Liveblogging Orson Scott Card's... dubious... rendition of Hamlet.
So I'm using Google Books for my reference, so I'm not getting the whole thing. It apparently starts on page 77, and my preview begins on page 94.
That said, by the time I can see it, he hasn't even GONE OFF TO STUDY ABROAD. So, for a rendition of "HAMLET"? It desperately needs an editor.
And, oh boy, does it! You see, Orson Scott Card wrote:
"I have little interest in a dithering hero; nor am I much inspired by revenge plots. Yet I keep hearing that this is the greatest of them all.
So I analyzed the story to see what it would take to make me care about it."
So, naturally, he rewrites Hamlet as an excruciatingly flat hero who is Always Moral and Righteous and Actually a Pompous Ass (Unintentionally).
Ahem. I mean.
We open (my section) with a short scene with Laertes, and then we find that Uncle Claudius is actually a really nice guy and it's Hamlet's father who's the obvious ass. Hamlet, meanwhile, is super-polite, and naturally so.
"No one raised him," said Mother. "He is what he is because of the nature God gave him, and nothing he got from parents or teachers."
In other words, in order to care about the story, Card had to make Hamlet into an Idealized Prince, regardless of his actual character. And he is Always Right and Proper, even when lesser beings might be Practical.
It bothered him that Claudius and Mother seemed to speak freely between themselves about Father's shortcomings as King. There was much to be said on that score, of course, but it was unseemly for the King's wife and brother to scorn him, even privately.
Oh, heavens, get ANGRY about something. Get emotional. Cease acting like you've been put on some heavy mood-flattener.
The bothersome thing about this story is that it's making me realize that many of Card's characters are similar. There's always an unusually gifted child at an emotional remove from his surroundings, said child is recognized as a Better Being by the core cast and equally respected and despised by varying contemporaries and authority figures, and he's constantly being shaped and molded by forces outside his control (some of them often not benevolent) to fulfill a certain role beyond his current grasp.
It's very predictable, and, now that I've seen it, likely very boring. And uncomfortably informative about the sort of characters with which Card identifies.
*sigh* Moving on...
So Hamlet now goes abroad to study! And Card doesn't like the idea of Hamlet being quarrelsome.
At first, feeling uncomfortably ill-prepared, Hamlet took to carrying his sword with him wherever he went, and he managed to take offense in several of the pubs frequented by students. But he so quickly disarmed his opponents that there was no sport in it; nor was anyone impressed, at least not among the students of the sort he wanted to befriend.
In case you can't tell, this is what the entirety of Hamlet's studies sound like. Apparently Card could not care about the story unless he wrote Hamlet as yet another Supergifted, Noble, Intellectual Hero without Serious Flaws.
I therefore propose an interesting euphemism for writing Mary-Sue fanfic, in case you need to talk about it in public for whatever reason. I am practicing writing in the style of Orson Scott Card. Guaranteed to impress conservative relatives, unless they actually READ his books, in which case they'll probably ask, "WHICH part of his style are you attempting to emulate?" and it will all fall apart. In all fairness, liberal relatives will have the exact same reason, except that they might be slightly more sympathetic when you tell them the truth.
Hamlet gets in good with the professors by buying their favorite books from monasteries - excuse me, "endowed the appropriate monasteries with funds" - and forbidding them to tell anyone where they got it. So naturally, JUST AS PLANNED, they tell everyone and his generosity and modesty are celebrated throughout the university.
He also pays poorer students to tutor him in Latin, and... please, Card, your supposed aversion to capitalism is seeming rather flimsy, seeing as how Hamlet here is WALLOWING in his monetary privilege and we're supposed to think well of him for it. In case you didn't quite catch it, he BRIBED his professors and paid for special tutors. Isn't that pretty much the DEFINITION of how rich students have advantages over poor ones?!
But it's all right, because some of his best friends are sons of tradespeople. No. Really. You disbelieve me, go look up "The Ghost Quartet" (edited by Marvin Kaye) on Google Books and scroll to the Hamlet section yourself.
