The Late Mr. Shakespeare is all about Shakespeare.
It also happens to be about crossdressing and a major theme is gender blurring.
The narrator, Pickleherring, once played all the female roles in Shakespeare's plays, and in his late years is writing a biography of his former master. In it is a lot of interesting stuff about Shakespeare, real or imagined, and a great deal about sexuality, wearing stockings, pretending to be a woman, and men and women pretending to be the opposite sex during sex, etc.
Now it isn't pornography, by the writer has a pornographer's heart. He suggests that Mr. Shakespeare's powers originated in the heart of a gender bending relationship he had with his dark mistress.
If you don't like Shakespeare, skim around. The major crossdressing chapters are easy to pick out, but there is plenty scattered throughout.
I'm fighting the urge to drop into a cod version of Olde English. :) That book sounds like a hoot. Any favourite bits?
ReplyDeleteYes, many. Pickleherring has a thing for his Cleopatra role, and the bit about wearing Anne Hathaway's silk stockings and getting caught was deliriously erotic. Pickleherring talks often about the in between spaces in gender and the power it brings. The parts with Lucy Negro are cool. But overall there are many magical passages, almost myth or fairy tale, about Shakespeare's youth. Great with scotch, wine, a fireplace, or all three
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