Category Archives: Review

BOOK REVIEW: The Narrative Poems by William Shakespeare

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The Narrative Poems (The Pelican Shakespeare)The Narrative Poems by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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While William Shakespeare is overwhelmingly known as a playwright who also wrote a collection of sonnets, back in his day some of his poetic stories were quite well-received. This volume collects the five narrative poems that Shakespeare is believed to have authored (or partially authored.)

–Venus and Adonis: This is one of the two long-form narrative poems of Shakespeare. It tells the tale of the goddess Venus’s obsession with Adonis, her many attempts to woo the hunky lad, and the tragedy that befalls him, breaking her heart. It’s written in six-line stanzas of iambic pentameter with a quatrain of alternating line rhymes and an end couplet of a third rhyme.

–The Rape of Lucrece: This is the other long narrative poem of Shakespeare. Lucrece’s husband, Collatine, is off on campaign and brags about how perfect is his wife, Lucrece. The “gentleman” he is telling this to is Tarquin, and the high-praise of Lucrece sets the seed of obsession in Tarquin’s mind. When he then finds himself in Collatine’s neighborhood (with Collatine still off to war,) he pays Lucrece a visit and is invited to stay over. That night he breaks into her bedchambers and – after threatening to kill her and a random male servant whose corpse he’ll shove into bed with her – Tarquin rapes her. After mulling over her options, Lucrece calls for Collatine’s return and after getting the promise of Collantine and his fellow soldiers to have revenge for her, she tells them who raped her immediately before ending her own life by dagger.

It’s written in the rhyme royal seven-line stanzas of iambic pentameter made famous by Chaucer.

–The Phoenix and the Turtle: This is a very different poem from the others. In terms of format, it abandons iambic pentameter in favor of shorter, punchier lines. Stylistically, it’s a bit more obscure and allegorical than most Shakespearean poetry.

The gist of the tale is the description of a funeral for the perfect couple. [I guess that an important thing to know is that “Turtle” is used as short for turtledove, and so it’s not a tale of bestial interspecies lovin’.] Besides the lines being shorter, the entire poem is short and sweet, ending with a philosophical lament about truth and beauty.

–The Passionate Pilgrim: While we’re back to iambic pentameter (and mostly sonnets) this work is a departure other ways. First, rather than being a narrative poem proper, this is really a love poetry collection. Second, while the collection consists of twenty poems, Shakespeare is believed to have only written five of them (I, II, III, V, and XVI.) Of those, the first four are sonnets, and the last is an eighteen-line poem. Third, this is not new or exclusive material. The first two sonnets came to be included in the 154-sonnet collection of Shakespeare (138 and 144,) and the other verse is from “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”

–A Lover’s Complaint: The weeping of a maiden attracts the attention of a passerby, who she tells her tale of woe, having been wooed by a young man who got his milk and high-tailed it before he was forced to buy the cow. Besides being a woman’s tale of woe, it also shares with “The Rape of Lucrece” the fact that it is written in rhyme royal. It’s much shorter than “The Rape of Lucrece.”

I would highly recommend poetry readers dig into these lesser know Shakespearean works.


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BOOK REVIEW: The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle

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The Sign of the Four (Sherlock Holmes, #2)The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This novel is the second of the books in the Sherlock Holmes canon. It begins with a client (Miss Morstan) coming to see Holmes to acquire his advice as to whether she should make a rendezvous to which she has been summoned by mysterious means, Morstan being a beautiful young lady who is weary of showing up to a random public location, having been told to not involve the police. We learn some intriguing facts from the conversation, such as that she began receiving a pearl from an anonymous source each year and that her father (Capt. Morstan) has passed away.

With Sherlock and Watson in tow, Miss Morstan does attend the rendezvous, and we learn that the meeting is with the son (Thaddeus Sholto) of a man with whom her father served in the military at Port Blair in the Andaman Isles (Maj. Sholto.) The mystery of the pearls is cleared up as we discover that Maj. Sholto cheated Capt. Morstan out of his share of a treasure that the Major came into possession of while stationed in India, and his two sons (particularly Thaddeus) feel the need to make amends to Capt. Morstan’s heir, but would like to do so without dragging the family name through the muck or creating legal hassles.

