Jacobson’s Shylock requires a lot more fleshing out

Shylock Is My Name is not a straightforward modern rendering of Merchant

Howard Jacobson gets lost in his own narrative thread in Shylock Is My NamePicture: Getty

Fiction; Shylock Is My Name; By Howard Jacobson; Hogarth Press, €22.60

When Howard Jacobson was first approached about writing a contemporary novel based on a Shakespeare play to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death he asked if he could update Hamlet. Hamlet was already taken, his agent informed him. “Let me guess,” Jacobson jibed. “They want me to take The Merchant of Venice.”

The pairing is, of course, an obvious one. ...