are fledglings in their craft and subject to the favor of Queen Elizabeth and those who fawn at her throne for power and riches. He must learn swordplay, tumbling, and other necessary skills and that he does very well indeed, also exhibiting an intellectual curiosity unusual for one in his social class. Years pass and after betraying his master's trust he flees to become a man by fighting with Lord Essex against the Irish who are rebelling against the Queen. Although he makes a great friend, Toby, he grows up fast after seeing the horrors and stupidity of warfare, a scenario of unprepared soldiers outnumbered and out-skilled by rebels passionate for their cause.
Returning to London, he takes up acting again. The coming of the plague begins to bring out his compassionate desire to be a healer and find a cure for this devastating illness that he himself will survive. Then follows a period of aspiring to be a deacon where his wife follows him into a bleak and lonely existence, compounded by a terrible, unspeakable loss that will scar and yet form him anew. He will thus meet scientists and clergy who will lead him back to what they believe is his clear call to become a priest.
The plot seems simple, yet Stephanie Cowell is a master at exposing every conflicting and inspiring thought that transpires in our hero's mind and soul. Multiple riveting details fill out the synopsis briefly stated above. Historical events of the times are cleanly and clearly interwoven naturally into the plot. One meets the grand and the poor in all their glory and squalor, scenes where the lines frequently cross mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The reader feels he or she is right there in England as the theater develops from its shameful beginnings into its final professional status, when new discoveries in learning and science are thrilling the minds and spirit of this revolutionary century, and when men are learning to think for themselves about spirituality even in the midst of the "darkest" hours of their lives. The outcome is painfully positive and yet one couldn't imagine it any other way, and there are twists and turns that keep the reader alert and flipping the pages for more...more...more! There is so much more to say about Nicholas and his friends/ foes and the only way to catch it all is to read this magnificent historical story!
This reviewer loved this novel from beginning to end and believe it to be a true classic of historical fiction! Highly, highly recommended!
November 18, 2013
Never before have I thoroughly enjoyed a book where I loathed the protagonist so much! It’s testimony to Cowell’s skills as a writer that despite her volatile, selfish, doubt-wracked hero, Nicholas Cooke, the man who is at various times an actor, soldier, physician and priest, dominating every scene and annoying the bejesus out of me, the story of his journey from abandoned young son of a criminal father and prostitute mother through various incarnations, is gripping.
It’s not Cooke who kept me glued to the page, but Cowell’s excellent evocation of the period and the characters who populated Elizabethan London, England and even abroad. We encounter Kit Marlowe, Will Shakespeare, and other luminaries of the theatre, sciences and arts of the period – but in Cowell’s hands they are humanised and revealed with flaws, foibles and insecurities, much like Cooke. Over the thirty year span of the novel, we see the changes wrought through Elizabeth’s reign, the constant fear of invasion, new discoveries, the way the arts were first suspiciously regarded and then flourished, how new science and knowledge changed forever the way man and the heavens were regarded and how literacy improved and self-education was not out of the question causing men (and women) to question their status and place in the universe and even their God.
The vibrancy, squalor, disease, passion and fervour are all brought to life as Cooke moves from one occupation to another, breaking hearts and having his broken in the process, learning what he can and can’t abide and selfishly pursuing a goal that is both spiritual and grounded.
I almost put this book down, so detestable at times was Cooke (he is also incredibly vulnerable and Cowell reaches deep to give readers’ access to his emotions and mental state – and while this does offer explanations for his choices, it also made me want to shake him - hard), but I am so glad I didn’t. In the end, while I never really liked Cooke (have I mentioned that?), I did come to understand him and found his story believable and refreshing. He is an anti-hero of the Elizabethan era whose weaknesses are better remembered than his strengths and yet his awareness of these is what makes him so real and ultimately memorable.
