Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Paperback – April 11, 2017

I got this to read for class and it was wonderful! I love it! It was very funny.

This little gem is an existential tour-de-force. Quick read and lots of "high level" laughs. I've seen a couple Stoppard plays, but not this. I can see why it put him on the map. And, of course, ur makes me want to read Hamlet again.

Well, to say I didn't like the book would be a lie. It wasn't a blast but it was quite interesting seeing the existential crisis R&G have through the novel. I gave hamlet 4 stars as well because both deal with the same story and I thought the story wasn't that excellent. Maybe as a play they are more enrolling but as literature, in a solid book form, they don't provide any sense of wonder or surprise.

I got to “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead”, the play book, via the 1990 movie which was brilliant, but the words came too fast for me, a fire hose of words I didn’t want to miss. The movie is a master class in mummery and slapstick. The play book lets me relish the words at my comprehension speed.

I have encountered this play periodically over the last twenty years, and it does not dull with each successive read.

Just one of my favorite lines from this fine play is "What a fine persectution--to be kept intrigued without ever being enlightened." That is the predicament of two bit players in the grand pageant that is Shakespeare's Hamlet. They know little about their childhood friend and less about court intrigues. They are we, and we are they. Like Rosencrantz, we observe closely and infer. Like Guildenstern, we trust that reason and precedent will deliver truth. For these poor fellows, neither experience nor reason enlightens and they end with a whimper, not a bang. The play is--well, playful. Stoppard plays with language, belief, classic characters, life and death. Read it aloud. Read it to yourself. Reread Hamlet, then read Stoppard's play again. Keep a copy near and dip into it in idle moments. It will delight and inform.

RAGAD is an enjoyable, satirical poke at all that is Shakespearean tragedy, digestible in one sitting. It simultaneously connects with its reader by adroitly mirroring the confusion we all feel when attempting to answer the age-old question "Why are we here?"

... but far from his best, more mature work