The Bard's Tale
As you might have gathered from the quote I lead off one of my recent concert calendars with, I recently read The Merchant of Venice. This play is like Batman in that the main characters are a little boring, but the villain is awesome. Shylock may be the best single character in all the Shakespeare I've read thus far, and I'm about half way through the complete works now. It's also cool that a single play popularized the name Jessica in the English-speaking world.
That's the only official canon I've read so far this year, but I did reach a bunch of other Shakespeare-themed stuff this year.
My parents were given a copy of Stephen Marche's How Shakespeare Changed Everything, which is the sort of book you write if you are an English professor who has to write a book to make tenure. Ok, so that's a bit harsh but most of this book is a rehash of fun stories about Shakespeare, or more accurately his the weird things his fans have done. It is well written so if you're new to the story of how a Shakespeare fan caused starlings to infest America and other suc things you'll probably enjoy it. The only story that was new to me was about the man who convinced a significant portion of England's literary elite that he'd found a completely unknown Shakespearean play, as well as dozens of other artifacts. Spoilers: he had not, but he made a lot of money on it.
Moving back to the realm of fiction, I turned to Anthony Burgess. His novel Nothing Like the Sun tells a plausible tale of Shakespeare's life on the assumption that all of the sonnets he wrote were really about his own lovers and not just for the money. It's a little slow to get started, but I've read many worse pieces of historical fiction. Shakespeare here is seduced into marriage, falls for a (historically famous) black prostitute, and has a long affair with a young lord. It's a lot of fun.
On the other hand, I've read very few comics that were worse than the two volumes of Kill Shakespeare. Even worse, I read them because I saw them on a high school reading list. Let me assure you that no high schooler will learn anything useful about Shakespeare, or literature, or much of anything by reading these. For starters, you need to actually know some of the plays to really appreciate the references. At a minimum you need Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Richard III, Othello, something with Falstaff and Macbeth. Since no high school has read more than two of those, a lot of the references will be lost. I'm not sure it matters anyway; most of what they have happen in the story is utter crap. Conceptually, it's fine: Hamlet sails from Denmark off to England, but when pirates attack he is knocked overboard and wakes up in a kingdom where Shakespeare is a literal god and Richard III and Lady Macbeth want to kill him. Meanwhile, Othello, Juliet & Falstaff want to find Shakespeare to defeat Richard and Lady Macbeth. And Iago betrays everybody, because that's apparently all you can do when you're drawn that way. Sadly, the story they tell with this set up is boring. In order to help you out, I'll spoil the only good scene for you so you don't have to read all the rest of the crap. Macbeth of course cannot be killed by man of woman born - so Richard III and Lady Macbeth drug his wine and entomb ala The Cask of Amontillado. Clever.
Lastly, I recently contributed to the Kickstarter to fund To Be or Not to Be: That is the Adventure by Ryan North of Dinosaur Comic fame. Yes, this is a Hamlet choose your own adventure. It's totally awesome. I haven't finished it because there is a vast multitude of possible endings and I have not read every one yet, but based on the sample so far, it is by far the finest Hamlet-based fiction I have read yet. I also got the add-on premium Poor Yorick, which is a much shorter choose your adventure book where you are Yorick, and you need to die in a such a way to inspire Hamlet some years hence. It's hilarious. Also courtesy of the Kickstarter, I now have a giant plush Yorick skull on my desk at work. I look forward to North's next project: Romeo And/Or Juliet.
On a side note, I find it a little sad that googling Yorick turns up a video game wiki about a character named Yorick first and the actual Yorick second.
That's the only official canon I've read so far this year, but I did reach a bunch of other Shakespeare-themed stuff this year.
My parents were given a copy of Stephen Marche's How Shakespeare Changed Everything, which is the sort of book you write if you are an English professor who has to write a book to make tenure. Ok, so that's a bit harsh but most of this book is a rehash of fun stories about Shakespeare, or more accurately his the weird things his fans have done. It is well written so if you're new to the story of how a Shakespeare fan caused starlings to infest America and other suc things you'll probably enjoy it. The only story that was new to me was about the man who convinced a significant portion of England's literary elite that he'd found a completely unknown Shakespearean play, as well as dozens of other artifacts. Spoilers: he had not, but he made a lot of money on it.
Moving back to the realm of fiction, I turned to Anthony Burgess. His novel Nothing Like the Sun tells a plausible tale of Shakespeare's life on the assumption that all of the sonnets he wrote were really about his own lovers and not just for the money. It's a little slow to get started, but I've read many worse pieces of historical fiction. Shakespeare here is seduced into marriage, falls for a (historically famous) black prostitute, and has a long affair with a young lord. It's a lot of fun.
On the other hand, I've read very few comics that were worse than the two volumes of Kill Shakespeare. Even worse, I read them because I saw them on a high school reading list. Let me assure you that no high schooler will learn anything useful about Shakespeare, or literature, or much of anything by reading these. For starters, you need to actually know some of the plays to really appreciate the references. At a minimum you need Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Richard III, Othello, something with Falstaff and Macbeth. Since no high school has read more than two of those, a lot of the references will be lost. I'm not sure it matters anyway; most of what they have happen in the story is utter crap. Conceptually, it's fine: Hamlet sails from Denmark off to England, but when pirates attack he is knocked overboard and wakes up in a kingdom where Shakespeare is a literal god and Richard III and Lady Macbeth want to kill him. Meanwhile, Othello, Juliet & Falstaff want to find Shakespeare to defeat Richard and Lady Macbeth. And Iago betrays everybody, because that's apparently all you can do when you're drawn that way. Sadly, the story they tell with this set up is boring. In order to help you out, I'll spoil the only good scene for you so you don't have to read all the rest of the crap. Macbeth of course cannot be killed by man of woman born - so Richard III and Lady Macbeth drug his wine and entomb ala The Cask of Amontillado. Clever.
Lastly, I recently contributed to the Kickstarter to fund To Be or Not to Be: That is the Adventure by Ryan North of Dinosaur Comic fame. Yes, this is a Hamlet choose your own adventure. It's totally awesome. I haven't finished it because there is a vast multitude of possible endings and I have not read every one yet, but based on the sample so far, it is by far the finest Hamlet-based fiction I have read yet. I also got the add-on premium Poor Yorick, which is a much shorter choose your adventure book where you are Yorick, and you need to die in a such a way to inspire Hamlet some years hence. It's hilarious. Also courtesy of the Kickstarter, I now have a giant plush Yorick skull on my desk at work. I look forward to North's next project: Romeo And/Or Juliet.
On a side note, I find it a little sad that googling Yorick turns up a video game wiki about a character named Yorick first and the actual Yorick second.