Sofi Ajem Ajem itibaren Beherapali, Odisha, Індія
(I heard an audiobook version of this book which affects my rating.) I love mystical adventures involving the past, but this book was a disappointment. Just before I started reading it, I caught a review headline somewhere that said it was full of clichés. I had to agree. The term "purple prose" came to mind, too. This is not really a romance, however, but you could say it was a fantasy purple prose, perhaps= This seems to be the perfect book for an airplane trip. Nothing deep or profound. The story takes place in 12-something and in 2005. The audiobook used two readers for this, which was a very good idea. A man read the part in the past and a woman read the part in the present. However, I felt their reading was very melodramatic. Combined with the purple prose, it was a bit much. I don't care if the idea in an adventure like this is far-fetched. (It's borderline Dan Brown.) As long as the writing is good, I'll put with a lot. With cliché-y writing and the irritating (to me) voices, the plot got a bit silly. I was curious enough to stick it out and hear the story to its melodramatic end. I feel bad rating a book so low, but I have to be honest. It might have kept a star if I had read the book myself in print form of some kind.
I don't have any original insights to share from this most recent of god-knows-how-many readings, but this time through I was really struck by: 1) what a damn fine piece of stagecraft this is, from the suspenseful, moody opening on the castle battlements to the solemn dead march carrying the prince offstage, and 2) how Shakespeare seems to want Hamlet's personality--particularly the wellspring of his actions (and lack of action)--to remain an enigma, and that he achieves this by infusing the character with so much of himself--so much wit and poetry, so much despondency and savagery--that the result is that the audience simply bows before the great mystery of human personality, and that this reverence for the unknown lurking in the heart of an extraordinary man intensifies the sense of pity, horror and waste that fills us at the end of the play.