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eBook – The Empire Striketh Back

eBook –  The Empire Striketh Back Full title :  William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back By : Ian Doescher  Iillustrations :  Nicolas Delort Score : 9/10 Year : 2014 Publisher : Quirk Books  eISBN :  978-1-59474-716-8 Based on  978-1-59474-715-1 (hard cover) Pages : 176 *  Language : English From Goodreads : Hot on the heels of the New York Times best seller William Shakespeare’s Star Wars comes the next two installments of the original trilogy: William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back  (and not reviewed as yet,  William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return.) Return to the star-crossed galaxy far, far away as the brooding young hero, a power-mad emperor, and their jesting droids match wits, struggle for power, and soliloquize in elegant and impeccable iambic pentameter. Illustrated with beautiful black-and-white Elizabethan-style artwork, these two plays offer essential reading for all ages. Something Wookiee this way comes!  *** As he explains at the end, Ian Doescher
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Book – Becket



Book – Becket
Author : Jean Anouilh
Score : 7/10  (due to inaccuracies it is dropped down from 9 for style)
Year : 1960 (original play from 1959) 
Publisher : Signet books 
ISBN : N/A (before it's time)
Pages : 128 

Language: English (translated from French by Lucienne Hill) 

A play in 4 acts - which would be adapted into a movie - Becket, or the Honor of God, opposes a King and his friend, Becket, and treats with the topics of separation of state and the Church, with clever critic of both, alternating between humour and grave drama. 

More precisely, the protagonists are Thomas Becket and King Henri II of England. But, as the author acknowledges, there are many historical inaccuracies. 

 Becket comments on the notions of honor, deceits and treachery ; dialogues and acts comprising sexual overtones, with subtext of homo-erotica and the king's fickle shifts of moods. 

Jean Anouilh had been inspired to write this after he bought, on the quays of the Seine, Augustin Thierry's old history book, the Conquest of England by the Normans, as explained in the introduction. 

The dialogues are clever, witty and show a great contempt towards royalty, the Church, and blindly followed orders. 

I enjoyed reading this play, more than I'd anticipated in view of the topics at hand. 

Becket is also my 28th completed book in goodreads' challenge, but as Earthsea trilogy was one volume comprising 3 novels, this actually completes my challenge, and anything else I manage reading shall be a bonus. 


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