It seems everything is wrapped up with a nice bow, when Thaddeus takes Miss Morstan, Holmes, and Watson to see his (more reluctant to be fair to Morstan) brother Bartholomew, who is the one in actual possession of the treasure. However, when they find Bartholomew dead and the treasure gone, the true mystery begins. The balance of the book involves a chase to find the missing treasure, the men who stole it, and to unravel the mysterious circumstances behind the treasure. The final chapter tells the elaborate backstory of the treasure, going back to India and to the titular four men, the four whose names were found at the scene of Bartholomew’s murder and who previously possessed it — one of whom serves as the storyteller. Along the way, a mangy bloodhound, the Baker Street Irregulars (street urchins employed by Holmes,) and – of course – the brilliant reasoning of Sherlock Holmes are used to solve the case.

Arthur Conan Doyle created one of the most intriguing fictional characters ever with Holmes. If he were just a brilliant man with supreme skills of observation and reasoning, he’d be no more interesting, and have no greater longevity, than any of the many other characters. But in Sherlock we see that brilliance always has a cost. Holmes is also an addict, is troubled by insomnia, and is – in some ways – socially dysfunctional. (e.g. When Watson develops a relationship with Miss Morstan, Holmes confesses that he can’t grasp the value of marriage / long-term intimate relationships.)

What the author does with character, he also does with setting by bringing into the story (through backstory) locales that are exotic and intriguing – e.g. Port Blair. Even by today’s standards there are always little tidbits of the exotic drawn into the story, even though most of the Holmes’ stories — this one included — don’t venture far from London.

If you enjoy crime and detection fiction, this book is a must. It’s highly readable and offers a compelling story. In terms of the Holmes canon, I wouldn’t say it’s particularly better or worse than others, but I don’t find there is a huge variation in quality among these novels and stories. It is one of the better-known titles (except that some call it “The Sign of Four” and others “The Sign of the Four” – the latter being the original title as far as I can discern.)

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BOOK REVIEW: Van Helsing vs. Dracula’s Daughter

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Van Helsing vs. Dracula's DaughterVan Helsing vs. Dracula’s Daughter by Raven Gregory
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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Out: July 13, 2021

This comic book imagines the daughter of the Van Helsing character (from Bram Stoker’s) pitted against the daughter of Dracula in what appears to be more-or-less the present day. It is action-packed, if juvenile and prone to rely on hackneyed dialogue and story points. To clarify, it’s a small team of scantily clad supermodel vampire hunters taking on a scantily clad supermodel Vampiress and her army of expendables. I liked it in the way that one likes movies that one picked on Netflix while mentally exhausted and uninterested in anything mentally or emotionally draining, but rather just some vapid entertainment.

It’s part of a serialized universe of stories, and so, while it can be understood as a standalone story, it is not optimally organized to be read in a standalone fashion. It sort of begins with some action that the [standalone] reader has no context for, and which will not be circled back to in the way a story opening in media res typically would. Put in another way, in the second half of the story, I had to consciously reflect back and try to piece together what the opening material had to do with the overall story being told. I suspect (but cannot confirm) that if one binge read the whole collection, it would probably make more sense.

Besides the ridiculously untactical (virtually painted on) outfits, there is some reverse villain monologuing – which is to say the hero interjects into the action to explain her plot to snatch victory from defeat. Granted that victory would be completely deus ex machina, i.e. out of the blue, otherwise, but that’s not really a redeeming point. [The most (I presume) unintentionally hilarious line involves Van Helsing telling Dracula’s Daughter that VH can’t blame the vampire progeny for missing VH’s super-stealth colleague as the reader sees a pictures of one of the aforementioned supermodels with her skirt slit up two inches above her pelvic crest operating a spade with one leg bare from toes to waist, standing as models do to accentuate the shapeliness of the calf. It’s the most conspicuous ninja operation one could possibly imagine.

As I say, I found this an okay story for a mindless read, but I wouldn’t have too high of hopes for it beyond that.


