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erikbergstrom's review
2.0
I was originally interested in this book because I saw it sitting on my father-in-law's coffee table when I was at his house over the Christmas holiday. I read it too, and now I can say that my father-in-law and I have read the same book a few weeks apart. That's pretty nice.
heidisreads's review
4.0
Shakespeare's Hamlet with a twist and set in a cold, dark, raw, northern Minnesota winter; this is a well-written story of a young man and his desire to learn the truth and escape from it.
nataliealane's review against another edition
4.0
“Is there such a thing as forgiveness, this side of the grave?”
TW: suicide, murder, depression, domestic and child abuse, violence against animals, graphic depictions of dead bodies, loss of a loved one, repeated slurs and negative talk about people with special needs
Undiscovered Country follows a teenager trying to come to terms with the death of his father, whom he found dead while hunting. The coroner says it’s a suicide, but Jesse can’t believe his father would leave his family. When his father’s ghost appears to him and says he has to avenge his death and make things right, it seals his suspicions. But things aren’t always as they seem, and actually taking someone’s life is a lot harder than thinking about it...
“Getting even, I think, is the most natural thing in the world, a physical law, like gravity.”
This book. A Hamlet retelling in Minnesota? Yes please! I started out really, really loving this book. It’s dark, gritty, and so compelling. I just couldn’t put Undiscovered Country down! It just seems like such an innovative idea, I thought I was a newer book, but to my surprise it’s been out for over a decade! I don’t know why, but that really impressed me.
First, I think Enger really nailed the unreliable narrator aspect of Hamlet. Did Jesse really see his father’s ghost, or is it just his grief and anger? If it was murder, would his uncle really murder his own brother? And was his mom implicit in the murder too?
I have not lost anyone I know/love to suicide, so I don’t know how accurate my perspective is, but I do feel like how the family reacted to the father’s death was fairly realistic. The emotions surrounding any kind of death are complex. Jesse feels anger for his father for leaving the family to fend for themselves, especially considering their mom’s medical and mental health issues, and towards the murderer (if it was murder); grief over the man who seemed to happy and so committed to his family, and their happy memories together growing up; grappling with self-blame when he keeps trying to get justice/get back at the suspected murderer and can’t gather enough courage.
“Who did he think he was, ripping my life apart and stomping on it?”
“In a deeper place, though, my anger had no focus—if, in fact, it was anger at all. Because in large part it must have been fear. What if my best instincts, my truest impulses, were dead wrong? What if I couldn’t trust my own eyes and ears? I didn’t know which scenario was more threatening to me: my uncle, a murderer, walking free, or my own mind, for reasons of love and grief, hatching a conspiracy that had no connection to anything real.”
I will say that pretty much none of the characters except for Christine (the “Ophelia”) are particularly likeable, although sometimes you are rooting for Jesse. I don’t think it was overdone in this book though. I was perfectly fine not liking the characters. They are so just flawed and broken, and it fits the book and play well.
I really liked this book, for most of its length. And so I’ve thought about it a lot. But the more I think about it, the more I realize there are things that really bother me. I keep hopping between 3-4 stars, and here’s why:
-The author inserts references to the play “Hamlet” throughout the book. Stuff like “Who do you think you are, Hanley?”, mentioning how they read the play the previous year in English class, etc. I get it’s a modern retelling, so the characters are bound to have read it for school, but it disrupted the narrative and jarred me for a few minutes. It made the whole scenario less believable in those moments. Some more subtle references, such as “Nobody elected you king, Harold. That’s something you want to remember” were more apreciable (Harold is Jesse’s dad, and the mayor).
-The romance. This story doesn’t stick strictly to the source material in terms of Ophelia and Hamlet’s relationship. Ophelia is still stuck in an oppressive family situation, and she and Jesse belong to different social classes, but that’s where I saw the similarities stop for the most part. It was hard to get on board with the romance because the book didn’t show the passage of time well with their relationship and it’s development. And most of the page time spent with Christine is spent talking about the suicide/murder. However, I did really like Christine as a character. She has her own mind and morals, but she’s not willing to do to the same lengths as Jesse to get justice. In fact, she simply just wants to escape her life.
-The ending. So, from the start of this book we understand it’s purpose it to finally tell Jesse’s younger brother Magnus the truth about what happened before they moved away from Minnesota. We expect Magnus will find out in the end. He does, but we don’t really see his reaction or the ensuing conversation he would have with Jesse. Additionally, Jesse talks so much throughout the book that he’s trying to get justice so he can protect his family,l and how much he cares about his brother, but we don’t see very much of their brotherly relationship. It needed to be shown more, and line up with what Jesse was saying. What happens with the mom is a total cop-out to preserve ambiguity over whether or not, and how, complicit she was in her husband’s death. There’s still some ambiguity over what happened (which I like—-we know what Jesse thinks in the end but he’s still unreliable), but with the mom it was TOO much ambiguity. Additionally, I think UC had a lot of potential to explore more of the suicide/grieving route, but it didn’t. I think it would have had a more impactful message.