And he's so good at his studies that, DESPITE his high birth, he is "invited to Rome to go study there" and gives it "serious consideration", but doesn't do so because it would imply too close a link to the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire and he needs to demonstrate that his "fealty to no one but God and the Danish people". He's also "loved and admired", "not for his birth or his beauty (though neither was ignored), but for his mind and his wit and his loyalty and his kindness".
I...
I need to clarify something. Yes, I DO understand the style of depicting some person as more exalted, noble, and intellectual than others in order to provide moral inspiration. Yes, it's a legitimate style, particularly in older works or those concerned with propaganda. Yes, I've read Plutarch's Lives. Yes, I've read The Song of Roland, though that's less concerned with morality and more concerned with Splattergore for Christ. Yes, I've read several other works with characters that a flat reading might call Gary-Stus...
However, this tone of this section is so smug and self-congratulatory that I DON'T think it's meant as a Serious Moral Lesson, but rather Card gazing deeply and lovingly into his mirror as he writes about how Hamlet should have been. "He liked being loved, and he looked forward to the day when he would govern Denmark with generosity and rectitude." Oh, heavens, Card, we knoooow you like being loved. We can feel your love for yourself oozing through the monitor.
To be fair, Serious Moral Lesson territory would not make this much better. Then we would have a lot of exceedingly pious description of the Rightness of Forgiveness and Unconditional Love towards All God's Creatures, or whichever Card's equivalent moral obsession is. But then, at least, it would have a POINT and convey SOMETHING worthy of consideration and debate.
TL;DR - I'm actually angry because OSC!Hamlet isn't ENOUGH of a Purity Sue. Now, let's get back to the chronicle of how wonderful and pious Hamlet is story.
After four years, Hamlet receives the notice that his father is dead and OH JOSEPH SMITH, CARD, EVEN THE CHAPTER "KING'S CROSS" WASN'T THIS SHAMELESS IN HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS.
"I know of no man readier to be a King," said the professor. "Plato once longed for a King like you, who was a philosopher first. We are Christians; we want our Kings to be philosophers and saints."
"I'm no saint," said Hamlet. "But I hope I will disappoint my people in neither wisdom nor virtue - nor strength and courage in battle."
"I know nothing of you as a soldier," said the professor. "But I know you to be fierce in argument."
"Here I've been gentle with my hands and fierce with my speech," said Hamlet. "At home I'll need to reverse that, for we Danes are still a violent people, when the need arises. And it arises too often for our own good."
"Then take that sword of yours off the peg on your wall. I hope you haven't lost any of your ability."
Hamlet laughed. "Who remembers now that I ever thought myself a swordsman?"
"We all remember, Prince Hamlet, though we don't speak of it. You bested the finest swordsmen in Heidelberg, who made a point of provoking you in the public houses."
Hamlet was surprised. "I thought it was I who was too quick to take offense, and that my opponents were all unskilled, so that it did me no honor to fight them."
The professor only laughed again. "There was even talk of the wealthier students paying for a mercenary to come and teach you manners. But then you put your sword away, and they ceased to fear for their lives. It was widely rumored that you had killed half of Denmark, and that's why you were sent here."
"I've never killed a man, sir," said Hamlet.
"And never will, God willing," said the professor.
I am literally tempted to break out in TEARS at how awful that is. I don't even want to comment upon it. I'd make too many crude remarks about masturbation. I had a few lined up, but then I typed this out and refused to go any further.
I want you all to remember:
So I analyzed the story to see what it would take to make me care about it.
This is what Orson Scott Card, Hugo-winning author, needs in order to care about the story he's writing. He needs to have Hamlet be not only a GOOD swordsman and a DECENT person, he needs him to best the finest swordsmen in town so easily that he didn't even realize they were skilled and to be Plato's ideal king.
I am not making this up. This is not a libel against the man because I dislike him or think him a pompous ass. I am QUOTING HIM.
...
...I'm sorry, where was I?
And Hamlet travels home, befriending all the soldiers in his guard along the way, and regains his skill with the sword. If Card was writing this as fantasy-genre, I'm sure he'd arrive home riding a unicorn, because it recognized his goodness and purity and so let him mount it despite his not being a maiden, for he was as pure, if not more so, than any paltry village girl.
In case you can't tell how bad the unadulterated experience of reading this is, I would not be at all surprised if that happened.
