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A review by readingthroughthelists
Ophelia by Lisa M. Klein
3.0
3. 5 stars.
I do love a good re-telling of a classic story, and Shakespeare's corpus offers so many points for an author's re-interpretation of events. A book on Ophelia from her point of view seemed a creative choice and the finished product was not terrible.
However, compared with the beautifully written original, Ophelia's lack of stellar writing seems even more of a flaw. There are no soliloquies, no dialogue, and no beautiful passages that even come close to touching the majestic speeches of play. And while authors are free to interpret their source material as they wish, I didn't feel that the Hamlet of this novel bore even a slight resemblance to his thespian counterpart. Klein's goal was to recreate the story from Ophelia's point of view, and in doing so I feel that she missed a significant part of what makes the play so beautiful. Yet she did manage to capture the fear caused by something being rotten in the state of Denmark, something one doesn't always get from just reading the play.
The last quarter of the novel, however, felt tacked on and random--really it could have been a novella about some other woman entirely, it felt so completely removed and separate from the rest of the novel.
But Horatio and Ophelia...oh yes, I ship them. Kiss away, you two. .
Still, I enjoyed the read. Shakespeare is a treasure trove of stories, so let the creative interpretations and adaptions continue.
I do love a good re-telling of a classic story, and Shakespeare's corpus offers so many points for an author's re-interpretation of events. A book on Ophelia from her point of view seemed a creative choice and the finished product was not terrible.
However, compared with the beautifully written original, Ophelia's lack of stellar writing seems even more of a flaw. There are no soliloquies, no dialogue, and no beautiful passages that even come close to touching the majestic speeches of play. And while authors are free to interpret their source material as they wish, I didn't feel that the Hamlet of this novel bore even a slight resemblance to his thespian counterpart. Klein's goal was to recreate the story from Ophelia's point of view, and in doing so I feel that she missed a significant part of what makes the play so beautiful. Yet she did manage to capture the fear caused by something being rotten in the state of Denmark, something one doesn't always get from just reading the play.
The last quarter of the novel, however, felt tacked on and random--really it could have been a novella about some other woman entirely, it felt so completely removed and separate from the rest of the novel.
Still, I enjoyed the read. Shakespeare is a treasure trove of stories, so let the creative interpretations and adaptions continue.