Overall, I still think it was a pretty good book and still recommend you give it a try! I don’t usually read thriller/mystery books, and when I do I don’t usually like them, but I enjoyed this one!
One last quote, because this conversation between Jesse and Christine is just so GOOD! (Note: this book doesn’t use any quotation marks, which might bother or confuse some people. I’ve read a few books like that so I’m used to it and I kind of like it)
Hey, nothing like this is ever going to happen again, and you know it.
That’s not the point, Jesse. The point is, it happened, and you can’t change it. I’m sorry.
I thought you loved me, I said.
I do love you. I’ll always love you.
But you won’t forgive me.
I can’t forgive you, Jesse. There’s a difference. Maybe if I came from someplace that was half normal I could deal with it. But I don’t. I’m broken, and you’re not the one who can fix me, because you are too.
TW: suicide, murder, depression, domestic and child abuse, violence against animals, graphic depictions of dead bodies, loss of a loved one, repeated slurs and negative talk about people with special needs
Undiscovered Country follows a teenager trying to come to terms with the death of his father, whom he found dead while hunting. The coroner says it’s a suicide, but Jesse can’t believe his father would leave his family. When his father’s ghost appears to him and says he has to avenge his death and make things right, it seals his suspicions. But things aren’t always as they seem, and actually taking someone’s life is a lot harder than thinking about it...
“Getting even, I think, is the most natural thing in the world, a physical law, like gravity.”
This book. A Hamlet retelling in Minnesota? Yes please! I started out really, really loving this book. It’s dark, gritty, and so compelling. I just couldn’t put Undiscovered Country down! It just seems like such an innovative idea, I thought I was a newer book, but to my surprise it’s been out for over a decade! I don’t know why, but that really impressed me.
First, I think Enger really nailed the unreliable narrator aspect of Hamlet. Did Jesse really see his father’s ghost, or is it just his grief and anger? If it was murder, would his uncle really murder his own brother? And was his mom implicit in the murder too?
I have not lost anyone I know/love to suicide, so I don’t know how accurate my perspective is, but I do feel like how the family reacted to the father’s death was fairly realistic. The emotions surrounding any kind of death are complex. Jesse feels anger for his father for leaving the family to fend for themselves, especially considering their mom’s medical and mental health issues, and towards the murderer (if it was murder); grief over the man who seemed to happy and so committed to his family, and their happy memories together growing up; grappling with self-blame when he keeps trying to get justice/get back at the suspected murderer and can’t gather enough courage.
“Who did he think he was, ripping my life apart and stomping on it?”
“In a deeper place, though, my anger had no focus—if, in fact, it was anger at all. Because in large part it must have been fear. What if my best instincts, my truest impulses, were dead wrong? What if I couldn’t trust my own eyes and ears? I didn’t know which scenario was more threatening to me: my uncle, a murderer, walking free, or my own mind, for reasons of love and grief, hatching a conspiracy that had no connection to anything real.”
I will say that pretty much none of the characters except for Christine (the “Ophelia”) are particularly likeable, although sometimes you are rooting for Jesse. I don’t think it was overdone in this book though. I was perfectly fine not liking the characters. They are so just flawed and broken, and it fits the book and play well.
I really liked this book, for most of its length. And so I’ve thought about it a lot. But the more I think about it, the more I realize there are things that really bother me. I keep hopping between 3-4 stars, and here’s why:
-The author inserts references to the play “Hamlet” throughout the book. Stuff like “Who do you think you are, Hanley?”, mentioning how they read the play the previous year in English class, etc. I get it’s a modern retelling, so the characters are bound to have read it for school, but it disrupted the narrative and jarred me for a few minutes. It made the whole scenario less believable in those moments. Some more subtle references, such as “Nobody elected you king, Harold. That’s something you want to remember” were more apreciable (Harold is Jesse’s dad, and the mayor).
-The romance. This story doesn’t stick strictly to the source material in terms of Ophelia and Hamlet’s relationship. Ophelia is still stuck in an oppressive family situation, and she and Jesse belong to different social classes, but that’s where I saw the similarities stop for the most part. It was hard to get on board with the romance because the book didn’t show the passage of time well with their relationship and it’s development. And most of the page time spent with Christine is spent talking about the suicide/murder. However, I did really like Christine as a character. She has her own mind and morals, but she’s not willing to do to the same lengths as Jesse to get justice. In fact, she simply just wants to escape her life.
