No Fear Shakespeare: Hamlet illustrated by Neil Babra

My 16-year-old daughter and I are studying a few Shakespeare plays this month and I have found that very often this kind of stuff (classic literature, I mean) is best approached from a variety of different angles. At first when we studied a classic piece of literature I would have her read the original first and then we'd take a look at the many variations out there--movies, simplified versions, graphic novels, spin-offs, etc. But I found that, in many cases, by the time she'd slogged through the original text, she'd lost all her enjoyment of the story and was so DONE exploring it that she was unwilling to look further. Worse, she would develop a firm dislike of the piece of literature that I love and was so looking forward to sharing with her! So, I have flip-flopped my approach. Now we read the variations first, so that she gets a good grip on the basic story and so that she gets to enjoy the many more accessible versions out there first. Once she's got the story down, we go to the original text. This works much better for us.

And so, this week it is Hamlet, the famous Dane, possibly Shakespeare's best-known and most quoted play. I really liked this graphic novel. For one thing, I really liked the text. I thought that much of Shakespeare's original plays on words and his clever prose was well reproduced. I also liked the illustrations. They were both stark--probably because they were in black and white--and expressive, almost fantastical. I guess when you're talking about ghosts and madness a little fantasy is in order. I studied this play in high school and college and have watched it more than a few times. But I don't think I ever really "got" it in the same way I "got" it from reading this book. Is it because I've always focused on the parts and not as much on the whole? Is it because I float away on the iambic pentameter without really taking note of the story? I don't know, but reading Hamlet this way, as a graphic novel, illuminated the story for me in a way I haven't seen it before. I really enjoyed it.

Be warned, Shakespeare is earthy and bloody. That stuff is more palatable when it's in Elizabethan rhythmic prose. It's a bit more, er, graphic, here. But just a bit. I'm pretty sure I said this before, when I read the graphic "Macbeth", but I'd like to collect graphic versions of ALL of Shakespeare's plays. There's nothing like the bard's flowing and clever prose in its original, or even live on the stage, but I find that these graphic novels enrich understanding and add enjoyment. And, after all, Shakespeare was always meant to entertain and to bring enjoyment, right?