Monthly Monkey Mini Review – March

Hello all! I know I don’t normally do life updates on my blog, but it’s just been one of those crazy hectic weeks and I’ve not been online much (sorry for being really behind on comments and the like!), so I thought I’d tell you all what I’d been up to aside from work/life/blog…

Firstly, we’ve had pretty heavy snow this week, which is sooo pretty (also a total pain if you actually have to get places and don’t want to freeze in the process)

Secondly, yesterday was a little known Jewish festival called Purim- the best way to describe it is as a cross between Halloween and Christmas- it’s seriously underrated 😉

And lastly, I’ve been painting these cartoons of course! (this post is getting somewhat meta…)

Anyway, this is still my monthly mini reviews post, which means it’s high time to talk about some of the books I read last month. I read quite a few books (before slumping pretty hard over a non-fic at the end of the month), however most of those are gonna get full reviews- which means I only have two for now. For some reason, I was feeling unusually motivated to read lots of Shakespeare at the start of the month. And since I don’t really like doing full length Shakespeare reviews, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts in brief.

Titus Andronicus– well this might just be the most traumatising thing I’ve ever read. Nearly a month after reading it and I *still* cannot stop thinking about it. It’s not just that it’s phenomenally graphic and disturbing, the imagery is so symbolic. This story, so rooted in the literary tradition, has an untenable link with so much of popular culture- parts of this narrative have travelled from Greek mythology to Game of Thrones. It’s a violent tale imprinted on the Western consciousness. There’s something about it that’s hard to shake- and perhaps that’s why it won’t get out of my head.

Sidenote: I watched the film version with Anthony Hopkins after and, man, it was pure GENIUS. It made me want to watch every other film by Julie Taymor.

Rating: 5/5 bananas

The Winter’s Tale– I already knew this as one of the “problem plays” and after my not-so-good experience of Measure for Measure, I didn’t think I was going to like it. I was pleasantly surprised though- it was a surprisingly good story, considering everything I’d heard. I kinda think of this as King Lear 2.0: Where Everything Works Out Despite the King’s Pride. I do understand why people say it’s hard to place in terms of genre- it has a tragic feel, yet ends as a comedy. Nonetheless, it was tonally consistent, which meant it felt somewhat experimental, yet ultimately successful.

Rating: 4/5 bananas

 

Okey dokey- hope you enjoyed that! Have you had a nice week? And have you read either of these? Let me know in the comments!