-The ending. So, from the start of this book we understand it’s purpose it to finally tell Jesse’s younger brother Magnus the truth about what happened before they moved away from Minnesota. We expect Magnus will find out in the end. He does, but we don’t really see his reaction or the ensuing conversation he would have with Jesse. Additionally, Jesse talks so much throughout the book that he’s trying to get justice so he can protect his family,l and how much he cares about his brother, but we don’t see very much of their brotherly relationship. It needed to be shown more, and line up with what Jesse was saying. What happens with the mom is a total cop-out to preserve ambiguity over whether or not, and how, complicit she was in her husband’s death. There’s still some ambiguity over what happened (which I like—-we know what Jesse thinks in the end but he’s still unreliable), but with the mom it was TOO much ambiguity. Additionally, I think UC had a lot of potential to explore more of the suicide/grieving route, but it didn’t. I think it would have had a more impactful message.
Overall, I still think it was a pretty good book and still recommend you give it a try! I don’t usually read thriller/mystery books, and when I do I don’t usually like them, but I enjoyed this one!
One last quote, because this conversation between Jesse and Christine is just so GOOD! (Note: this book doesn’t use any quotation marks, which might bother or confuse some people. I’ve read a few books like that so I’m used to it and I kind of like it)
Hey, nothing like this is ever going to happen again, and you know it.
That’s not the point, Jesse. The point is, it happened, and you can’t change it. I’m sorry.
I thought you loved me, I said.
I do love you. I’ll always love you.
But you won’t forgive me.
I can’t forgive you, Jesse. There’s a difference. Maybe if I came from someplace that was half normal I could deal with it. But I don’t. I’m broken, and you’re not the one who can fix me, because you are too.
kamckim's review
3.0
Nice as a modern retelling of HAMLET, although I think too much is being made of this in the reviews. The story stands on its own, and definitely takes the reader into the time and space of the novel. It was a solid read, but dragged a bit in spots. Took the author a while to wrap things up. Enjoyable.
danchrist's review
4.0
Told in the first person, this is a spare, gripping story of Jesse Matson and the death of his father. Enger has a clear voice and narrative drive throughout. The scenes are well illustrated, and the characters drawn crisply.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
guerrillabooks's review
4.0
I just finished listening to this book, and I can't remember who mentioned it in the first place to make me want to pick it up. Someone did! UGH! I suppose it's not too terribly important, I just wish I could make that connection, ya know?
Amazon summaries the book by the following:
Unaware that his life is about to change in ways he can't imagine, seventeen-year-old Jesse Matson ventures into the northern Minnesota woods with his father on a cold November afternoon. Perched on individual hunting stands a quarter-mile apart, they wait with their rifles for white-tailed deer. When the muffled crack of a gunshot rings out, Jesse unaccountably knows something is wrong-and he races through the trees to find his dad dead of a rifle wound, apparently self-inflicted.
But would easygoing Harold Matson really kill himself? If so, why?
Haunted by the ghost of his father, Jesse delves into family secrets, wrestles with questions of justice and retribution, and confronts the nature of his own responsibility. And just when he's decided that he alone must shoulder his family's burden, the beautiful and troubled Christine Montez enters his life, forcing him to reconsider his plans.
In spare, elegant prose, Lin Enger tells the story of a young man trying to hold his family together in a world tipped suddenly upside down. Set among pristine lakes and beneath towering pines, Undiscovered Country is at once a bold reinvention of Shakespeare's Hamlet and a hair-bristling story of betrayal, revenge, and the possibilities of forgiveness.
Sorry I cheated with the summary, but I have some hellwork, I mean homework to do *tooth-filled grin*, or else I would have loved to provide you with a witty, rebecca-filled summary...
But about the book I will say
(1.) I liked the book, many people commented on its connection to the plot of Hamlet as though that took something away from the originality of the story, as though Enger was copping out, but Jesse is totally aware of the Hamlet-like situation that he finds himself in and he actually comments on it himself. Therefore I don't think it's a cop-out, or a weakness in anyway.
(2.) The thought (although not phrased as a question, I state it questioningly) that sprung to mind as I listened to the final moments of the novel:
Learn how to accept and live with the pains of life, as though they are a person that must go with you everywhere - RATHER than living each day under the pretense that the pains/sorrows are not there. Accepting the existance of pain and sorrow (being real and truthful about it) will allow for a healthier emotional life than denying the pain and sorrow, pretending it is not there(lying to yourself).
I need something light next. Something funny, something purely entertaining.