And I haven't even GOTTEN to the part about which everyone else complains!
Hamlet discovers that Uncle Claudius is now king! And he is horrified!
No, not because he won't be king. He considers it more an unexpected change of plans, and it doesn't "bring him any unhappiness" - because now he might be able to take holy orders and "live his life among books and professors", hurrah!
...All right. I know that I can't say 'If you didn't like a single thing about this character, why did you choose to focus a long story around him?!' without being a hypocrite, given my previously expressed views, and that it is perfectly legitimate to play with totally overwriting a personality in a re-imagining. However, I ALSO said in the same discussion that it really ought to count as a 're-imagining' and not 'excruciating OOCness' if you could offer up a personality that was as interesting or better than the old one.
In case I haven't made it abundantly clear, this fails that test.
And so you ask WHY Hamlet is appalled? Why, because his mother's marrying Claudius.
No, never mind that Card stated less than a page ago that the information that "Uncle Claudius was King now" was "the worst possible news". His editor slashed his wrists long before this point, and so internal consistency is seeping away with the poor soul's lifeblood.
And he is appalled by this because it means Mummy Dearest might be - horrors! - ambitious.
She had endured Father's slighting treatment of her for all of Hamlet's life. He had always thought it was for his sake that she lived; it had never occurred to him that she might have loved being Queen so much that she cared little who sat on the throne, as long as she sat beside him.
Because of the atrocious writing, I can't tell whether "his sake" refers to Hamlet's or the late King's, and it doesn't really matter. This noble, philosophical soul is revolted by the thought that Mummy might have her own thoughts and feelings, and doesn't even consider for a moment that, in light of their camaraderie, his mother might have accepted Claudius's proposal because she liked the man.
Anyway, Hamlet dismisses all of these things as "unworthy thoughts" and tells everyone who will listen that Claudius is "the best man in Denmark", hooray. But he also has another reason for concealing his feelings - *high-pitched voice and limp-wristed flailing* ohmigawd, what if Claudius doesn't LIKE him?!
Okay, so it's not QUITE as bad as that. It's legitimate to fear the relative bumping you off. (IRONY. DO YOU SEE THE IRONY MR. CARD IS INJECTING INTO THESE THOUGHTS? OH, AND THE SUBTLE FORESHADOWING. IT'S LIKE, SO TOTALLY SUBTLE, AND DEEP, AND DID I MENTION SUBTLE? JUST LIKE THIS CAPSLOCK.)
But he decides that, since cheerfulness would be obviously insincere, he "need[s] to be something closer to his natural disposition: solitary, thoughtful, even brooding."
Now, that needs to be mentioned because Orson Scott Card complained that ohmigawd, people said such MEAN things about what he wrote and didn't LIKE him, but he was TOTES being true to the story, girlfriend! *flouncy sobbing*
...
Excuse me, that was unkind. What he ACTUALLY said was "Since my introduction to the book states that I was not remotely interested in Hamlet's "indecision and brooding" in Shakespeare's version of the story, I wonder how carefully the reviewer read the book."
Well, Mr. Card, I actually AM reading this thing (and will probably have a friend worrying for my sanity after the e-mail I just sent her), so I can genuinely say that you aren't. He doesn't brood, he pretentiously contemplates his navel and muses on himself and/or the unknowability of other people. He could not get less emotional if he suffered severe brain damage. And his indecision, such as it is, gets quickly handwaved away so you can talk about how he's the most wonderful, lovely boy EVER.
Get a fucking Hamlet dakimakura already, Card.
But of COURSE Hamlet is brooding, according to Card, because, as a kid, he "lingered in the graveyard, seeking to be alone for hours at a time". Yes, and he got all his clothing from Hot Topic, I'm sure!
So he pretends that he's mourning his father, when actually he didn't give a shit about his death, his only sorrow is that now he'll never get his father's approval, and that actually doesn't bother him much because he figures he'd never get it anyway. In fact, he figures Denmark is much better off, it's much better off not to have Hamlet's "brooding, scholarly" self as king, and it's well enough off with its current one because "God had ordained that Claudius be King". In fact, so long as Hamlet's "allowed to return to his books and his philosophy as soon as possible after the funeral and the wedding", he's happy.
