Othello

Rating:
Summary: It's no tragedy to read this play.
Review: Othello is only the second play I have read by Shakespeare. I enjoy this play far better than Romeo and Juliet. Perhaps the reason for my enjoyment of this play stems from the satisfaction I got from choosing this play on my own rather than reading it as an all class assignment like that of Romeo and Juliet last year. More importantly however, are the all too human themes, notably jealousy, discussed in this play that grabs my attention. While my review is for the most part positive, there are some disappointments in this play. The character, Othello, is one of nobility and unswerving loyalty both to his profession and to his wife, Desdemona. This is what his character should rightly be, as Othello is an army officer of high rank. Yet, it seems that a few venomous words from Iago is all it takes to stir enough jealousy within Othello for him to readily murder the wife that he seemed to have so faithfully loved. Even at my youthful sixteen years, Othello's character seems faulty and either paints a false picture of nobility and loyalty or jealousy. Or maybe it is because of my age that I fail to realize that perhaps Shakespeare sought to express the power of jealousy in such a way that even a person of such high rank in the military can stumble quite easily at the first taste of jealousy. I just learned this year in English that, according courtly love, love does not come without jealousy. Maybe one can apply this to Othello in terms of his love for Desdemona. For him, love could have come with jealousy attached to it. Just as much as Othello loved Desdemona, he is just as full of jealousy if ever he were to hear of someone loving his Desdemona. Unfortunately, his handling of the situation was not very noble and I am nevertheless disappointed in this. Jealousy also affected Iago when Cassio was chosen instead of himself to be Othello's right-hand man. Iago was corrupt to begin with and jealousy heightened this corruption. Iago's character is also a mastery of irony and hypocrisy; either that or the other characters were too gullible. All, in all, Othello is an intriguing play that has raised many more questions than I am able to discuss here, be it time constraints or intelligence capacity constraints. Shakespeare has hooked my attention for many plays to come.

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Summary: The Arden Shakespeare is excellent!
Review: The play "Othello" is magnificant, and there are plenty of reviews to attest to that. This reviewer wants to point out greatness of the publisher and editor in this case (referring to the Arden Shakespeare). After buying Arden's "Henry V" publication a year ago, I have become a devout fan.

I will never buy Shakespeare from another publisher. While these books may be slightly more expensive than a "mass market" edition, I believe that if you are going to take the time to read and understand Shakespeare, it is well worth the extra dollar or two. The Introduction, the images, and plethora of footnotes are irreplaceable and nearly neccessary for a full understanding of the play (for those of us who are not scholars already). I recommend that you buy ALL of Shakespeare's work from Arden's critical editions.

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Summary: Art to us
Review: What to say is that I love it and it makes me greater in thoubght. Shakespeare was a beautiful and wonderful soul of one thousand different faces.

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Summary: AN ASS THAT WILL NOT MEND HIS PACE WITH BEATING
Review: My one star is not directed toward OTHELLO, which is one of Shakespeare's greatest dramatic achievements, but is directed toward Ms. Sean Ares Hirsch, who is either one of the dumbest readers I know of or one of the most facetious (I pray the latter). She refers to this minor piece as "Shakespeare's slump" and elaborates by saying that the play's characters, minus Iago, are flat. Looking at the fairly impressive amount that Ms. Hirsch has read (possibly in the WORLD CLASSICS FOR CHILDREN series), it is unthinkable to conclude that she is actually as mentally challenged as she appears. She contradicts nearly 400 years of criticism in slighting OTHELLO, something that I recall a couple of well-known drug users in one of my high school English classes doing 25 years go. I must admit that I occasionally become concerned that Ms. Hirsch is actually being candid when reading her reviews, which are rather unimaginative and when grouped into three categories (works she doesn't like, works she likes fairly well, and works she loves) and then read, all begin to repeat themselves in trite groups of three. Yet, considering the fact that if Ms. Hirsch were to turn in one of her reviews (especially the ones on OTHELLO and TWELFTH NIGHT, which is, though AS YOU LIKE IT is a close second, probably Shakespeare's greatest comedy) to even a kindergarten teacher, she (Ms. Hirsch) would be thoroughly laughed at, I must conclude that these reviews are largely sarcastic-possibly clever parodies of those of the average construction-worker critic. OTHELLO is, as I am sure Ms. Hirsch actually believes, one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, though not, of course, quite matching LEAR or HAMLET. I would like to try my hand at one of Ms. Hirsch clever parodies. Don't judge me too harshly. Be kind. I am not as skilled as she is. Here we go: ............. Review of AS YOU LIKE IT: "My only complaint about this play is that Shakespeare overtly forced himself to include Rosalind, Jacques, Touchstone, Orlando, Duke Senior, and above all Phebe. Had he excluded the aforementioned figures from the action, he could have indeed much improved this so-called "problem play". Although this play lacks the hilarious tone of Webster's WHITE DEVIL or the superb construction of Carlos Williams's RED WHEELBARROW, it is a fine play. Duke Senior's defiant usurpation of the woodlands and Rosalind's atavistic reversion to conspicuous, though hardly narcissistically cogent, transvestitism do not effect the play's nefarious, wholly phallic destruction. The play's conclusion at the joyous feast of Hemline rectifies all wrongs and negates our suspicions concerning Shakespeare's sexual unrest or "rough and all-unable pen" (certainly a Freudian reference). If you read this, knowing not to expect a virile Bard, you may find it a very pleasant play."

