"Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day: It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale." Romeo And Juliet, William Shakespeare
After 400 years, Shakespeare remains one of the greatest muses for contemporary dramatists, poets, and writers. Cold Fire, the second episode in the "Shakespeare's Moon" series by author James Hartley, is a novel inspired by one of the great poet's most well-known tragedies, Romeo and Juliet. Hartley -- a globe-trotter who was born in Liverpool, grew up in Singapore and Oman, taught English in Surat Thani, Thailand, and is now based in Madrid -- has written a truly Shakespearean book, a feast for the imagination. It could be called "Romeo and Gillian", after the leading couple. But he's not a Montague; she's not a Capulet, and a warped timeline as well as the intrusion of fantasy into the narrative makes this more than just a retelling of Shakespeare.
Strange things happen at St Francis, a boarding school in southeast England, where the story is set. Gillian, a fifth form student, is amazed and happy that the boy in the mask she met during her summer holiday in Italy suddenly appears at her school -- naked. He introduces himself as Romeo, and beautiful Gillian falls in love with him. They meet in secret to embrace each other until the master and the school prefects decide to get rid of Romeo, the boy from nowhere, or rather from "The Book", the school's secret and priceless treasure. This isn't the first time that the supernatural pops up in St. Francis, as the secret books contain many "lonely characters [who] were wishes and dreams put down on paper…."
Enter the villain, Alain Verne, the prefect, who has a crush on Gillian. Bent on destroying Romeo, Alain convinces Kizzie, Gillian's best friend that "creatures like the boy are very dangerous. They are unnatural. They belong somewhere and they are not where they belong", without realising that it was Kizzie, a girl with immense imagination, who invented Romeo in "The Book" for her friend, after she heard a story of Gillian's vacation in Italy.
Meanwhile, 450 years ago, Will Shakespeare, a young man arrives at St Francis to find work as a Latin teacher before heading off to London for a career in theatre. The present and the past collide as one of "today's" students sees Will from time to time on the school ground, thinking she has gone crazy. As for Will, he arrives at St Francis while it is still a monastery. He even finds "The Book", which the monk asks him to keep in secrecy and prophesises that it will make his "name to echo down through the ages".
Without cavilling at detail, Cold Fire is a fun, lovable book. Its narration is intertwined with time travelling, romance, adventure, mystery, and historical imagination. For readers, especially school children, who find Shakespeare uneasy to digest, the book offers an accessible, more imaginative path with plenty of room for reinterpretation. Sonnet lovers will also find this novel enchanting, as Hartley transforms quite a few of them into simple, beautiful prose.
