Goodreads | John's review

John's review

[close]

blog this review

Copy/paste the text below into your blog.

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1420.Hamlet?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Hamlet" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1158208492m/1420.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1420.Hamlet?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Hamlet</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/947.William_Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/21489483?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars For once William Shakespeare’s characters have truly varied dialogue, rather than three or four characters spouting aphorisms and flowery language. Prince Hamlet is downright verbose, but clever, and distinct from his friends and fellow court members. The best part is when we meet the ghost of his father and figure out where he got this habit.
 
 It’s not the best part of the play simply for that bit of insight (humorous as it was to me), but because the opening of the play and everything leading up to that scene is fairly eerie. Shakespeare nailed the sense of a ghost story and majesty. From there we follow politics, in-fighting, insecurity and a fascinating descent into mad rivalry, as King Hamlet’s ghost demands vengeance against his killer, the new king, while his son tries to learn whether the ghost is telling the truth, and fights to keep a handle on his own feelings.
 
 Scenes without Prince Hamlet often suffer from something Jacobian, which I like to call “the Shakespearian trade-off”: it is clunky and clumsy at expressing anything, though admirable for its complexity and attempts at beauty. If there’s ever been success in the Shakespearian trade-off, it’s here. While his language is sometimes cloying, there’s no doubt that he placed much of his best work and many of his best lines in this play. Some passages are among the most beautiful things in the English canon, such as Hamlet’s soliloquy:
 
 “To be, or not to be,--that is the question:--
 Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
 And by opposing end them?--To die,--to sleep,--
 No more; and by a sleep to say we end
 The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
 That flesh is heir to,--'tis a consummation
 Devoutly to be wish'd. To die,--to sleep;--
 To sleep! perchance to dream:--ay, there's the rub;
 For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
 When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
 Must give us pause: there's the respect
 That makes calamity of so long life;
 For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
 The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
 The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
 The insolence of office, and the spurns
 That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
 When he himself might his quietus make
 With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
 To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
 But that the dread of something after death,--
 The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
 No traveller returns,--puzzles the will,
 And makes us rather bear those ills we have
 Than fly to others that we know not of?
 Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
 And thus the native hue of resolution
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
 And enterprises of great pith and moment,
 With this regard, their currents turn awry,
 And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
 The fair Ophelia!--Nymph, in thy orisons
 Be all my sins remember'd.”
 
 Ignore all the cliches in this soliloquy, or regard them and recognize that most (if not all) of these cliches originated with Shakespeare. What is a cliche, anyway, but something someone says about something that is so clear, catchy or resonating so strongly that everyone else puts it that way? Repeating cliches is annoying, but coming up with things your culture will turn into cliches is a pretty nice trick for a writer.
 
 Hamlet is many things. It is a meditation on madness: first with its portrayal of the seemingly impossible in King Hamlet’s ghost rising, showing us an insane thing happening; second in Prince Hamlet feigning madness so that no one will believe he believes in the council of the ghost; and thirdly in Prince Hamlet’s actual descent into madness as he becomes obsessed with vengeance. You can define Prince Hamlet as charismatically insane or as a man completely swallowed in ethical dilemmas and personal tragedy, but to whatever the extent, he is in an interesting abnormal state for most of the play. Along the way there are truly inspired and profound soliloquies on aspects of human nature, such as our fascination with the possibility of an afterlife, which are made up of one part madness and one part the inspirations that drive people mad. It’s mostly explored in Prince Hamlet talking to himself (or talking to others, but talking only for his own benefit), rather than being explored in the plot of the play – the play is very deliberate, like a skeleton around which Shakespeare could experiment with characters he deemed interesting, or indulge himself in philosophical discussions. For once, I completely agree with his indulgences. As opposed to every other play of his that I have read, this is a William Shakespeare with whom I can understand academics being so fascinated.
 
 And then there's the ending. William Shakespeare had an obvious fondness for evil endings with twists, deaths and epiphanies, but nothing he wrote measures up to this in terms of execution. It falls into place out of the conceits of the characters, and is done so effortlessly, rather than proudly, that instead of the usual effect of Shakespeare writing a turn so that he would be praised, this was came about as an ending that he ought to be praised for regardless of his intentions.
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/147818?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

John's review
rating:
recommended for: Classics readers, play readers, psychoanalytic readers, playwrights

For once William Shakespeare’s characters have truly varied dialogue, rather than three or four characters spouting aphorisms and flowery language. Prince Hamlet is downright verbose, but clever, and distinct from his friends and fellow court members. The best part is when we meet the ghost of his father and figure out where he got this habit.

It’s not the best part of the play simply for that bit of insight (humorous as it was to me), but because the opening of the play and everything leading up to that scene is fairly eerie. Shakespeare nailed the sense of a ghost story and majesty. From there we follow politics, in-fighting, insecurity and a fascinating descent into mad rivalry, as King Hamlet’s ghost demands vengeance against his killer, the new king, while his son tries to learn whether the ghost is telling the truth, and fights to keep a handle on his own feelings.

Scenes without Prince Hamlet often suffer from something Jacobian, which I like to call “the Shakespea...more

Like this review? yes flag

comments (showing 0-0 of 0)

newest »

date

all John's books »