It’s not Cooke who kept me glued to the page, but Cowell’s excellent evocation of the period and the characters who populated Elizabethan London, England and even abroad. We encounter Kit Marlowe, Will Shakespeare, and other luminaries of the theatre, sciences and arts of the period – but in Cowell’s hands they are humanised and revealed with flaws, foibles and insecurities, much like Cooke. Over the thirty year span of the novel, we see the changes wrought through Elizabeth’s reign, the constant fear of invasion, new discoveries, the way the arts were first suspiciously regarded and then flourished, how new science and knowledge changed forever the way man and the heavens were regarded and how literacy improved and self-education was not out of the question causing men (and women) to question their status and place in the universe and even their God.
The vibrancy, squalor, disease, passion and fervour are all brought to life as Cooke moves from one occupation to another, breaking hearts and having his broken in the process, learning what he can and can’t abide and selfishly pursuing a goal that is both spiritual and grounded.
I almost put this book down, so detestable at times was Cooke (he is also incredibly vulnerable and Cowell reaches deep to give readers’ access to his emotions and mental state – and while this does offer explanations for his choices, it also made me want to shake him - hard), but I am so glad I didn’t. In the end, while I never really liked Cooke (have I mentioned that?), I did come to understand him and found his story believable and refreshing. He is an anti-hero of the Elizabethan era whose weaknesses are better remembered than his strengths and yet his awareness of these is what makes him so real and ultimately memorable.
August 9, 2019
I thought this a fabulous novel and I wish I had finished it before I read Barbara Traister's book, listed just before this on my reading queue. That's because it refreshed my underrstanding of what role essex played in Elizabethan society, the darling of many young men, and possibly Elizabeth's young paramour. He rose, accompanied by Southampton and Essex to throw an unsucessful overthrow of the aging Queen in London. Cowell's character Nick has served under Essex in Ireland on an unsucessful campaign. His loyalty has been betrayed by Essex who cares little for his men, and pockets the pay of soldiers dead or deserted. given the research that has gone into this fine work of fiction, I tend to beleive this depiction. Nick returns with his hero a crushed icon, but with a bosom buddy held closely in his heart that he befriended on the campaign. The fictional account burns the cost of Essex's ambition and betrayal into one's heart as do many of Nick's experiences. Nick begins his life as a runaway apprentice, having missed a scholarship to Cambridge, as a charity boy at the local Kings school. He flees to London where he meets and falls in love with Kit Morley. The two share a restless curiousity, an impulsiveness and affection for their similarities. It ends when Morely (Marlowe) dies in a knife fight. Nick has been drafted into the Kings players, where he chaftes under his sucess as an actor for the rest of his time with them. He feels smothered by the loving family life that surrounds him, but loves the comradery of the Company. the very kindness of his master Hennege seems to drive him to the brothels, to illicit loves, to steal and to act out in various ways. The wayward boy uses his funds to study alchemy in the kitchen shed, leads him to seek out intellectuals in taverns discussing stronomy, astrology and the desire to understand the unseen that makes up all . Domestic events drive him from the Hennege house, where upon he becomes Essex's pikesman. He returns cowed by his experience only slights to serve as hennege's mainman for some time, and eventually marres Sue. But his restless nature drives him back to pursuing an ecclesiastic career in the chapel he sheltered in as a runaway. Sue is miserable outside of the extended family of the King's Men, weakened by the birth of twins, then another child in the two years they live in a dilapitated chapel and vicarage. ick is not a good husband, drawn in too many ways to spend money, and his energies channeled too often in ways that are not useful to their continued survival. He buys too many books and fails to repair the walls. He misses the company of intellectual men and beds Sue too often. He applies to the diaconate tardily and cannot find a patron for his chapel. Then inevitable occurs, and Sue returns to London, leaving him to his melancholy and sporatic fits of labor.
One other thing drags on Nick and that is his interest in medicine. He an Sue have lost at least one child, and the first born son to plague. Nick makes friends with an elderly doctor during one of the great plague seasons in London, but is frustrated by their lack of progress. The weight of grief this character bears is staggering, and he lurches between one loss, one betrayal, one faith crisis to another, making a fabulous character. I look forward to more of thhis author.