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BOOK REVIEW: Dreaming Eagles by Garth Ennis

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Dreaming EaglesDreaming Eagles by Garth Ennis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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New Edition Out: June 1, 2021

This graphic novel by the author of “The Boys” and “Preacher,” tells a story based on the experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen, and does so as a story within a story. The framing story is set in 1960’s America and finds a World War II veteran (a pilot of the Tuskegee Airmen) trying to talk his teenaged son down from getting too entangled in the Civil Rights movement — for reasons that are only revealed as he completes the telling of his experiences at war. Through flashbacks, the protagonist depicts not only the thrilling exploits of air-to-air combat over Europe and the visceral tragedies that occur when hot lead meets with aluminum high above the world, but it also shows the unique tribulations experienced by these particular military men – such as “leaders” who wanted to see them fail and widespread discrimination.

The story-in-story approach is an excellent one because it allows for a character arc in which the protagonist grows. Without getting into spoiling details, as the protagonist revisits his story, he comes away with a new and changed perspective (which is always a valuable feature in storytelling.) The frame also breaks up the history and helps maintain reader attentiveness by showing the influence the story has on the attentive son. (Young men not being famous for being interested in the life stories of their parents.) I don’t mean to suggest that the war story is not interesting. It’s full of action, heroism, and the tension of interpersonal conflict. However, for those who aren’t history buffs and are acclimated to Ennis’s more popular fare [i.e. full of superheroes and random acts of violence and titillation,] the story may feel a bit flat only by virtue of the fact that it is constrained by actual historical events.

I found the art to be well-crafted. The chaos of air combat is conveyed without being so chaotic that one can’t tell what is happening, and the graphics offer a great sense of setting and era.

This volume is definitely worth giving a read. It tells a compelling story of the combative exploits and the political / social travails of these groundbreaking and heroic pilots, while holding a mirror to the rank societal biases of the era.


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BOOK REVIEW: We Live by Inaki & Roy Miranda

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We LiveWe Live by Inaki Miranda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Out: May 19, 2021

In a dystopian future on the verge of the Earth’s doomsday, aliens send humanity an opportunity to preserve itself on a limited scale. Bracelets (gauntlets, really) are dispersed around the planet, and any child [no adults allowed] wearing one who can get to the closest beacon site can be rescued.

Hototo is an orphan boy (preschool to kindergarten-aged) who has one of the bracelets, and his sister, Tala (early elementary school-aged,) is to be his escort to the beacon. [Hototo thinks they will both remain together, but Tala knows that she will drop him off and will stick around on the planet to witness the end of the world.] The story told in this volume is essentially their perilous journey from home to the beacon site.

What I liked most about his story is that it creates the visceral scenario of these two vulnerable kids traveling together through a landscape laden with all manner of threats, and – as in any story worth its salt – one thing after the other goes wrong for them. I also found the art appealing. It creates an intriguing story world. (Though the fantastical story world did rely heavily a popular, if overused, idea in sci-fi of late that some combination of toxins, radiation, and high-speed evolution spurred by rapid environmental change will create super-powered, super-intelligent predatory species. And in this case, they are in explicably conspicuous species – making them more visually interesting, but less sensible.)

The biggest problem with the story is that our two protagonists, while generating a lot of angst in the reader about their well-being, have no agency. Tala and Hototo show braveness, particularly Tala, but they must be rescued every single time. That’s realistic, because Kindergartners who could deal with the threats that they do would either have to be superpowered or put into question how serious the threats really are. [Either of which would damage the tension of the story.] There is a secondary character, Humbo, who is (or seems) slightly older than Tala, who is much more interesting than the sister/brother protagonists. In fact, Humbo is one of the primary rescuers of the two children throughout the story. The only other problem I had with the story is that the pacing at the end is so rapid that it makes it hard to track whether the story is making sense – i.e. being internally consistent.

As for recommendations, I think some will love this story and others will loath it, because it is an experimental piece. Hopefully, I’ve provided sufficient information for the reader to make their own decision. I did enjoy reading it, and found the interesting story world and events of the story to counterbalance the fact that the protagonists were leaves on the wind. (Though I probably would have preferred a story that centered on Humbo.)