After trying to come up with an analogy for how badly Card is mangling everything about the original characters and to what little point, I now have the following image burned into my mind's eye: Orson Scott Card clad in a cheap mumu, perched in front of a dim, flickering iMac, and eagerly flailing and squealing over a new update on Snapedom.
As payment for this liveblogging, you can tell me HOW TO GET THIS OUT OF MY HEAD.
On the bright side, I discovered the Google Books version cuts out at p. 124, so I have only eighteen more pages to go of this! :D ...Wait, how long did this go on for? Until p. 164?
...Yeah, I think the editor must have slashed his own wrists.
Only Horatio greets Hamlet upon his return, for Rosencratz and Guildenstern are living together and Laertes hasn't turned up yet.
In some ways, Horatio was still a boy, for to Hamlet all the practicing for death and war was a child's game, now that he had become a man of thoughts and words. In other ways, though, Hamlet was in awe of him, for Horatio had grown to be a strong man, looking older than his nineteen years, with an easy manner and a confidence born of strength - Horatio had nothing to fear.
Oh, are not TOTALLY PLATONIC ADMIRATION and NOT AT ALL GAY LOVING DESCRIPTION the most beautiful of things? I-i-in a straight way, I mean.
TL;DR - Fortinbras in Norway is gearing up for war with Denmark, and Hamlet just wants to join the church in case Uncle Claudius doesn't LIIIIKE him. And Horatio ribs Hamlet for his utter lack of ambition. And it is all very long and tedious and pointless.
Hamlet tells Horatio "earnestly" that he's "always been [his] wisest friend". And, furthermore, that "a woman is much like a pudding: when you’re hungry, of all things the most beautiful; but when you’ve had your fill, the dregs are disgusting to look at, and you can’t wait for someone to take the dish away.". And FURTHERMORE that "I didn't know how much I missed you till we talked again"... and that Horatio was "the best" of his Companions... and...
Tell you what. This pudding thinks this sounds painfully like Misogynistic Slashfic #342201, and that Hamlet is going to start making out with Horatio at any moment. Since there are only twelve pages of my preview left, why don't you just pretend that's how it ends and walk away happy?
Well, it doesn't, because Horatio mentions that "Laertes was the angriest of us", and Hamlet is confused, and - we all know this story had Hamlet's father as a child molester, right? So no need to dance around the bush.
And Hamlet and Horatio engage in some mildly homoerotic dueling and wrestling. I'll just let Horatio sum it up for me.
"[...] Imagine - a man so lonely that the only way he can have any companionship is to challenge someone to a duel!"
Thank you, Horatio.
There is a brief exchange with Claudius, and then we go on to two days later, when Horatio shakes Hamlet awake because he thought he saw Hamlet's father's ghost and he's terrified. And yes, Hamlet's father raped all the boys except his son and everyone knows about it but Hamlet, let's skip over the dancing around the subject from Horatio.
Anyway, the ghost shows up, Hamlet tells everyone else to shoo so they can talk in private, and they talk. For 6 pages, and then I'm done - so LET'S FINISH THIS!
Note that the ghost doesn't actually say Claudius killed him. That's because - spoilers - HORATIO did in this version, according to the Raintaxi review! But Hamlet is an idiot who doesn't ask, so we just go onto the plot-rails because our clever, intellectual hero is a thoughtless fool. That's SO much better than the original, right? And if you don't think so, you're part of the vast gay conspiracy!
Okay. Now, I'll give Card credit. If you view Hamlet's father as a foul tempter driving Hamlet onwards to sin by pushing him to take revenge, it makes interesting sense to turn him into a predator. That would be a decent re-imagining, along the lines of other 'What if the Wise Old Mentor was evil?' stories. The IDEA is good.
...I... suppose... it... vaguely... makes... sense to also make him a pedophile, since his new role would be a predator going after his own son. ...In the same sense that it makes sense to make Vernon Dursley rape Harry because all child abuse is sexual, or something. Take note, sporkers: a middle-aged man can be just as focused on using child-rape as a cheap shock tactic as any teenage slashficcer.