One other thing drags on Nick and that is his interest in medicine. He an Sue have lost at least one child, and the first born son to plague. Nick makes friends with an elderly doctor during one of the great plague seasons in London, but is frustrated by their lack of progress. The weight of grief this character bears is staggering, and he lurches between one loss, one betrayal, one faith crisis to another, making a fabulous character. I look forward to more of thhis author.
September 29, 2016
Nicholas Cooke by Stephanie Cowell is a first novel which explores life in Shakespear's time. Indeed, Shakespeare is one of the characters! The title character is fictional yet interacts with many well-known historical figures as he struggles to "find himself". A great start to Cowell's trilogy, this book was still in my mind when I met her at the Historical Novel Society Denver Conference last June (2015). What a thrill!
August 19, 2014
Nicholas Cooke, a historical novel set largely in the London theater milieu of Marlowe and Shakespeare, gets an extra star for having a bisexual male protagonist. The story begins in Canterbury (also Christopher Marlowe's birthplace) where Nicholas Cooke's father is hanged as a thief and his mother then sleeps with men for money. Like Marlowe, Nicholas is a brilliant scholarship student, but he's thrown out of school for fighting, strikes the man to whom he is afterward apprenticed, and runs away to London.
There he becomes the lover of Christopher Marlowe, who apprentices him to the leader of The Queen's Men, the company in which Shakespeare acted and for which he wrote. In short order Nicholas rubs elbows with every known theatrical personage within the city limits, buddies up with Shakespeare, marries a woman he comes to love, and fathers a few children. He becomes an astronomer, a deacon, a physician and then a priest, meeting more historical personages along the way. I get that he's supposed to be a real Renaissance man, but the number of his career shifts and historical acquaintances strain credulity after a while.
At the beginning of Marlowe's play Doctor Faustus, the tragic hero considers various vocations and rejects them, settling on magic. It's as if the author Stephanie Cowell decided to have her main character Nicholas Cooke (who resembles Marlowe in many respects) try all the careers Faustus rejected. While Cowell's world-building is excellent, and we get a nice tour through Marlowe's and Shakespeare's period and place, the story's not convincing as the realistic life of a single man.
Since I read the book mostly to familiarize myself with the members of the London theater scene of the day, though, I was pretty well pleased by it. Cowell's evocation of the Plague from the point of view of a bereaved father and a physician was powerful and won't leave me anytime soon. One of the book's strongest points, for me, was the excellent map of London on the inside of the front and back covers of the hardback edition I read. As Nicholas walked all over London on his adventures, I was able to follow along on the map and for the first time get a satisfactory picture of the layout of London's late-16th-century streets and landmarks. I don't know if the new e-book would offer the same ease of orientation.
There he becomes the lover of Christopher Marlowe, who apprentices him to the leader of The Queen's Men, the company in which Shakespeare acted and for which he wrote. In short order Nicholas rubs elbows with every known theatrical personage within the city limits, buddies up with Shakespeare, marries a woman he comes to love, and fathers a few children. He becomes an astronomer, a deacon, a physician and then a priest, meeting more historical personages along the way. I get that he's supposed to be a real Renaissance man, but the number of his career shifts and historical acquaintances strain credulity after a while.
At the beginning of Marlowe's play Doctor Faustus, the tragic hero considers various vocations and rejects them, settling on magic. It's as if the author Stephanie Cowell decided to have her main character Nicholas Cooke (who resembles Marlowe in many respects) try all the careers Faustus rejected. While Cowell's world-building is excellent, and we get a nice tour through Marlowe's and Shakespeare's period and place, the story's not convincing as the realistic life of a single man.
Since I read the book mostly to familiarize myself with the members of the London theater scene of the day, though, I was pretty well pleased by it. Cowell's evocation of the Plague from the point of view of a bereaved father and a physician was powerful and won't leave me anytime soon. One of the book's strongest points, for me, was the excellent map of London on the inside of the front and back covers of the hardback edition I read. As Nicholas walked all over London on his adventures, I was able to follow along on the map and for the first time get a satisfactory picture of the layout of London's late-16th-century streets and landmarks. I don't know if the new e-book would offer the same ease of orientation.
