Cleopatra: I Am Fire and Air

From the start of this oddly unsatisfying analysis of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, celebrated literary scholar Bloom (Falstaff) explores his own beguilement by the latter title character. He opens with a paean to South African actress Janet Suzman’s 1974 portrayal of her, and we learn how smitten he was by both character and actress. Unfortunately, despite the promise of a thorough character study, the book too often focuses on a single facet of Cleopatra—her sexuality—even as Bloom notes that she is as complex a character as ever created by Shakespeare. (Perceptively, he wonders how a young male acting apprentice in Shakespeare’s day could have embodied such a woman.) Anyone looking for the historical figure will not find her here—head over to Stacy Schiff’s revelatory biography Cleopatra: A Life for that; Bloom is only concerned with Shakespeare’s fictionalized version. Accepting that parameter, the most disappointing aspect of this already slim volume is that there is so little of Bloom’s interpretation. The text is dominated by lengthy quotations from the play, among which Bloom’s analysis practically gets lost. Though Bloom brings considerable expertise and his own unique voice to this book, it never quite takes flight. [em]Agent: Glen Hartley, Writers’ Representatives. (Oct.) [/em]