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BOOK REVIEW: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

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The Adventures of Sherlock HolmesThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This collection of a dozen short stories is the third book in the Sherlock Holmes canon, and the first of the short story collections. The cases described range from murder and scandalous thefts to mysteries as seemingly mundane as why a certain pawnbroker, engineer, or governess got a job offer too good to be true. There is often a falsely accused suspect, or no suspect whatsoever. On more than one occasion, two characters are, in actuality, one. It’s typical Sherlock Holmes, which is to say compelling and engaging throughout. Furthermore, there are a couple of cases, such as the first, that break the usual mold, as the author apparently recognized that it would not to do not break up the cycle of: “strange case gets solved and extensively explained, repeat.”

The stories are as follows:

1.) “A Scandal in Bohemia” – The King of Bohemia, about to be wed, becomes the victim of blackmail. This is one of those cases that breaks the mold as a it’s one of the few in which the criminal gets the better of Holmes – though all works out for Holmes’ client.

2.) “The Red-Headed League” – This is one of the three stories in the collection in which an individual gets a job that pays impossibly well with requirements that, while not onerous, are strange. A pawnbroker is given a nice stipend for ridiculously trivial work by a mysterious organization that funds gingers.

3.) “A Case of Identity” – A well-to-do woman’s fiancé disappears, or so it seems.

4.) “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” – A landowner in the countryside is murdered, and his son, with whom he’d recently argued and who was the last to see him alive, is the immediate and only suspect of Scotland Yard.

5.) “The Five Orange Pips” – A man who recently received a note containing five orange seeds dies, somewhat suspiciously, and under circumstances that do not bode well for his heir.

6.) “The Man with the Twisted Lip” – A husband goes missing, and a beggar immediately comes under suspicion as his killer – though there is no compelling evidence of murder.

7.) “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” – A famed jewel goes missing and a suspect is in custody, but when the jewel is discovered in the alimentary canal of a Christmas goose, what is to be made of that?

8.) “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” – A woman fears her stepfather. The woman’s sister died a couple years before, having made an obscure comment about a “speckled band” as she died.

9.) “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb” – A struggling hydraulic engineer gets a job that seems rudimentary enough, but which nearly costs him his life, and does cost him a thumb. It’s clear that his employer is not engaged in the minor crime that the man confessed to in his explanation of why the engineer must work during the dead of night.

10.) “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” – A gentleman’s bride disappears on their wedding day. There are those who think it foul play.

11.) “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” – A banker who is holding a crown as loan collateral, suffers a theft that threatens his professional reputation, and potent circumstantial evidence points to the banker’s son.

12.) “The Adventure of Copper Beeches” – An unemployed governess is offered a job that pays three times the going rate for light work involving one child, so long as she agrees to cut her hair, and — on occasion – wear a certain dress while sitting in a particular chair.

Doyle creates fascinating characters in Sherlock Holmes and his protégé Doctor Watson, characters that continue to spin off stories to this day, and for good reason. While there is a lot of hokum in these stories, the idea of being able to draw such great information from such miniscule signs captures the imagination. And Doyle does make efforts to break up the monotony. While I pointed out that there are three stories in which characters get great jobs with bizarre requirements, each of these cases is different with respect to why the client got said well-paying job – though it is true in each case that something more nefarious than meets the eye is afoot. It’s not all murder and burglary, sometimes it’s cases that are intellectually interesting if trivial in stakes. And once and a while, Holmes doesn’t get his man, so to speak.

This is a readable and entertaining set of stories. I’d highly recommend giving it a read.


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BOOK REVIEW: Tokyo Junkie by Robert Whiting

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Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys . . . and BaseballTokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights and Back Alleys . . . and Baseball by Robert Whiting
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Tokyo is the river that runs through this book, which for large tracts reads like a memoir and at other turns reads like a broad overview of things Japanese. I’ve only been to Tokyo once, for about a two week stay, but it’s impossible to miss the almost alien level of distinctiveness of the city. It’s the largest city in the world, but in many ways feels like a small town. The subways shut down at midnight, creating an alter ego to the city, aptly depicted in Haruki Murakami novels.

Whiting’s Tokyo journey begins with his time posted there in the military, a time which happens to correspond with the city being readied for the 1964 Olympics, through the present day COVID Pandemic challenges (which happens to correspond with the 2020 Tokyo Summer games being delayed — and it remains to be seen whether these games will ever happen given the fact that the COVID virus is not taking our plans for vaccine-driven herd immunity sitting down.)