...I'd prefer to think he was using it for shock value, anyway. From browsing links, I've learned that apparently he's put older men pursuing teenage boys in other work (and equated this to plain homosexuality), and I remember at least one of the books - Songmaster. In that one, there's a guy who just wants the teenaged main character so badly, and the main character acquiesces because, IN CARD'S OWN DESCRIPTION, "Ansset responded, not to his own sexual desires, but to Josef's unspoken need for him.". Anyway, it all ends ridiculously badly.
And Card has a weird fascination with selfless young male main characters who often unintentionally do themselves harm in attempts to fulfill perceived desires of paternal figures. Even this story is an example - Hamlet really doesn't care for his father, but dedicates himself to vengeance out of duty. (And thus - whee, spoilers - damns himself to Hell.)
And, even though I was about to say "Well, the Tales of Alvin Maker doesn't have any weird subtext", I remembered that Alvin's father does have nearly overwhelming urges to kill him that were put into his head by the Unmaker...
And that, in the Homecoming series, a gay character apparently considers himself cured of homosexuality by straight marriage when, once he has children, he doesn't feel any desire for his SONS...
And Hamlet's Hell is to be raped by his pedophile father for all eternity...
...And Orson Scott Card is infamous for his insistence that "[t]he dark secret of homosexual society-the one that dares not speak its name-is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse"...
...
...
...
Yeah. Let's - let's not think too hard about this.
Well, completely changing the subject, Hamlet's father says, "I was a better father to you than you know. [...] I never laid a hand on you." and also "My sweet, pure-hearted, golden-haired, lovely, strong, and clever son. How often I stood at the window and watched you practice with the sword, the grace of God upon you, the sun shining in your hair. You were the only joy in my life." -
CARD, I'D LIKE TO MOVE ON.
"The only good gift your mother gave me. My only hope for the future. All lost. All stolen from me just when I was ready to take you into my confidence and set you on the throne beside me."
CARD? DO YOU HEAR ME?
Ahem. Well, he does, because Hamlet's father then moves on to non-creepy flattery, and claims Hamlet's mother will kill him 'cos he's competition. Hamlet doesn't give a shit, since he JUST WANTED TO GO INTO SPACE! just wants to be a monk abroad. The ghost throws a tantrum, and gives a botched version of his account of his murder in the play. In short, he whines and moans until Hamlet gives in and swears, and then runs off.
Hamlet contemplates his navel in an utterly pouting way. Oh, he'll be killing his beloved uncle in revenge. Meh, if he really did kill Daddy, he deserves to die. But did he? How can a ghost know who the heck killed him in his sleep? Oh, Daddy says I'm pretty! But did he just say that to make me do his bidding? Was he a bad man?
This much is sure: The spirits of the righteous do not walk the earth. They are caught up into heaven, and look no more upon this poor land of shadows, having beheld the light that can be seen only by the pure in heart. My father is here because he was a wicked man. Now he is an angry spirit, and mine are the hands that he has chosen to act out his rage.
And yet by justice and ancient law, my hands do belong to him, until his murder be avenged.
Yep, lots of indecision there, all right. 'I deduce he's a wicked, possibly lying, creature, but I'm naturally going to take him at his word, despite no other indication that my uncle is actually the sort who would do such a thing and my own doubts that he'd know who in blazes killed him in his sleep. Hooray for getting railroaded by the DM! :D'
Card then takes a full page to have Hamlet come down and tell the guards to amscray. They have a mostly pointless conversation, Horatio's last act on the page is to SUBTLY FORESHADOW (SUBTLY, SUBTLY!) that he killed Hamlet's father:
Horatio laughed. "I'm only a soldier," he said. "But I always thought assassins must know ways to kill a man that leave no trace upon the body."
And...
That's all, folks! :D I'm not about to pay THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS to get a copy from his site's shop, so that's all for Hamlet's Father - thank heavens!
In case you want to know what else happens, see the Raintaxi review.
In short, Ophelia becomes a dead pudding:
Horatio brought him his sword. "Laertes is looking for you," he said.
"I don't have time for Laertes. He must know I didn't mean to kill his father," Hamlet said.
"It's not his father," said Horatio. "It's his sister."
"Ophelia? I didn't touch her."
