Shylock is My Name

The Merchant of Venice Retold (Hogarth Shakespeare)

By: Howard Jacobson

Narrated by: Michael Kitchen

‘Who is this guy, Dad? What is he doing here?’

With an absent wife and a daughter going off the rails, wealthy art collector and philanthropist Simon Strulovitch is in need of someone to talk to. So when he meets Shylock at a cemetery in Cheshire’s Golden Triangle, he invites him back to his house. It’s the beginning of a remarkable friendship.

Elsewhere in the Golden Triangle, the rich, manipulative Plurabelle (aka Anna Livia Plurabelle Cleopatra A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever Christine) is the face of her own TV series, existing in a bubble of plastic surgery and lavish parties. She shares prejudices and a barbed sense of humour with her loyal friend D’Anton, whose attempts to play Cupid involve Strulovitch’s daughter – and put a pound of flesh on the line.

Howard Jacobson’s version of The Merchant of Venice bends time to its own advantage as it asks what it means to be a father, a Jew and a merciful human being in the modern world.

Critic reviews

For him to write about and inside of The Merchant of Venice seems to me a marriage made in heaven (Stephen Greenblatt)

Inspired...It does what any good literary subversion should do: deepens and enhances one's appreciation of the original. (James Lasdun)

Jacobson’s writing is virtuoso. He is the master of shifting tones, from the satirical to the serious. His prose has the sort of elastic precision you only get from a writer who is truly in command … There's also deep and sincere soul-searching going on here (Lucasta Miller)

A brilliant conceit… A powerful reimagining and reinvention of Shakespeare’s character. (Adam Lively)

Howard Jacobson’s reworking of The Merchant of Venice is a sly success… Irascible, eloquent Shylock is a man transplanted from the play to today. (Tim Martin)

Shylock is My Name has much to tell us about loss, identity and modern antisemitism ... Simon's debates with Shylock, snapshots of a man haranguing his literary Creator, are the heart of this book, knowing and humane (Kate Maltby)

Jacobson is clearly enjoying himself, savouring the play’s puzzles like a connoisseur with a complex wine, luxuriating in its themes of love, vengeance, forgiveness and justice, exploring what it means to be Jewish, then and now… Provocative, caustic and bold. (Rebecca Adams)

An unusually engaged form of literary criticism ... Jacobson treats Shylock less as a product of Shakespeare's culture and imagination than as a real historical figure emblematic of Jewish experience (Anthony Cummins)

Supremely stylish, probing and unsettling… Jacobson's writing is virtuoso. He is a master of shifting tones, from the satirical to the serious. His prose has the sort of elastic precision you only get from a writer who is truly in command.

A shrewd and powerful examination of what is means to be a father, a Jew and a merciful human being, this is another witty and thought-provoking tale from Jacobson. (Sebastian Shakespeare)

Can’t finish it. Reader too affected

The reader makes this sound like he is going through his own existential crisis and this is something to just get through. All the characters read about like they are all too rich and sick of life. Not sure about the book yet. I will need to read it myself to judge.