Our bookclub book this month is Macbeth by William Shakespeare.  Kind of funny to go from Sophie Kinsella to Shakespeare but I guess that says a lot about my eclectic reading taste more than anything else!  I’ve really enjoyed reading and listening to it again this month.  I hope the language doesn’t seem too daunting for some.  I love it!

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day. To the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle, life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”

Who could not like such poetry? What a ghastly and ghoulish tale full of murder, revenge, uprising, ghosts, witches and the madness of the human mind. It is without a doubt one of the greatest of Shakespeare’s works and one of the most unique, having elements of Hamlet, King Lear and Othello but still remaining a singular work.

I hadn’t read it for many years but what struck me this time is the theme of time. Macbeth learns his future, as many of us would wish to do, and then is compelled to make that future his own at any cost. How many of us would do the same? How many of us dream of a grand life and don’t realize that what we have at the moment is already as grand as we are meant to be?

I think most of us if given the opportunity for our dream life would make certain sacrifices that we would later regret. Hopefully not as dramatic as Macbeth but still I think we’d be lying if we didn’t admit to at least be tempted to do almost anything to get where we knew for sure we could get.

I also find the madness of Lady Macbeth very interesting.  How can we go from being so sure of something to being completely controlled and mad from anguish from it?  In a tail of witches and ghosts it is perhaps the twisting of the human brain that is the most terrifying of all?  They say all of Shakespeare’s tragic characters have fatal flaws.  No doubt Macbeth’s is the ability to be controlled and Lady Macbeth is the ability to control.  Can we not all also see ourselves in both flaws?

Makes you think right?

What would you do for the sure thing? for prophesied glory? What frailties would manifest themselves in you in such a moment? Those are  the questions of Macbeth.

PS. No surprise that I bring even Macbeth back to work and career ambitions…
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