I am going to start this week's review with a few disclaimers:
1. As you probably know, I am a high school English teacher.
2. I am also Canadian.
3. I am a serious Shakespeare nerd.
4. I love the ocean (though I don't surf).
5. When I went to Italy in grade 12, I fell in love with it. Venice and yes, Verona. (Keep scrolling down to see a couple of actual photographs I dug up from my trip back then.)
Okay, so if you have read Glenn Dixon's Juliet's Answer, and you know the above things about me, you are probably not going to be terribly surprised at what I thought of this book.
I. Loved. It.
Glenn Dixon's memoir is a combination of his reflections on his own love-life-gone-wrong, his experiences of his time in Verona answering letters addressed to Juliet, and his own teaching of Romeo and Juliet in the classroom.
It already made my list for spring reads (that you can check out here.)
I do not read many memoirs, and I am not quite sure why; the ones I do read, I tend to really like.
But this one is special. This one stands out.
Have you ever come across something, and it just fit into you, and every pore of your skin sighed, "Oh, there you are"? Maybe that something is a new hobby, a new passion. Maybe it is a person.
Maybe it is a book.
I am pretty sure, since I have never met the author, he did not technically write this book just for me. I'm almost certain.
Almost.
Dixon and I seem to have similar approaches to teaching, though I think I tend to be, well, slightly more theatrical. But then again, he is more experienced and knowledgeable than me. I loved the way he looked at his students; for example, how he sees the way one boy in his class keeps looking at one girl, and so he chooses them to read the scene where Romeo and Juliet meet. In one scene, where a student named Marc came to talk to him, well, I am not ashamed that I was fairly close to tearing up there. (Okay, okay, and again at the end of the epilogue.)
I tend not to approach the play the same way as him - from the idea of true love - but perhaps I am more pragmatic and even slightly cynical. I wonder at the reading of this book from a perspective of someone who is not a teacher.
I also love the way the book is organized, and the titles of the sections, all taken from the play itself.
When I was in high school, I got to visit Verona. It was a
whirlwind trip, but to this day I remember walking through that archway, hopeful graffiti scribbling names and notes and promises over every inch of the walls. I remember the way the colours overlapped one another, messages on top of other messages, going back to who-knows-when.
I remember looking up to see Juliet's balcony. I remember the boys chuckling at her statue.
I remember vowing to go back.
One day, I hope I get to do just that. Reading this made me want to wander through that old city again. Verona is in each page, pulling me towards it. I want to sip a cappuccino in a cafe, visit the opera in the coliseum, see the tomb, order square pieces of pizza I fold in half to eat as I sit under a covered portico. Perhaps I will even write my own letter, though at this point I do not know what I would say. There is just this longing, in this book, to be a part of that.
Dixon made me love Romeo and Juliet more, honestly. This memoir, touching and vulnerable and yet still enjoyable, is full of love, yet in a way that did not feel cheesy.
Near the end of the book, Dixon is being interviewed by a reporter from the BBC.
"[...] Sometimes you really want to tell these people to get it together, to smarten up - but of course you can't say that. That's not what they want to hear."
"And what do they want to hear? Jolyon lifted a hand to his headphones.
"Mostly, they just want to tell their stories, to be listened to. They write because they still want to believe in love, you know? They want to believe in Juliet."
"I would imagine that everyone wants to believe in true love."
That is part of what this story is about: What is love? Why do we believe in it?
Through Dixon's own relationships, we see him wanting to do the same thing to himself - he wants to "get it together, to smarten up." And - spoiler alert here - he eventually does.
That's also part of the point. Everyone's love life sucks sometimes. We all have our heartaches, though some so much worse than others.
But, for the most part, we all want to believe in love.
What story inspires you? Have you ever had this same experience, of finding something that fits you so perfectly, be it book or something else?
I would love to read your comments below, or contact me via my site, here. And don't forget to subscribe to get my monthly newsletter, all shiny and new and ready to go for April!