I think Greer had a lot of fun writing this book - and I had a lot of fun reading it.
I was attracted to the book by a quote from a reviewer who said something along the lines of - Greer has been as unprovocative as she could be, but the old men of academia still reacted with outrage and venom.
Well, if there were to be sides - I'd be on Greer's team.
The study of Shakespeare's life and times suffers from the lack of documentary evidence. Too many academics backfill the gap with commentary inmformed by later lives and times. Greer goes back to the basics, and gives the reader a great picture of what life was like in Stratford, and for women in particular. Life was different, but the reader comes away with a sense of what life may have been likely for Ann Hathaway.
The other interesting aspect of the book, for me, was the picture of the aging Shakespeare who retired back to Avon as a man of some wealth. There's a hint here of some sort of serious decline in abilities - dementia? It's only an aside in this book, but I would love to see if others have considered the issue. Just because he was a genius at his prime doesn't mean he waasn't mortally fragile as he aged. ( )

Greer makes a much needed attempt to challenge the popular assumption that Shakespeare disliked and abandoned his supposed shrewish, overbearing, and plain wife who was stifling his creatively.

While not trying to cover up her, or Shakespeare’s own faults, this is a brave attempt to understand the context of Elizabeth marriage and Ann Hathaway’s role in the Bard’s life.

Unfortunately in some ways it suffers from the subject herself, in that so little is known about Ann that the book is overwhelmed by supposition, inference, and just pure guess work that drives an often circular logic.

Greer writes in the final paragraph that “…. most of this book is hearsay, and probably neither true, nor less true than the accepted prejudice.” - So I had to wonder what was the point of the previous 350 pages? ( )

I liked this quite a bit. It's true that Greer does the same thing she accuses other scholars of doing: building up a portrait of someone based on assumptions and speculations rather than facts. Yet I think this is her point: whether you think Ann Hathaway was beloved by her husband or the reverse, literate or not, there is as much reason to believe in a good version of her as a bad version. The book is a little long, and Ann sometimes disappears entirely beneath a swarm of detail about other Stratford women of the time (about whom Greer has more data). And Greer is no great stylist. But she has some provocative ideas, and this book serves as a useful corrective to some of the anti-Ann flights of fancy found in other books about Shakespeare (Greer likes to call their authors "bardolators"). At any rate, Shakespeare's Wife deserved better reviews than I remember it getting. ( )

While I love the idea of this book, taking a fresh look at Anne Hathaway Shakespeare and imagining something different than the shrew up in Stratford. However, there was, in truth, less postulating about Anne and more, agonizingly more, data compilation of people and situations near, around, or vaguely related to things that may or may not have happened to Anne. While I cannot find any fault or complaint with Ms. Greer's research, it was more like reading someone's very dry thesis work than an even remotely interesting work of non-fiction. I admit being spoiled by Foreman's Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Massie's Catherine the Great. If you are looking for scholarly work on life in Elizabethan rural England, you may find this informative. If you're looking for Anne Shakespeare, you unfortunately won't find her here. ( )

I liked this quite a bit. It's true that Greer does the same thing she accuses other scholars of doing: building up a portrait of someone based on assumptions and speculations rather than facts. Yet I think this is her point: whether you think Ann Hathaway was beloved by her husband or the reverse, literate or not, there is as much reason to believe in a good version of her as a bad version. The book is a little long, and Ann sometimes disappears entirely beneath a swarm of detail about other Stratford women of the time (about whom Greer has more data). And Greer is no great stylist. But she has some provocative ideas, and this book serves as a useful corrective to some of the anti-Ann flights of fancy found in other books about Shakespeare (Greer likes to call their authors "bardolators"). At any rate, Shakespeare's Wife deserved better reviews than I remember it getting. ( )