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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Iago demonstrates the nastiest level of manipulation and gaslighting when he convinces insecure Othello that wifey Desdemona is cheating on him. It all ends up bad, when they all end up dead. So many lessons to learn, and so many quotes to repeat. Othello may be my favorite Shakespeare.
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This used to be my favorite Shakespeare play, but no one can ever live up to Hamlet.
Not my favorite among the Shakespeare's. I guess it was because the cast of characters was pretty small compared to the others. Maybe it's just because I had the impression that all the characters were incredibly weak and dumb for falling for Iago's tricks like that. And the ending, I mean, yeah three people died, but it still felt really anticlimatic. By the time the ending came around, I couldn't wait for Othello's suicide to get over with because, yeah, you knew it was coming, but of course he has to impart to every single character on the set his immense tragedy and oh the horror I killed me wife because I'm too stupid to realize she was telling the truth all along. Yeah. All in all, it still had the whole Shakespearian genius in the literary elements, but plot-wise and character-wise, not my favorite.
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It feels kind of strange to be reviewing Shakespeare. Like, what can be said that already hasn't been said a million times? Probably nothing, but I guess that's not the point. I started reading this a couple of years ago, as something to read on the side (while reading something else), though I don't really remember why (as I'd been reading only in Italian, almost exclusively, as now). Then I stopped about a third of the way through, probably because I don't really like reading two fiction books at the same time.
And then I picked it up again a few weeks ago because a couple of lines of it were quoted in what I was reading: Javier Marías's Your Face Tomorrow, Volume 2 (see my review of that for more). This time I finished it.
It felt like what I was reading was connected to everything else. "The Wire" (which I was watching at the time), and Marías of course, but also just to life itself. Its fabric, its very language. We speak Shakespeare, he gave a language to reality. But it's not a coincidence. It's not that someone just decided, "hey, that Shakespeare guy writes about reality in a really poetic way". It's that when Literature hits its groove, finds the flow, is given the gift of magic, the Language of Story and Life become one.
And then I picked it up again a few weeks ago because a couple of lines of it were quoted in what I was reading: Javier Marías's Your Face Tomorrow, Volume 2 (see my review of that for more). This time I finished it.
It felt like what I was reading was connected to everything else. "The Wire" (which I was watching at the time), and Marías of course, but also just to life itself. Its fabric, its very language. We speak Shakespeare, he gave a language to reality. But it's not a coincidence. It's not that someone just decided, "hey, that Shakespeare guy writes about reality in a really poetic way". It's that when Literature hits its groove, finds the flow, is given the gift of magic, the Language of Story and Life become one.
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
My name is Chelsee and I have such a boner for Iago.
This is a phenomenal story! I'm not even a Shakespeare fan, and I loved this book!
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Summary: Othello has just married Desdemona, and Iago, who hates Othello and knows that Desdemona’s father will not be happy about his daughter’s marriage to a Black man, decides to tell Desdemona’s father what has happened. Soon after he does, however, Othello, a skilled soldier, is called upon to protect Venice. Iago follows Othello and continues to antagonize him, but to do so in such a way that Othello does not realize that it is Iago who is the cause of all the trouble that he is experiencing.
This tragedy is both frustrating and heartbreaking, and it features one of Shakespeare’s most dislikeable villains.