Me and Shakespeare: Adventures with the Bard

by Herman Gollob

On the eve of retiring from a successful publishing career, Herman Gollob attends a wonderful Broadway production of Hamlet starring Ralph Fiennes. Galvanized by the splendor of the language, the drama and the acting, he discovers an insatiable passion for all things Shakespeare. He reads broadly and deeply about the plays, discusses them with some of the great actors, directors, and teachers of our time, and soon finds himself teaching a popular Shakespeare class at a small New Jersey college.

Gollob’s quest leads him to Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-on-Avon; to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.; to a summer course on Shakespeare at Oxford; and to London’s recently rebuilt Globe Theatre. As he pursues his glorious new obsession, Gollob reflects on his family’s bittersweet history, his encounters with writers, and the emergence of a Jewish identity that inspires some original ideas about Shakespeare’s plays . Me and Shakespeare is a joyful memoir that attests to the power of literature to re-invigorate our lives at any age.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Gabriela Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Why shouldn't I, why couldn't I, enlarge my field of vision before the screen went blank? ... I stood in the middle of the yard, an old man made mad by a love of Shakespeare...I could feel bursting inside me, still there with a vengeance... that heightened sensitivity to the promise of life."

Having endured a particularly rough past couple of weeks, I reached out for this book to fill my near-desperate need for civilization. And man, I certainly got it in spades!

Part graduate-thesis-substitute, part memoir, part lesson plan, and mostly a passionate fan's undertaking to list down any and all experiences relating to The Bard... this book was an unexpected joy to read. It is not an easy read, nor at times not even pleasant --with the author's tendency to name drop famous actors, directors, and intellectuals, and then insert a condescending line about them should their opinion differ from his -- but it shines with fervor and zeal for the pure joy of learning, of seeking civilized environments and the company of civilized men who seek to expand themselves through the study of literature, no matter what age they may be.

I read parts of it in public and couldn't help chuckle out loud at some parts! While far from being the humble narrator readers more easily warm to, the erudite Herman Gollob certainly CAN write! After all, he DID retire a Senior VP of Doubleday, having edited the likes of James Clavell and Leon Uris, among others. Despite the lack of formal academic credentials (he had yet to "get that goddamned M.A.!"), his literariness shone through with restatements of famous poems, assuming that his reader would be familiar enough with Gerard Manley Hopkins and others to pick up on the references.

The book is divided into four major parts: his background before embracing Shakespeare studies (informally) upon retiring, becoming a teacher at the age of 67 and jotting down outlines of his lectures, his adventures in Oxford during a Shakespeare summer course, and his quest to interview and watch Shakespeare experts direct professional actors.

Gollob saw the Divine Hand in everything, seeing the truth that there is indeed a divinity that shapes our ends. He also saw most clearly how self-enrichment had to have purpose beyond study for its own sake.

Gollob calls Shakespeare "The Cosmic Poet." His theses? That Shakespeare retold Holy Scripture, enacted in his multiple plays, all of them metaphors for how interwoven mankind is with God and the cosmos.

This is a treasure trove for teachers, actors, directors, and lovers of literature. And for anyone who grows old. In short, it's a must-read for all.

[Leonard Singer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep immersion into Shakespeare triggered by Public TV series “Playing Shakespeare.” “ The passion I’d begun to develop for Shakespeare was a mystical experience, a religious experience.”

[Gregg · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of what Gollob has to say in this admittedly riveting memoir makes me want to punch him in his erudite, enthusiastic mouth. Basically, the book takes us into his golden years of retirement and his blossoming interest in All Things Shakespeare: reading the plays, studying the plays, teaching them, watching them and interpreting them. His interest becomes your own, if it isn't already, but for me, it's a bit too hard to stop being jealous/resentful of him long enough to roll around in his commentary and life story.