David Lawrence, D.D.T. ([e-mail])

Rating:
Summary: Naxos complete recording one of their series' best
Review: The recent Naxos AudioBook entry in their Classic Drama Series, <Othello> NA 320612), is so well directed by David Timson that it fairly boils along. Granted that some passages are read a bit too swiftly to be followed by those without texts open before them, but one gets the feeling that this is a play and not a 400 year old monument. There are moments, however, when one could use some extra noises-on, so to speak. When Iago gets Cassio drunk, a little more rowdiness from extras would be appropriate--but perhaps I am spoiled by too many film versions and certainly by the full chorus in Verdi's opera.

Hugh Quarshie makes a more interesting Othello than a great one. He does not have that Paul Robeson voice that one tends to associate with the role, and he understands the part light years better than the Othello of that unfortunate film version a few years back. But his lightweight approach does not work when the mouth-filling flights of poetry make their demands after he is convinced of Desdamona's infidelity.

Anton Lesser also makes a fine but not great impression as Iago. Perhaps he needs to use more variety of delivery when he is being "honest" with the other characters. After all, his approach to Othello should not be in the same key as that to Roderigo or even to Cassio. Iago is a supreme actor, so it takes an equally supreme one to play him.

For once, we can hear Emilia (Patience Tomlinson) hesitate when she speaks of the "lost" handkerchief; although on a sound recording she cannot give us the body-language to explain why she betrays her lady for the sake of her husband. The Cassio (Roger May) is very good in the handkerchief scene with Iago and the hidden, miscomprehending Othello.

The running time is just over 3 hours, 11 minutes longer than the venerable Shakespeare Recording Society with Frank Silvera as Othello and Cyril Cusack as Iago, now available on Harper Audio. There still might be available a very dull version with Richard Johnson and Ian Holm, but avoid it.

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Summary: Easy way to understand what shakespeare meant
Review: I think that as the author explained in the intro the original is hard to understand due to the venacular at use. The author took the story and munipulated it to fit the style of our times. He did this well and kept the story captivating and uses actual words for the story. He also eases the reader by making it a novel with inside feelings and thoughts which are harder to comprehend in play form. Its a great book to read. I recommend it for anyone that has ever had to read shakespeare and not completly understood what they were reading.

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Summary: greatest depiction of evil?
Review: The literary heritage of Satan is upheld in this great work of psychological, Machavellian fiction. That should be enough to have you buy and read it right there.

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Summary: this is not othello!
Review: One of my main concerns in looking at the reviews for this novel were that most of them reviewed not this version of the play, but were reviewing the actual play by shakespeare itself. While I considered it kind of funny that people would take the time to give a bad review to a play that has been considered one of the great treasures of English literature for centuries, I thought it was somewhat tragic that they would give a bad review based solely in some cases on what could only be called a synopsis of the original work. True, the author went through the trouble of changing the race of a couple of characters, and in effect ruined a lot of the drama of the original work, but largely this is simply a poorly written synopsis of a literary classic. The problem with all such watered down versions of the original works is that they are not the original work. The original work, while it may be hard to understand, is a work of art, anything that merely gives the gist of the action in the original play is going to necessarily lose a lot of the original language and the original art. This novel is no different. Read the original!

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Summary: The illusion of trust and the semblance of honesty
Review: "Othello" is a wonderfully constructed tragedy. At its core, we have Othello, an experienced black general, who is however terribly naive off the battle field and puts his trust in anyone who seems remotely honest. After his marriage to Desdemona, a white senator's daughter, Othello departs with her to Cyprus to fight the Turcs. Once there, however, his ensign Iago proceeds to torment him by suggesting that Desdemona is unfaithful to him; Othello believes him and thus leads the play to its tragic ending. What is played upon here is the subtle difference between semblance and truth - Othello trusts too easily the ironicaly called "honest Iago" and only believes what he sees. He demands proof, but the "proof" that Iago gives him is nothing more than a subtle game of illusion in which Iago seems honest and Desdemona unfaithful. Language plays an interesting part also, with Othello believing every one of Iago's sly suggestions and interpreting Desdemona's innocent replys as proof of her infidelity. The play is constructed around two couples: Othello and Desdemona, Iago and his wife Emilia. Both are jealous men, Iago believing his wife has been unfaithful to him with the general - and yet Othello isn't, like Iago, evil by nature, just a weak trusting fool. Desdemona and Emilia are both innocent of these charges, and yet the former is more pure and naive than the down to earth Emilia.What is remarkable in this play is the tension between conflicting forces or themes: between the honest Othello and the evil Iago; between the "angel" Desdemona and, in turn, the "devil" Othello/Iago; between illusion and truth; jealousy and trust; appearances and proof; good and evil, black and white. Like King Lear, like OEdipus, Othello is blind to the truth and only realises it too late.

Rating:
Summary: Othello
Review: I thought it was a great book. I was a little hard to understand at first, but take your time with it. Read it slow and make sure that you understand what characters are talking. I think some of the fighting acts with Iago verses Rodrigo are pretty powerful. There is alot of jelousy that comes with this book. People back in the dark days seemed never to get along. Desdamona is one person in this book that really stands out she is Othello's wife; tell the evil ------ ? I won't spoil it for you that way you have to read this book for yourself. I think you will enjoy it give it a try.