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rjleamon11 's review for:
Gertrude and Claudius
by John Updike
Read this as prep for my AP English class, as the kids are required to read a modern/different take on the classic in addition to the play itself. And. . . welllllll. . . . it was interesting in concept, but my! It dragged. Part of the problem with retellings is that WE KNOW ALREADY!!!!! so the only thrill is watching an old story unfold. Updike makes this a prequel, filled with impressive details of Danish court life, etc, but he also perpetrates sentences like "Gertrude kept brushing out her hair, which in the half-light of this gloomy winter morning emanated a coruscating halo of static phosphorescence as she brushed" (79). That took me several pages to recover from. Updike also weaves a lot of quotations into the text of the play--sometimes successfully, sometimes not--and I'm still baffled about why everyone's names changed after Fengon/Claudius's coronation, except to connect the original legend more firmly to the play. Overall, I think the story stands as an intellectual exercise. I'm glad I read it, but I'm thrilled to be done. On to some real summer reading!
Example of a lovely sentence: after Gertrude speaks to Ophelia privately, "the two women perfumed the closet with the stir of their embrace." (187)
Example of a lovely sentence: after Gertrude speaks to Ophelia privately, "the two women perfumed the closet with the stir of their embrace." (187)