Gollob edited books for forty years, consorting with authors the likes of which I shall not see any time soon. He retired comfortably, and picked up a passion for Shakespeare after a staging of Hamlet. He dove into the texts, learned everything you could expect an autodidact to learn, and dove into teaching Shakespeare to an adult education class. He took trips to the Folgers Shakespeare Library in D.C. and got a day's pass to the Reading Room, where he uncovered a Whitman essay and incorporated it into a paper. He traveled to Oxford to study the Bard for three or four weeks. He put together a damn good argument concerning Shakespeare and Judaism. He talked to celebrities and professional playwrights, developing his sense of drama and waxing enthusiastic about what Shakespearian gems he's come upon over the years. And he ends his memoir with plans to get an M.A. and teach as an adjunct, while still developing his own curriculum for the adult ed course and maybe even teaching how to perform the plays, a la Shakespeare Set Free from the Folgers. Nifty, Herman! How do you find the energy?



Oh how I envy this guy. (His memoir is full of tragedy, loss and striving, I should point out, but I will overlook all of this at the moment.) He fights (and wins) his school for a two-hour course over a three-week period with no bathroom breaks, and determines to limit discussion, arguing (rightly) that extended classroom banter does not yield material for those seeking to learn explicitly. He turns down a chance to teach Freshman Comp, arguing (idiotically) that forty years of book editing is just as painful as grading all those essays (oh really?). He downs pints of ale in London and wallows in history and literature every chance he gets. And every other sentence begins with a literary allusion. "As I stood there on the bridge, I found myself thinking of Psalm 43..." "As I watched Frank Sinatra chat up my wife, I found myself reflecting on what Feste had to say about youth in Twelfth Night." Go fly a kite, Gollob. And guess what? My Reading Room pass this summer will last me a month, not just a day. Suck on it, Herr Professor.



Still, I have to give credit where credit is due. Gollob is passionate, informed and witty. His zest for Shakespeare is contagious--I'm not one to go in for Bardoloatry myself, but some of it does wind up rubbing off, even in spite of hardhearted jealousy over someone reveling in that elusive second act of American life, Fitzgerald notwithstanding. His 300+page book will get even the most devout Philistine running for a Shakespeare fest, or at the very least chasing down some of his gobbets and observations (I'm starting with his oft-quoted Shakespeare and the Jews myself--he cites the book at least two dozen times and it looks pretty interesting). If I can just get through the next thirty-five years of work without losing my sanity, maybe I can pull off what he manages...provided books haven't been replaced by mind-texts or something.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book on a whim, my wife suggesting it to me at the bookstore one day; I am forever glad I did. This book was extremely good for a variety of reasons. The memoirs of a seventy-year-old man may not seem to be interesting, but when that man has been an editor for some of the most famous publishing houses, and when after retiring, he embarks on a whole new love affair with all things Shakespeare, throwing in for good measure the tale of his reawakened Judaism, it becomes a fantastic read that resonates with anyone who may share with Gollob one of the three categories above (better if two or more).

To me, an English graduate with a fascination with Shakespeare, and a convert to Judaism, this book was heaven-sent. Gollob does a fantastic job of laying out bits and pieces of his personal life as they relate to Shakespeare (his first encounter with the Bard, his eventual reawakening of his love of Shakespeare), especially the relation between his newfound sense of Judaism and the Bard from Stratford. There is a 40 year difference between Gollob and me, and yet I could understand and empathize with his quest to find meaning in Shakespeare that related to his religion, his way of life. Shakespeare may have written only one play with a Jew in it, but his works resonates with universal lessons and values that have their origin in the Torah. Gollob's theory of Shakespeare's Jew, a secret Jewish friend of the Bard who taught him great lessons on Judaism and Judaic literature, is an interesting one, and one I have often thought of myself. More than anything, reading this book-- reading about Gollob's adventures in Stratford, in Oxford, at the Folgers Library, his quest to write an essay that captures the thoughts he is having on the relation between the Tanach (the Old Testament) and King Lear--rekindled in me the fire of academia, and made me make up my mind to go back for my Masters in Literature.

Any book that can speak across the generational gap so clearly is a worthy piece, and this book is certain to remain one of my favorites forever. Perhaps one day it will be my turn to write about my adventures with the Bard.

[Alan Hoffman]

Good introduction/ narrative about where to go to find out more about Shakepeare - like the John Barton videos, though a paper he wrote comparing King Lear to Moses didn't seem that relevant to me.



Version I got out of the library had a more upbeat/ whimsical cover.