"She killed herself. Walked out into the sea, dressed in her heaviest gown. A funeral gown. Two soldiers went in after her, and a boat was launched, but when they brought her body back, she was dead."
"And for that he wants to kill me?"
And Hamlet gets to be, as I said, raped by his father for eternity:
"Welcome to Hell, my beautiful son. At last we'll be together as I always longed for us to be."
...
This is what it takes to make Orson Scott Card care about Hamlet, folks: women as puddings, a hero as bland as an unflavored pudding, and a ghostly child-fucking king.
And, you know, I never thought I'd type any part of the preceding sentence, much less all of it at once.
Overall review of the Google Books sample forthcoming.
This entry is mirrored at http://guardians-song.dreamwidth.org/137277.html. Comment wherever you like. Just remind me to get off the internet and do my homework.
That said, by the time I can see it, he hasn't even GONE OFF TO STUDY ABROAD. So, for a rendition of "HAMLET"? It desperately needs an editor.
And, oh boy, does it! You see, Orson Scott Card wrote:
"I have little interest in a dithering hero; nor am I much inspired by revenge plots. Yet I keep hearing that this is the greatest of them all.
So I analyzed the story to see what it would take to make me care about it."
So, naturally, he rewrites Hamlet as an excruciatingly flat hero who is Always Moral and Righteous and Actually a Pompous Ass (Unintentionally).
Ahem. I mean.
We open (my section) with a short scene with Laertes, and then we find that Uncle Claudius is actually a really nice guy and it's Hamlet's father who's the obvious ass. Hamlet, meanwhile, is super-polite, and naturally so.
"No one raised him," said Mother. "He is what he is because of the nature God gave him, and nothing he got from parents or teachers."
In other words, in order to care about the story, Card had to make Hamlet into an Idealized Prince, regardless of his actual character. And he is Always Right and Proper, even when lesser beings might be Practical.
It bothered him that Claudius and Mother seemed to speak freely between themselves about Father's shortcomings as King. There was much to be said on that score, of course, but it was unseemly for the King's wife and brother to scorn him, even privately.
Oh, heavens, get ANGRY about something. Get emotional. Cease acting like you've been put on some heavy mood-flattener.
The bothersome thing about this story is that it's making me realize that many of Card's characters are similar. There's always an unusually gifted child at an emotional remove from his surroundings, said child is recognized as a Better Being by the core cast and equally respected and despised by varying contemporaries and authority figures, and he's constantly being shaped and molded by forces outside his control (some of them often not benevolent) to fulfill a certain role beyond his current grasp.
It's very predictable, and, now that I've seen it, likely very boring. And uncomfortably informative about the sort of characters with which Card identifies.
*sigh* Moving on...
So Hamlet now goes abroad to study! And Card doesn't like the idea of Hamlet being quarrelsome.
At first, feeling uncomfortably ill-prepared, Hamlet took to carrying his sword with him wherever he went, and he managed to take offense in several of the pubs frequented by students. But he so quickly disarmed his opponents that there was no sport in it; nor was anyone impressed, at least not among the students of the sort he wanted to befriend.
In case you can't tell, this is what the entirety of Hamlet's studies sound like. Apparently Card could not care about the story unless he wrote Hamlet as yet another Supergifted, Noble, Intellectual Hero without Serious Flaws.
I therefore propose an interesting euphemism for writing Mary-Sue fanfic, in case you need to talk about it in public for whatever reason. I am practicing writing in the style of Orson Scott Card. Guaranteed to impress conservative relatives, unless they actually READ his books, in which case they'll probably ask, "WHICH part of his style are you attempting to emulate?" and it will all fall apart. In all fairness, liberal relatives will have the exact same reason, except that they might be slightly more sympathetic when you tell them the truth.
Hamlet gets in good with the professors by buying their favorite books from monasteries - excuse me, "endowed the appropriate monasteries with funds" - and forbidding them to tell anyone where they got it. So naturally, JUST AS PLANNED, they tell everyone and his generosity and modesty are celebrated throughout the university.
He also pays poorer students to tutor him in Latin, and... please, Card, your supposed aversion to capitalism is seeming rather flimsy, seeing as how Hamlet here is WALLOWING in his monetary privilege and we're supposed to think well of him for it. In case you didn't quite catch it, he BRIBED his professors and paid for special tutors. Isn't that pretty much the DEFINITION of how rich students have advantages over poor ones?!