December 30, 2016
"I was five years old when I saw my father hanged for a thief in front of Canterbury Cathedral with the priest reading Scripture and a crowd watching." From this very first line, Cowell draws the reader into Elizabethan England and into the events of Nicholas Cooke's lives, for over the course of a couple of decades, Nicholas Cooke tries on the various roles of actor, soldier, physician and priest.
Nicholas Cooke (early life as Nick Tomkins) is a scrappy, do what must be done to get by, figure. This trait is helpful to him after the deaths of his parents and as he navigates his later life. Unfortunately though, Nicholas Cooke is flawed by a restlessness that makes him question every evolution of his existence. Whatever trade or situation he finds himself in, he's constantly evaluating whether he might be better in a different one. Sure that this new impulse is correct, Cooke makes some huge changes on, what appear to those around him, foolish whims. The man, John Heminges, who acts the father to Nicholas through much of his life does try to reign him in a few times, but is always predictably unsuccessful. In true father figure form though, John takes Nicholas Cooke back in whenever necessary and no matter the situation. He sees the good in Nicholas and that it's his destined job to guide him. This would be a very different book without the figure of John Heminges.
This novel is so well researched you don't question that you're actually accompanying a real 16th century character through his real 16th century world. The descriptions are so vivid you can see the planks used by theater goers to access the Globe over the thick mud that surrounds it. Even Shagspere comes to life complete with earring. You see the Plague victims and hear the night watch. It's all wonderfully vivid and you get as frustrated as Cooke at the ineffectual use of rosemary bundles to ward off Plague. The characters dialogue seems appropriate to the time. It's just a Full, 16th century read.
This novel is a reminder that no matter how rough your station in life, it's still your life and it's up to you what you do with it. People do enter your life for a reason and it's up to you whether you consider them distractions or valuable to your journey. You can't shut yourself away from humans forever. There's a lot of good here.
Nicholas Cooke (early life as Nick Tomkins) is a scrappy, do what must be done to get by, figure. This trait is helpful to him after the deaths of his parents and as he navigates his later life. Unfortunately though, Nicholas Cooke is flawed by a restlessness that makes him question every evolution of his existence. Whatever trade or situation he finds himself in, he's constantly evaluating whether he might be better in a different one. Sure that this new impulse is correct, Cooke makes some huge changes on, what appear to those around him, foolish whims. The man, John Heminges, who acts the father to Nicholas through much of his life does try to reign him in a few times, but is always predictably unsuccessful. In true father figure form though, John takes Nicholas Cooke back in whenever necessary and no matter the situation. He sees the good in Nicholas and that it's his destined job to guide him. This would be a very different book without the figure of John Heminges.
This novel is so well researched you don't question that you're actually accompanying a real 16th century character through his real 16th century world. The descriptions are so vivid you can see the planks used by theater goers to access the Globe over the thick mud that surrounds it. Even Shagspere comes to life complete with earring. You see the Plague victims and hear the night watch. It's all wonderfully vivid and you get as frustrated as Cooke at the ineffectual use of rosemary bundles to ward off Plague. The characters dialogue seems appropriate to the time. It's just a Full, 16th century read.
This novel is a reminder that no matter how rough your station in life, it's still your life and it's up to you what you do with it. People do enter your life for a reason and it's up to you whether you consider them distractions or valuable to your journey. You can't shut yourself away from humans forever. There's a lot of good here.
October 8, 2014
I just couldn't bring myself to give this a 5 star rating as I almost didn't continue reading the book for the sexual abuse disturbed me because of the (seeming to me) nonchalant way the character approached it even after the fact (I kept waiting for him to lash out) and had trouble accepting his perspective on this matter. However, Nicholas is a character with a great depth, and I found myself full of compassion (in the sense of real identification for his feeling in experiences) for him in many of his other struggles and successes. To me this is the mark of an extremely well written book. What intrigues me most is his perception of his calling by God and what he does (and doesn't do) with that at various times as well as his responses to the relationships with and emotions toward other people. There are moments it reads like a stream of consciousness as Nicholas is questioning everything he is thinking/ feeling/ experiencing. The book seemed to end in a rush, but there are two more in the series. ;)
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