Fiction or non-fiction? Fiction

What led you to pick up this book? Continuing on the Shakespeare complete works journey. Never saw this one live, yet.

Plot summary: Othello elopes with Desdemona, without her father’s permission, and sends their lives and everyone else into a tailspin.

Do you recommend this book? All Shakespeare is recommended.

Planting doubt; the insidious erosion of love with lies.....

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1177362...

I knew next to nothing about Othello before this, and the single point that jumped out at me, given my peculiar interests, is that apart from the first act the whole thing is set on Cyprus, a place where interethnic fault lines remain sufficiently sharply drawn to keep me in business. Of course, this is a fairly fantastical Cyprus, whose geography consists of a single port town with a castle, and which is close enough to Venice that the Venetians hear of a planned Turkish invasion in time to stop it. It is also a Cyprus with almost no indigenous population, the Venetian garrison supplying the bulk of the dramatis personæ. But I was struck by the coincidence.

While I think it's fair to say that the main theme of the play is psychological - Iago's jealousy of Othello's status, Othello's manufactured jealousy of the fictional affair between Cassio and Desdemona - Iago is clearly a racist, and that is clearly part of what makes him evil. Shakespeare's depiction in Othello of racism as fundamentally wrong is a far cry from his treatment of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, let alone Aaron in Titus Andronicus.

Apart from the dubious Cypriot geography, the basic plot of Othello is almost the most believable so far. Iago has to be pretty smart to avoid detection, but even so his wife spots what he is up to in the end. Desdemona's remarkable, if temporary, recovery from asphyxiation is the most counterfactual thing in the play. In good hands this should be an excellent character study of people behaving, and misbehaving, under stress.

Arkangel largely rise to the occasion, with Don Warrington excelling in the title role, and David Threlfall also excellent as Iago. (Tracy-Anne Obermann, who like Don Warrington has been killed by Cybermen in Doctor Who, plays Bianca.) The music is particularly well chosen - a rather fifteenth-century feel to it, with Desdemona's song especially memorable. One of the good ones. ( )

possibly my favorite Shakespeare play. betrayal. destruction. suicide. what more could you need? oh the epitome of artsy fartsy Mr. Shakespeare! ( )

Not really sure how one is meant to judge Shakespeare plays - either against other books or against each other. The story doesn't seem an appropriate way of judging, as hardly any of them are original. I don't feel anything like qualified enough to comment on Shakespeare's use of language, and let's face it - no one *really* gets the jokes. Or do they? But I did rather enjoy Othello and I'm looking forward to going to see it in February.

For a review of the 2009 RSC production see http://elmyra.livejournal.com/485473.... ( )