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Ophelia
 
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Ophelia (Paperback)

by Lisa M. Klein (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.85 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £5 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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  • This item: Ophelia by Lisa M. Klein

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    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
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Product details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (6 Nov 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0747587337
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747587330
  • Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 12.8 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 116,275 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
She is young, beautiful, and desperately in love with a man who cannot return her affections without arousing suspicion. And so they meet in secret - embracing in stairwells and castle turrets, murmuring each other's names in hushed voices, reaching passionately for each other under the cover of darkness. His name is Hamlet; her name is Ophelia. And if you think you know their story, think again. Because when bloody deeds turn the court of Elsinore into a place of treachery and madness, the young lovers will devise a plan for revenge - and for escape. Part of their plan calls for Ophelia to cast herself into dark waters. But instead of drowning, she will flee with nothing more than the clothes on her back and one very dangerous secret. What if Ophelia, the tragic young waif of Shakespeare's Hamlet, didn't die? Using this tantalizing premise as her leaping off point, Lisa Klein's gorgeous reimagining of the bard's great tragedy places the ephemeral Ophelia at its centerpiece. At once revisionist and true to its origins, her story offers readers a spellbinding page-turner with twists so startling it will leave them wanting more long after the final, heart-rending page is reached.

About the Author
Lisa Klein is a former professor of English who lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and two sons. This is her first work of fiction.

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Ophelia's story, 30 Nov 2006
Lisa Klein's Ophelia is a tightly-written, pacey and lively spin-off of Hamlet in novel form, as told from (you guessed it) Ophelia's perspective. The plot begins years before Hamlet's timeline and ends years after, allowing for Ophelia's character to be drawn out much more fully from Shakespeare's sketchy and puzzling portrayal.

Klein chose to set the novel not in the period of Hamlet's Denmark, but in the period of Shakespeare's writing of the play. Interwoven with the plot of Hamlet are allusions to a number of contemporary works, including Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It, in addition to conceits from sonnets by (among others) Lady Mary Wroth, all against a backdrop of romance, conduct literature, hagiography and other genres for and about women.

The fact that Ophelia is a woman allows Klein to intersperse a range of historical detail appopriate to women, including negotiations with cultural requirements for chastity, obedience and silence and a rich tapestry of herbal lore (as suggested by Ophelia's preoccupation with flowers in Hamlet). The characters' language is also suggestive of early modern literary dialogue.

However, these scholarly elements are by no means overpowering: the novel walks a careful line, never losing track that it is first and foremost a modern romance intended for the enjoyment of a wide readership without specialist knowledge. Whether intentional or not, it's a story that's crying out for a film.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book touching on love, obsession, murder and madness, 19 April 2007
By Brida "izumi" (Worcs) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
This is a beautiful re-telling of Shakespeare's Hamlet, through the eyes of Ophelia, the girl who resorted to drowning herself upon his rejection. As another reviewer says, in the play, Ophelia is a young woman who is very much a pawn to others, here Klein writes a version of the famous play in which Ophelia is quite different. Without giving anything away, in this book, Ophelia is vivacious and very intelligent, almost shrewd. Rather than committing suicide when Hamlet publically rejects her, Klein offers an alternative interpretation.

What I loved about this book is that, depsite the hundreds of years that seperate Shakespeare and Klein, Klein has been able to create the feeling of that time perfectly. The imagery she uses, and the language of her characters are spot on. It is like reading Shakespeare, but not in iambic pentameter.
The characters are very well developed also. They were all believeable, making you truly care about them. The story of Ophelia and her love for Hamlet completely caught me up - I wanted to read on to see what was going to become of her.
What I also loved about the book is that you do not need to know the story of Hamlet in order to read and enjoy this work. The last time I read Hamlet was while I was studying it for A-Level English Literature, nearly 10 years ago. Reading Klein's book, it made memories of the original come back to me, but even if I had not read it as a main text at school, I would have been able to follow Klein's story.

I think one of the biggest achievements she has made with this book is how she has managed to examine the concept of madness - a key idea within the original play. As you watch Hamlet descend into madness after the death of his father, Ophelia struggles to comprehend if he really is mad or whether he is just putting on a scene for others. Then, as this novel progresses and Ophelia finds herself in a convent, again she is confronted with an individual who could either be classed as mad or experiencing something divine and mystical. Obsession and madness tread a very thin line and the detail in Klein's writing is just brilliant. Even us, as bystanders, cannot easily make a judgement.

This is a fantastic book. It was classed as fiction for young adults, but I think it would be suited to readers much older. The writing is intelligent, inspired and insightful. This is a piece of work that the author should be very proud of - I am eager to see what she will offer us next.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 15 Jan 2007
By TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   
This book blew me away. It is the re-imagining of the story of Ophelia, from Shakespeare's play Hamlet. In the play, Ophelia is in love with Hamlet and ends up committing suicide because of his treatment of her and because he killed her father. Her character is a woman who is ruled by the thoughts and deeds of men. It is their deeds and rules that affect her and bring about her demise. In this story, Ophelia is a very strong character and we see the story of Hamlet through her eyes.

She is the daughter of Polonius, a foolish man who courts favor of those in power. She is motherless and her only other family is her brother, Laertes. Her childhood, though, is very happy because she is a tomboy and is free to learn beside her brother. She has a lot of freedom, which is rarely given to girls at this time. Her father is given a job in the court of the King of Denmark, and she has to leave this idyllic time and enter into a drafty, gloomy place. In fact, it is described as a prison and a place of intrigue and sadness.

Within a few years she is brought to the attention of Queen Gertrude and is made into a lady of the court. She also attracts the attention of Prince Hamlet. She and the Prince fall in love and are secretly married. The King's ghost appears on the night of their marriage, and Hamlet is obsessed with revenge. Ophelia has to sail through court politics to secure her place and her sanity.

Lisa Klein has interwoven lines from the play in the story and the main story stills stands, but by the end we know what happens to Ophelia. There is a lot of philosophical musings in the story about a woman's place compared to a man's, what is sin, forgiveness, obedience and God's will in ones life.

I think the story compelled me to see the play again and to have a happier vision of the character of Ophelia. I strongly recommend this book and you don't have to know Hamlet to read it. I do believe that to read this alongside the reading of Hamlet would be beneficial to the understandings and themes in this tragedy.

Reviewed by: Marta Morrison
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Ophelia
I loved this book. I have only just got back into reading and I've also never read a romance book before. Read more
Published 24 months ago by HL Swirles

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful read!

It is such a very long time since I enjoyed a book as much as this! I was quite sorry when I'd finished it. Read more
Published on 11 Feb 2007 by FAMOUS NAME

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful surprise!
It probably helped that I was familiar with Hamlet, but not TOO familiar. I mean, I can see die-hard Hamlet fans not giving this book a chance on principle. Read more
Published on 6 Jan 2007 by Ms. L. E. Kane

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