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Community comment are the opinions of contributing users. These comment do not represent the opinions of Daniel Boone Regional Library.
Jun 01, 2016
I liked this retelling of The Merchant of Venice. Howard Jacobson is one of the best people to take on this troublesome play, other than Phillip Roth, which he sort of did with Operation Shylock. Anyway, the best part(s) of the book for me were the conversations between Strulovitch and "Shylock" (I was never quite sure whether Shylock was a ghost, or an actual corporeal presence). Very reminiscent of "The Finkler Question", which I enjoyed. I would have liked the book a lot more if it consisted of just these conversations, and not the somewhat clumsy and unappealing recreation of the plot of The Merchant of Venice--but I suspect Hogarth knew that that wouldn't have mass market appeal.