Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

Why should anyone need to read a review of this book, specially when it's been written by a Shakespeare newbie like me? Maybe because you never read anything by The Bard for fear of it being too obscure or too heavy, a concern I used to have. No one ever tried to coerce me to read Shakespeare (again, they don't shove English classics down our throats in Brazil) and all that I knew about him was that he was supposed to be good and almost unreadable. But I was very wrong, oh how wrong I was, to be afraid of reading him.

When I read the Rama Series, this character Richard Wakefield, a true afficionado, kept throwing in quotes from Shakespeare works here and there and it got me truly curious and eager to read some if it. Then I watched Mel Gibson's film on this play and I was much more than very impressed. Whether it's a good or bad adaptation to the movies is besides the point for me; I loved the dark medieval setting, the broadswords, the stone castles, the poetry and the wit.

So that was the time for me to start and I picked up a copy of Folger's Library's edition of the classic. These editions are exceptional for people like me who might get lost in the archaic English idioms you're bound to encounter and it made what should have been a herculean task a very enjoyable reading.

If you still want to know what I have to say about this play here it goes: Hamlet's uncle murders his father, the king of Denmark, and weds his mother, what is enough to throw him into a very dark mood he can't seem to shake off. Dressed in black and roaming the new king's domains, Hamlet meets his father's ghost, learns the truth about his death and plots revenge. Although the story line can seem almost commonplace, it shouldn't matter too much what it talks about, but how it talks about it. Hamlet is a deep and perhaps morbid tragedy, but it's witty, poetic, sarcastic, funny and very romantic. If you're a Goth, that's definitely a good read for you. Read it if you need to find your entrance to Shakespeare's world or if you've read other works by him and haven't read this one yet. I'm sure I'm not qualified to make an authoritative statement about this, since I'm a newbie myself, but Hamlet is an incredible piece of work and probably one of The Bard's best.