As Whiting’s book is part memoir, it gives particular scrutiny to the subjects of his earlier books, in as much as those topics touch upon life in Tokyo. One of these subjects, the more extensively discussed, is baseball and the very different way the game is played and reported upon in Japan. The other key subject is organized crime and the legendary Yakuza. Crime in Japan is a captivating topic because it is both invisible and infamously brutal. I enjoyed the view through these niche lenses because (particularly) the latter is not so conspicuous, but is riveting stuff. [When I was in Japan, I was taken to a bathhouse (not considered strange in Japan as it sounds to an American.) Before we went, I was told that if I had big tattoos, I couldn’t go; and, if I had a small tattoo, I’d need to use a washcloth to keep it covered the whole time. This is apparently because reputable establishments don’t want the taint of Yakuza on their premises. So, this is how much they keep things on the down-low.]

Whiting led various lives in Tokyo, he was an airman, a student, a salaryman, an unofficial advisor to a Yakuza gang, a journalist, and a nonfiction writer. These allowed him to see the changing city from a number of varied perspectives, offering much deeper insight than the run-of-the-mill expat.

In addition to the modern history of Tokyo, Japanese baseball, Yakuza, and Whiting’s various lives in the city, the book makes a lot of fascinating dives into a range of Tokyo topics, such as: sumo wrestling, the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, the city’s distant history, salaryman drinking habits, the demographic crisis (i.e. its aging population has been approaching the point of too many retirees per working taxpayer,) etc. The book offers a no-holds-barred look at the good, the bad, and the ugly underside of the city. It at once praises the city’s politeness, cleanliness, and smooth-running order and rebukes its dark side – dirty politics, toxic workplaces, xenophobia, etc.

I enjoyed this book tremendously. It offered great insight into Tokyo, Japanese culture, as well as many niche areas that I probably would never taken the time to investigate, otherwise. If you are interested in learning about Tokyo, particularly modern Tokyo, this is an excellent read.

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BOOK REVIEW: Drawing is for Everyone by Kateri Ewing

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Drawing Is for Everyone: Simple Lessons to Make Your Creative Practice a Daily Habit - Explore Infinite Creative Possibilities in Graphite, Colored Pencil, and InkDrawing Is for Everyone: Simple Lessons to Make Your Creative Practice a Daily Habit – Explore Infinite Creative Possibilities in Graphite, Colored Pencil, and Ink by Kateri Ewing
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Out: July 20, 2021

True to its title, this book presents an excellent set of lessons for rank amateurs to develop drawing techniques in a way that helps keep their inner critic from being their undoing. It does this by using mostly abstract and still life subjects as a means to convey the technique, such that the early lessons in each section aren’t expected to look like anything recognizable, and there is not the disappointment of off-kilter drawings. [There are some little birdy drawings in the higher numbered lessons, but nothing particularly complicated.]

The book consists 21 lessons evenly divided between three parts: graphite pencil, colored pencil, and ink. Each lesson gives some background information, presents the list of needed supplies, provides step-by-step textual instructions matched with a series of drawings to graphically demonstrate said step, and a section with creative options that show what some of the author’s students produced with the same exercise. This is also a nice feature for those with an intense inner critic, a tendency to compulsively copycat, and / or a conviction that they aren’t capable of drawing. It does this by presenting numerous different ways a project could turn out – all attractive but all very different.

Besides the lessons, there’s a brief introduction to set up the project. And, in addition to the aforementioned drawings, there are numerous graphics, such as photographs of still life subjects and supplies.

I thought this book was smartly arranged and organized. It’s a small book, but presents the dabbler with all they need to start building their skills, plus it’s beautifully presented. If you’re a neophyte looking to get into drawing but worried that you have not talent for it, this is an excellent place to start.

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BOOK REVIEW: Poetics by Aristotle

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Poetics. EnglishPoetics. English by Aristotle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page “Poetics” is the surviving volume of Aristotle’s guide to literary criticism. This volume explores Tragedy. [The lost volume covered Comedy.] Considering the age of this book and that it came from the student of one who was not a fan of poetics at all (i.e. Plato,) it is surprisingly readable and much of the information presented has aged well. [That said, there are some ideas that will be controversial – including, for instance, a blatantly sexist comment or two. Also, it should be pointed out that there is disagreement about what Aristotle was trying to say on a number of points.]

