Romeo and Juliet (Manga Version)

Manga Classics

Publication date: May 25, 2018

Description:

I donʻt think anyone needs a description. This is the standard 9th grade Shakespeare read in high schools across the United States and has been for the 23 years that I have been teaching English. The cover with the sword between them is meant to be a metaphor and not a spoiler. After all, this is not how they die. This is not a murder suicide domestic abuse story. I mean, this is a tragedy after all. Like all Shakespeare tragedies, the hero along with a multitude of other characters dies, but usually after a series of poorly timed misunderstandings (by the hero).

My thoughts:

Comics doing classics is not new. I think the first classic canonical literature piece that I read as a comic (graphic novel) was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein followed by Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I went on to read one in its prose form (Frankenstein) and not the other. I tell that story because I think as a reader of graphic novels (GN) and as an English teacher, I think the power of the GN for students is to give them enough of the story and its appeals to then make the reader more comfortable to read the original novel. I read Frankenstein because what was evident in the GN was that the "monster" was the most humane character. He was the moral center and I wanted to learn more. That GN led me to Shelley's novel but it also led me to Paradise Lost which was Shelley's influence for her Frankenstein. 

For struggling readers, I feel like the GN or manga classic is an even more crucial opportunity to bring readers to the original text. What this one did well in that arena is to use the over exaggerated manga faces to emote shame, fury, sorrow, ridicule. As I read the notes at the back of the book, I can confirm that I saw the illustrators really trying to capture the text and the metaphor in manga style. I disagree with the hooded metaphor since the writer describes a hooded eagle when the metaphor is a falconry metaphor, but that is a minor point and perhaps a faux pas lost in translation. 

What it does exceptionally well is that this manga captures the comic nurse character in all of her jest like qualities. It does not pull off the puns or "pun y ness" of the original text like the back and forth with Juliet and the nurse or the way she goes o and onn in Act I with Lady Capulet until the Lady has had enough. However, I found the comic relief well timed.

I think what will stop struggling readers is that there is just too much of the text. While it is good to grab texts from Shakespeare, at 400 pages, it's daunting for non readers. Maybe if it was whittled down to 125 I would be able to put this in the hands of struggling readers to just get enough of the story to feel more confident in the full text rather than having the full text as interpreted by the artists and illustrators. 

This advanced digital copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review.