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4.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 3 Oct 2009
Something's rotten in Denmark, but this time, it's not Shakespeare's normally confusing play. Marsden does a fantastic job of taking the Bard's poetic writing and updating it for modern readers.
Hamlet still faces issues the original author set for him (an unfaithful mother, a murderous uncle, the hauntingly attractive Ophelia), but the reader is able to delve more deeply into the characters as they are brought to life by Marsden's beautiful prose.
Since this is a modern version, it does have a few instances of cursing as well as some sexual innuendo, so I feel it would be better suited to older teens and adults.
Thanks to a fantastic high school English teacher, I never had trouble understanding HAMLET, but I enjoyed reading Marsden's version and seeing a more modern twist on the story.
Reviewed by: Joan Stradling
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A great way to bring Shakespeare to a wider audience, 23 Aug 2009
First off, I have to admit that I love reading. I will read anything. This love of literature meant that when I was at school, I was the sort of person who loved pouring over the set texts for English, dissecting the meaning and emotion of great works such as Shakespeare's "Hamlet". At the same time, I recognise that many people hate Shakespeare and this may partly be because of the forced studyn of his plays and sonnets through the education system. This is, I think, a great shame. Because although they are hundreds of years old, they still possess relevance today. What I think Marsden has done is create a brilliant novel which will make HAMLET a lot more accessible to young adults.
The reason I have only awarded four stars is that Marsden's, although good, is nowhere near as brilliant as the original. Although the main elements are there, I felt that HAMLET: A NOVEL sometimes seemed a little rushed. Ophelia seemed to go too quickly into madness and then suicide. Although it could be down to me remembering the original slightly differently, I feel that Shakespeare's treatment of this was far superior - (I seem to remember Hamlet telling Ophelia to get herself off to the nunnery in the original, yet this was not included in Marsden's version).
This sense of rush, for me, meant that the emotion was sometimes not as heightened as it should be.
However, that said, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece of work. I would also recommend OPHELIA by Lisa Klein. This takes the perspective of Ophelia into account, and it is a re-telling, so details of the original are changed, however it was a very satisfying read also.
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by Melissa Marr
