“Rosencrants and Guildenstem Are Dead” by Tom Stoppard

We all know the classic play of Hamlet by Shakespeare; some of us have had it engrained in our skulls during our school years. Regardless, the point is that the story has been around for a long time, and if you look around, you’ll see that many authors have taken the liberty of adding their own twists to it. Tom Stoppard is one of these authors, and in my opinion, his twist is one of the more clever ones.

In Rosencrants and Guildenstem Are Dead, Tom Stoppard recounts the story of Hamlet with only one minor difference: it is done from the perspective of two minor characters, Rosencrants and Guildenstem. While it may not sound like a very innovative twist, just bear with me for a paragraph or two. 

I believe that even Tom Stoppard wasn't sure about his idea until the work has been fleshed out. By placing two minor characters in the lead roles, the story started to take somewhat different twists and turns, by the end, becoming unrecognizable, at least when compared to the original play.

Without giving too much away, I can say that this little twist affected the play in a very humorous manner; after all, the two minor characters were never designed to rise up to the leading roles, making them quite, unprepared, for lack of a better word, for the story they have been thrust in. This gives way to a number of comic situations… however, it seems that a tragic ending cannot be avoided in the story of Hamlet. Once again though, whether or not it’s a tragedy really depends on your point of view.

In my opinion, this is one of the most original novels I’ve read in my lifetime, and I highly recommend that you read it, regardless of what your taste in literature is… you’ll be very hard-pressed to find anything else like it, at least from an originality perspective. I really don’t want to give anything else away about the book and let you discover its magic for yourself. 

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Tom Stoppard Tom Stoppard is a British playwright who is of Czech nationality originally, and was actually knighted in 1997. He has been dishing out works of writing one after the next over decades, and amongst them are many prominent ones such as Professional Foul, Brazil, Shakespeare in Love and his sole novel, Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon.