Reseña - El mercader de Venecia // Review - The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare)

·Author: William Shakespeare

·Adapted version by Macmillan Readers

·Plot: Shylock, an old jew, lends money to the merchant Antonio, but the stakes are high. When Antonio cannot pay him back, Shylock demands a terrible punishment.

·Opinion:

This was actually a book I had to read for school. Of course I had heard of Shakespeare’s famous  plays before, but yet never decided to go and try with one of them. However, when I started reading this book my espectatives were sincerely different  to what I now think after having read it. And I mean different for the worse. At first I thought “well it’s an old classic, it might not be that much interesting”. Bad from me, I know. From the second page on, I couldn’t get an eye off. And I finished reading it in two days. I was completly fascinated by how hooking the story was.

Of course, it’s an adapted version since even a native speaker would find it difficult to understand the english in the original book. Anyway, I really like this Macmillan edition because at some points there are short fragments in the original language and, eventhough it’s quite different, it’s still interesting to see how words have changed.

For me, this story was a surprise. It combined the perfect amount of tragedy and comedy, incredibly clever turns to the plot, the contrast of cultures (Jewish’ and Christians’ relations at that time), love, and everything perfectly portraying the city of Venice.

Such a great idea starting with the classics! I will be reading Hamlet for this month so… I really hope it doesn’t let me down.

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