This short book is organized to dissect tragedy along many lines, laying out the four kinds of tragedy (complex, pathetic, ethical, and simple,) the segments of a tragedy (prologue, episode, exode, choric song, parode, and stasimon,) etc. But the work is probably most famous for two ideas. First, there is the idea that stories provide catharsis. For his teacher, Plato, the stories conveyed via poetry were all risk and no reward. That is, there was a risk that young and impressionable minds would take away the wrong lessons, and there wasn’t much to counterbalance that risk. Aristotle believed there was in fact something, and it was catharsis, the purging of emotions through vicarious living.

Second, there is the idea that there are six crucial elements of a tragedy (i.e. plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song,) and that they are of importance in more or less that order. A good bit of the work is devoted to breaking down these elements. For example, with respect to plot, Aristotle writes at length about reversals and recognition (the moment a character discovers some key piece of information,) telling us a little about how these actions best work. With respect to character, Aristotle tells about the kind of character that generates the best story, and it’s the same advice one sees in writing books today that talk about flawed but good characters. Perfect characters are boring and bad characters get what they have coming in a tragedy.

I was surprised how relevant this book remains, considering that it’s perhaps the first extant book of literary theory. It’s definitely worth a read. At less than fifty pages (not including the ancillary material you’ll find with many editions) it’s a quick read, and while it’s a bit dry at times, it’s not brutal by any means. So, given its historic importance, give it a read.


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BOOK REVIEW: Henry V by William Shakespeare

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Henry VHenry V by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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In this, the final play of the Henriad, the new King Henry V is advised that France should be his to control. He’s not entirely sold, that is until the French King’s son — the Dauphin of France — sends King Henry a trunk of tennis balls as a poke at the King’s youth and past reputation for frivolity. This is a sore spot for Henry. The Dauphin’s complete contempt for Henry puts control of France at risk, much to the chagrin of the French King who urges the Dauphin to have some respect.

The confrontation comes to a head at Agincourt, a battle that is known as one of the great upsets in the history of warfare. English forces routed the French with a fraction of the troops, not to mention while lacking the home field advantage. In reality, the Agincourt victory was largely attributable to savvy positioning – i.e. a strategic chokepoint that didn’t allow the French to fully exploit their numeric superiority — plus the English longbow, which proved to be a devastating weapon for the battle at hand. In Shakespeare’s play, the victory is attributable to what is probably the best “rally the troops” address in the history of literature, the St. Crispin’s Day Speech.

Acts III and IV are where the real action take place, and – of the two – I’m partial to Act III. In the third act, Henry dons the cloak of a common man, and makes the rounds of the troops in disguise. [It’s reminiscent of the way the Duke in “Measure for Measure” disguises himself as a friar to get a feel for what’s really going in his dominion, but – in this case — it’s only for a short time. While morale is surprisingly good, given the degree to which the English are outnumbered, the disguised King does get in an argument with a skeptical soldier about whether the King would really not ransom himself. This will lead to a later comedic scene in which Henry collects on the bet, using a soldier to pretend to be his disguised alter ego, only revealing that it was – in fact – he, the King, after he’d had his fun. [And it was all in good fun, no “off with the head” moment transpired.] It’s at the end of Act III that Henry gives the rousing St. Crispin’s Day Speech.

Act IV is largely concerned with the battle and its aftermath, including the aforementioned collection of the bet. In Act V, Henry attempts to woo the French Princess Catharine. Henry is smitten by her, and their marriage is a good way to cement a bilateral relationship that can have some staying power – rather than falling back into an immediate war for the crown. The challenge is that Catharine speaks no English, and Henry speaks only a smattering of French. If I knew French, this act might have been hilarious, but – as I don’t – the gag goes on a little long. But eventually, they are promised to each other, and all is well.

This is probably my favorite Shakespearean History. The battle fought by a scrappy underdog force and the effective leadership of Henry make for an exciting tale of warfare. If you’re only going to read one of the histories, this wouldn’t be a bad one to pick up. I’d highly recommend this work.


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