Much Ado About Nothing

Title : Much Ado About Nothing

Writer : William Shakespeare

Year :

Language : English

I’m very familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet. No wonder, because it is the most famous story of Shakespeare. However, he is actually famous also for his other tragedies and comedies. Much Ado About Nothing is one of his comedies.

It starts with the coming of Don Pedro and his fellows to the house of Leonato. Claudio who falls in love with Hero, Leonato’s daughter, wants to woo her. Don Pedro, as his friends, promises to woo and approach Hero for him. In the meantime, Don John who hears this news, is ready to mess it up because his jealousy towards Claudio. Thus, he plans something tricky to embarrass Hero and fail the organized marriage.

On the other side, Benedick, who is skeptical to marriage, questions hid friend’s decision to marry Hero. He even doesn’t have interest to women. Just the same as Beatrice, Hero’s cousin. She hates men, and never wants to be in love or marry someone. This ridiculous condition is used by both side of Don Pedro and Leonato. They try to provoke Benedick and Beatrice so that they can be in love unconsciously. That plan is well done, Benedick and Beatrice are suddenly in love and forget about their opinion on love and marriage.

The chaos begins when Claudio is provoked by Don John that Don Pedro will woo Hero for himself, not for Claudio. It continues with a lie proposed by Don John that Hero has an affair with somebody else. That makes the marriage canceled. Hero is frustrating, and her family plans an investigation on the case, also a persuasion to convince Claudio again. Then when it is clear that Hero does not have an affair with anyone else, Claudio is willing to take her again as his wife.

The story is not as genius as Othelo actually, but here, we can still take an example that people can be so ignorance once they are in emotion. People have a common “heartache” of jealousy, stupidity, skepticism, and other. Only they themselves who can cure it, heal it, and find the solution for it. Oh, and I love very much the characters of Benedick and Beatrice. They are very skeptical yet funny. Their part is the best of this drama.

Well, if we look at nowadays love story, then this drama will be very common and usual. But, if we look at it as a masterpiece and a classic story, then it is indeed genius. Shakespeare had showed us how easy people can be manipulated and stirred by lies proposed by other people.

Rating : 3

The Virgin Suicides

Title : The Virgin Suicides

Writer : Jeffrey Eugenides

Year : 1993

Language : English (translated into Indonesian)

It is the first book of Jeffrey Eugenides, and if I’m not wrong, he is the writer of a sensational book, Middlesex. However, the story seems to be far from that love story, since he provides us (the readers) a very mysterious suicides story. And again, if I’m not wrong, the novel itself had been transformed into a movie back years ago.

I’m actually never interested in mysterious fiction, because I love drama more than any other genre of fiction. For me, drama can give us a deeper meaning, lesson, and philosophy so that people who read the drama can get something after reading it. At first, I was skeptical to this novel. And I did not read the book very willingly, I just wanted to have something “good” to read since I missed a very nice classic novel for my business…previously.

The story is about a girl named Cecilia who committed suicide for an unknown reason. Her sisters seem very desperate facing her death. Moreover, their mother attitudes and family policy worsen the aftermath condition of their home. The four sisters are eager to get their normal teenage life, but their mother never gives that because of one, her own strict policy, and two, because of Cecilia’s death.

When they try to rebel and resist, the only thing that they get is just their mother’s anger and stricter family policy. They’re getting more and more desperate. They never give up, they always try to do something to resist their own mother. Lux, the naughtiest girl of four sisters, is the one who rebel so much in many things. She never doubts to do free sex with so many guys, and she never think and is never care about what she’d done. She is the bravest one in front of her mother.

Cecilia’s mysterious death seems to draw the four sisters to be more united. They protect each other, and also protect the memoir of Cecilia. They look stranger in front of their friends, but they also try to look normal. And, because of Lux brave action after the Homecoming Party, the four sisters are banned to live home and to go to school by their mother and that, even make them stranger and stranger for their friends and neighbors.

Well, because a great pressure burdened by their mother, the four sisters eventually take the same way as Cecilia that is committing suicides. They kill themselves by different way. And, even the police, doctor, and the neighbors try to seek the real cause of their decision to kill themselves, the cause was never emerge in surface. It is still mysterious.

Well, I don’t really like the way the writer build the story. Although he is genius enough to make such an incredible plot, but his diction does not support the mystery within the story.

Rating : 2.5