#9 Hamlet

That's right, I'm feeling inadequate because of Minternational's quantity of prizewinning books, so I'm pulling rank - Shakespeare! Kudos! Unless you have Homer on your list, I win!

I sometimes wonder why literature is taught to young teenagers, or at least why it is taught without context and preparation. Shakespeare was fairly unintelligible to me and to most of my colleagues; picking Macbeth because "it has lots of blood in it, and I know that will appeal to you" was not, in retrospect, the best way for our teacher to get us into the bard.

However, during my later years at school, and taking lit. at A level, I had to write an extended essay and I needed a unique theme. I chose Mental Decay in Shakespeare; if you know me, you may know why. And with my context for this theme, King Lear started to have some relevance, Macbeth started to make sense. But Hamlet stood out.

I'm not overly sure about taking it to a desert island, given its lack of cheer (although it does have that glimmer of the light of the dawn of hope at the very end). And I'm not someone who relishes all of his work by any means (I think many of the comedies are, far from works of genius, in fact proto-Carry On films, with lots of innuendo and rude jokes; I'm surprised no one shouts "Oooh Matron!"). But for me Hamlet is a practically seamless work of splendour, with the unfolding mystery, the moral dilemmas worked out in tortured but glowing lyricism, and the brooding atmosphere with a sense of timelessness, yet knowing time is ticking away to some kind of showdown. And I love the castle as the stage: it's a silent presence - not like Gormenghast, vast and terrifying in its labyrinth; but as a self-contained world which shows up the characters and story.

Anyway, it's pretty good. And actually, I quite liked Mel Gibson in the role, as improbable as that sounds. Aside from his death scene which would make Ernie Wise jealous, it was great to have a manly Hamlet for a change, and not someone flouncing about in tights. Lots of stuff was missing, but he spun that sword with verve.