But it's all right, because some of his best friends are sons of tradespeople. No. Really. You disbelieve me, go look up "The Ghost Quartet" (edited by Marvin Kaye) on Google Books and scroll to the Hamlet section yourself.
And he's so good at his studies that, DESPITE his high birth, he is "invited to Rome to go study there" and gives it "serious consideration", but doesn't do so because it would imply too close a link to the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire and he needs to demonstrate that his "fealty to no one but God and the Danish people". He's also "loved and admired", "not for his birth or his beauty (though neither was ignored), but for his mind and his wit and his loyalty and his kindness".
I...
I need to clarify something. Yes, I DO understand the style of depicting some person as more exalted, noble, and intellectual than others in order to provide moral inspiration. Yes, it's a legitimate style, particularly in older works or those concerned with propaganda. Yes, I've read Plutarch's Lives. Yes, I've read The Song of Roland, though that's less concerned with morality and more concerned with Splattergore for Christ. Yes, I've read several other works with characters that a flat reading might call Gary-Stus...
However, this tone of this section is so smug and self-congratulatory that I DON'T think it's meant as a Serious Moral Lesson, but rather Card gazing deeply and lovingly into his mirror as he writes about how Hamlet should have been. "He liked being loved, and he looked forward to the day when he would govern Denmark with generosity and rectitude." Oh, heavens, Card, we knoooow you like being loved. We can feel your love for yourself oozing through the monitor.
To be fair, Serious Moral Lesson territory would not make this much better. Then we would have a lot of exceedingly pious description of the Rightness of Forgiveness and Unconditional Love towards All God's Creatures, or whichever Card's equivalent moral obsession is. But then, at least, it would have a POINT and convey SOMETHING worthy of consideration and debate.
TL;DR - I'm actually angry because OSC!Hamlet isn't ENOUGH of a Purity Sue. Now, let's get back to the chronicle of how wonderful and pious Hamlet is story.
After four years, Hamlet receives the notice that his father is dead and OH JOSEPH SMITH, CARD, EVEN THE CHAPTER "KING'S CROSS" WASN'T THIS SHAMELESS IN HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS.
"I know of no man readier to be a King," said the professor. "Plato once longed for a King like you, who was a philosopher first. We are Christians; we want our Kings to be philosophers and saints."
"I'm no saint," said Hamlet. "But I hope I will disappoint my people in neither wisdom nor virtue - nor strength and courage in battle."
"I know nothing of you as a soldier," said the professor. "But I know you to be fierce in argument."
"Here I've been gentle with my hands and fierce with my speech," said Hamlet. "At home I'll need to reverse that, for we Danes are still a violent people, when the need arises. And it arises too often for our own good."
"Then take that sword of yours off the peg on your wall. I hope you haven't lost any of your ability."
Hamlet laughed. "Who remembers now that I ever thought myself a swordsman?"
"We all remember, Prince Hamlet, though we don't speak of it. You bested the finest swordsmen in Heidelberg, who made a point of provoking you in the public houses."
Hamlet was surprised. "I thought it was I who was too quick to take offense, and that my opponents were all unskilled, so that it did me no honor to fight them."
The professor only laughed again. "There was even talk of the wealthier students paying for a mercenary to come and teach you manners. But then you put your sword away, and they ceased to fear for their lives. It was widely rumored that you had killed half of Denmark, and that's why you were sent here."
"I've never killed a man, sir," said Hamlet.
"And never will, God willing," said the professor.
I am literally tempted to break out in TEARS at how awful that is. I don't even want to comment upon it. I'd make too many crude remarks about masturbation. I had a few lined up, but then I typed this out and refused to go any further.
I want you all to remember:
So I analyzed the story to see what it would take to make me care about it.
This is what Orson Scott Card, Hugo-winning author, needs in order to care about the story he's writing. He needs to have Hamlet be not only a GOOD swordsman and a DECENT person, he needs him to best the finest swordsmen in town so easily that he didn't even realize they were skilled and to be Plato's ideal king.
