Will and Me - Dominic Dromgoole

Writing a review in the middle of reading a book is just about as unorthodox as one can get. Unfortunately, that's precisely the case, and this can only be no ordinary book.

Welcome to "Will and Me", with the telling subheader that says "How Shakespeare Took Over My Life." Life, indeed. Here, Dominic Dromgoole relates his love relationship with the Chief Poet in a dreamy, passionate, yet sometimes self-deprecating way. His series of short, condensed essay-like chapters chronicle a journey of reminiscence, but also one of acute self-awareness. One gets the feeling that Dromgoole is trying to tell himself how he learned from Shakespeare on a whole new personal level - and not a morally-right this-is-how-you-should-be way, and just happens to tell it to us, as well.

A literature enthusiast would be thrilled at the leisurely quality of this book, but also its profoundly intellectual side (more notably, the second part of the book titled 'The Walk', a pilgrimage from Stratford to London's Globe). Quotes from the most famous to the more obscure Shakespeare plays feature extensively here, one of my favourites being:

"Where are my tears? Rain, to lay this wind, or my heart will be blown up by the root." -- Pandarus, in Troilus and Cressida

It is a wondrous piece of autobiographical tribute to Shakespeare, especially for a budding King Lear student (i.e. yours truly) to listen to his glowing words of praise for a Lawrence Olivier production and suddenly seized with the desire to see it for myself. The headers of each 'short essay' are also catchy and outline this book's uniqueness even more - they all begin with curiously small letters, and consist of an amalgamation of curious key words: 'Glastonbury Cabaret, apeshit sessions and the Falstaff pattern.'

Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser. But all is soon explained once the chapter is read.

Dromgoole succeeds in channeling his passion to his readers (who, presumably, are also avid fans of Shakespeare) and manages to endear this connection to us as we sympathise with accounts of his failed attempts at reenacting Shakespeare plays with his peers from Cambridge in a rather shaky theatre company.

Freshly published in 2007, it is contemporary enough to make us admire his attempts to stage art to the modern masses, and historical enough to make the older generation connect with the periods of war gone through by Dromgoole's thespian parents.

"Will and Me" was compelling enough in the first half of reading to move this reader into reviewing it on page 137. It might well be the same for you.

- Michelle Tan