::Great Sites::
Recent Content Quake Posts
- Britney Spears at the VMA's - Posted to Celebrity Fashion
- BSG Survivor - Season 2, Round 4 - Posted to Battlestar Galactica
- Game Preview: Vikings at Packers (Week 1) - Posted to Minnesota Vikings
- Monday's Child - Posted to Special Needs Parent
- Madden 09 Predictions: Week 1 Vikings vs Packers - Posted to Minnesota Vikings
Subscribe through Feedburner
-
Archives
-
Categories
|
| ||||||||
|
 |
Turning classic works of literature into comic books isn’t a new idea. I remember in school when my teachers were trying to get caught up on grading papers or picking the glitter out of their lunches or taking smoke breaks they’d put a stack of comic book versions of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Ivanhoe, Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and other great books on the table at the front of the room and tell us to keep quiet. The problem with these books generally was that they seemed “dumbed down”. It wasn’t just that all the heavy narrative stuff was turned into pictures; the dialogue was greatly simplified and the plots often pared down. Also, I’m pretty sure that in books like Gulliver’s Travels some of the really fun stuff—for instance, Gulliver urinating on the palace of the Lilliputian king to put out a fire—was left out. I didn’t mind comic books being pushed on us as busy work; it beat copying stuff out of the dictionary, but the intent of these comics, which I thought was that we weren’t smart enough to appreciate the full stories, bugged me Needless to say I had pretty low expectations when I heard about manga versions of Shakespeare plays, but, surprisingly, they retain the original language. These are not Shakespeare’s plays can be hard reading for anyone simply because in Shakespeare’s time stage directions and scenery were often described in dialogue; the audiences relied less on backdrops and more on what the actors were saying. Adapting them as comic books is a smart way of making smart literature readable and interesting without insulting the intelligence of younger readers–a group that neither deserves nor needs to have its intelligence insulted. And happy birthday, Mr. Shakespeare.
Comments2 Comments so far |
|
| ||||
|
Copyright © 2007 Just Write • Powered by WordPress • Driven by the internet domain registration services of Loud Sign.
| ||||||||
I’ll have to admit, when I saw your title I clicked on your page expecting a rant. A literary critic praising manga is …surprising, to say the least!
I’m happy to hear that they kept the original language. I’ll have to go find a copy and check it out (by ‘find a copy’ I mean ‘hang out in Barnes and Noble sipping a chai tea’ and reading books that don’t belong to me).
When I started looking into these manga editions of Shakespeare I thought they’d be rant-worthy! But it’s not manga I’d have trouble with–it’s the dumbing-down of great literature. But great literature can definitely be found in any genre.
By the way, while I’m all for hanging out in your favorite bookstore sipping a chai tea (or an iced coffee), check out the publisher’s web site. You can get a good look at the books there.