Amazon summaries the book by the following:
Unaware that his life is about to change in ways he can't imagine, seventeen-year-old Jesse Matson ventures into the northern Minnesota woods with his father on a cold November afternoon. Perched on individual hunting stands a quarter-mile apart, they wait with their rifles for white-tailed deer. When the muffled crack of a gunshot rings out, Jesse unaccountably knows something is wrong-and he races through the trees to find his dad dead of a rifle wound, apparently self-inflicted.
But would easygoing Harold Matson really kill himself? If so, why?
Haunted by the ghost of his father, Jesse delves into family secrets, wrestles with questions of justice and retribution, and confronts the nature of his own responsibility. And just when he's decided that he alone must shoulder his family's burden, the beautiful and troubled Christine Montez enters his life, forcing him to reconsider his plans.
In spare, elegant prose, Lin Enger tells the story of a young man trying to hold his family together in a world tipped suddenly upside down. Set among pristine lakes and beneath towering pines, Undiscovered Country is at once a bold reinvention of Shakespeare's Hamlet and a hair-bristling story of betrayal, revenge, and the possibilities of forgiveness.
Sorry I cheated with the summary, but I have some hellwork, I mean homework to do *tooth-filled grin*, or else I would have loved to provide you with a witty, rebecca-filled summary...
But about the book I will say
(1.) I liked the book, many people commented on its connection to the plot of Hamlet as though that took something away from the originality of the story, as though Enger was copping out, but Jesse is totally aware of the Hamlet-like situation that he finds himself in and he actually comments on it himself. Therefore I don't think it's a cop-out, or a weakness in anyway.
(2.) The thought (although not phrased as a question, I state it questioningly) that sprung to mind as I listened to the final moments of the novel:
Learn how to accept and live with the pains of life, as though they are a person that must go with you everywhere - RATHER than living each day under the pretense that the pains/sorrows are not there. Accepting the existance of pain and sorrow (being real and truthful about it) will allow for a healthier emotional life than denying the pain and sorrow, pretending it is not there(lying to yourself).
I need something light next. Something funny, something purely entertaining.
rseykora's review
3.0
I like his character development. Maybe it is living in rural Minnesota during the winter that I can identify with the characters. Or at least the setting.
lgwritermn's review
3.0
This was a decent book. It is based in northern Minnesota and it revolves around the life of a teenage boy who struggles after he loses his father during a so-called suicide. It didn't have a lot of depth, but kept your attention.
bookwormbecks's review against another edition
4.0
Beautifully written story about a young man and his love for his father. I had read several reviews here before picking up this book..the comparisons to Edgar Sawtelle had me concerned. I didn't really feel like reading another book like that. I enjoyed Edgar Sawtelle but thought once was enough! While the two books are very similar, with the modern day Hamlet connection...I felt more connected to this book and these characters. It was more concise and I just really enjoyed the author. Lin and his brother Leif are both very talented. I can't wait to read more from both of them!
canadianbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
This is a wonderful first novel centering around a young man and his father's death.
Jesse goes hunting with his father, a normal occurence for the two of them. They occur two different hunting blinds, out of sight of each other. At the end of a long day, with no game, Jesse hears a single shot and immediately realizes something is wrong. He finds his father dead, seemingly at his own hand, and yet he just can't accept that his father would do this. He can't find a reason for what would make his father take his own life, knowing that Jesse would be the one to find him.
Haunted by his father's ghost, Jesse looks for answers and looks at his family with different eyes. Unsupported by his mother, the police or his friends, he looks hard at the people around him, trying to find reasons for what has happened to his family.
During this time, the young woman, Christine Montez, already someone Jesse is drawn to, becomes an important part of his life. She too is undergoing family difficulties, and yet supports him in his quest, to a point.
As the jacket notes indicate, there are overtones of the story of Hamlet here, with all the elements of betrayal and revenge. Jesse is a young man, forced to become an adult by the circumstances in which he finds himself. This is a wonderful book, and a writer who bears watching.
Jesse goes hunting with his father, a normal occurence for the two of them. They occur two different hunting blinds, out of sight of each other. At the end of a long day, with no game, Jesse hears a single shot and immediately realizes something is wrong. He finds his father dead, seemingly at his own hand, and yet he just can't accept that his father would do this. He can't find a reason for what would make his father take his own life, knowing that Jesse would be the one to find him.
Haunted by his father's ghost, Jesse looks for answers and looks at his family with different eyes. Unsupported by his mother, the police or his friends, he looks hard at the people around him, trying to find reasons for what has happened to his family.
During this time, the young woman, Christine Montez, already someone Jesse is drawn to, becomes an important part of his life. She too is undergoing family difficulties, and yet supports him in his quest, to a point.
As the jacket notes indicate, there are overtones of the story of Hamlet here, with all the elements of betrayal and revenge. Jesse is a young man, forced to become an adult by the circumstances in which he finds himself. This is a wonderful book, and a writer who bears watching.