I am not making this up. This is not a libel against the man because I dislike him or think him a pompous ass. I am QUOTING HIM.
...
...I'm sorry, where was I?
And Hamlet travels home, befriending all the soldiers in his guard along the way, and regains his skill with the sword. If Card was writing this as fantasy-genre, I'm sure he'd arrive home riding a unicorn, because it recognized his goodness and purity and so let him mount it despite his not being a maiden, for he was as pure, if not more so, than any paltry village girl.
In case you can't tell how bad the unadulterated experience of reading this is, I would not be at all surprised if that happened.
And I haven't even GOTTEN to the part about which everyone else complains!
Hamlet discovers that Uncle Claudius is now king! And he is horrified!
No, not because he won't be king. He considers it more an unexpected change of plans, and it doesn't "bring him any unhappiness" - because now he might be able to take holy orders and "live his life among books and professors", hurrah!
...All right. I know that I can't say 'If you didn't like a single thing about this character, why did you choose to focus a long story around him?!' without being a hypocrite, given my previously expressed views, and that it is perfectly legitimate to play with totally overwriting a personality in a re-imagining. However, I ALSO said in the same discussion that it really ought to count as a 're-imagining' and not 'excruciating OOCness' if you could offer up a personality that was as interesting or better than the old one.
In case I haven't made it abundantly clear, this fails that test.
And so you ask WHY Hamlet is appalled? Why, because his mother's marrying Claudius.
No, never mind that Card stated less than a page ago that the information that "Uncle Claudius was King now" was "the worst possible news". His editor slashed his wrists long before this point, and so internal consistency is seeping away with the poor soul's lifeblood.
And he is appalled by this because it means Mummy Dearest might be - horrors! - ambitious.
She had endured Father's slighting treatment of her for all of Hamlet's life. He had always thought it was for his sake that she lived; it had never occurred to him that she might have loved being Queen so much that she cared little who sat on the throne, as long as she sat beside him.
Because of the atrocious writing, I can't tell whether "his sake" refers to Hamlet's or the late King's, and it doesn't really matter. This noble, philosophical soul is revolted by the thought that Mummy might have her own thoughts and feelings, and doesn't even consider for a moment that, in light of their camaraderie, his mother might have accepted Claudius's proposal because she liked the man.
Anyway, Hamlet dismisses all of these things as "unworthy thoughts" and tells everyone who will listen that Claudius is "the best man in Denmark", hooray. But he also has another reason for concealing his feelings - *high-pitched voice and limp-wristed flailing* ohmigawd, what if Claudius doesn't LIKE him?!
Okay, so it's not QUITE as bad as that. It's legitimate to fear the relative bumping you off. (IRONY. DO YOU SEE THE IRONY MR. CARD IS INJECTING INTO THESE THOUGHTS? OH, AND THE SUBTLE FORESHADOWING. IT'S LIKE, SO TOTALLY SUBTLE, AND DEEP, AND DID I MENTION SUBTLE? JUST LIKE THIS CAPSLOCK.)
But he decides that, since cheerfulness would be obviously insincere, he "need[s] to be something closer to his natural disposition: solitary, thoughtful, even brooding."
Now, that needs to be mentioned because Orson Scott Card complained that ohmigawd, people said such MEAN things about what he wrote and didn't LIKE him, but he was TOTES being true to the story, girlfriend! *flouncy sobbing*
...
Excuse me, that was unkind. What he ACTUALLY said was "Since my introduction to the book states that I was not remotely interested in Hamlet's "indecision and brooding" in Shakespeare's version of the story, I wonder how carefully the reviewer read the book."
Well, Mr. Card, I actually AM reading this thing (and will probably have a friend worrying for my sanity after the e-mail I just sent her), so I can genuinely say that you aren't. He doesn't brood, he pretentiously contemplates his navel and muses on himself and/or the unknowability of other people. He could not get less emotional if he suffered severe brain damage. And his indecision, such as it is, gets quickly handwaved away so you can talk about how he's the most wonderful, lovely boy EVER.
Get a fucking Hamlet dakimakura already, Card.
But of COURSE Hamlet is brooding, according to Card, because, as a kid, he "lingered in the graveyard, seeking to be alone for hours at a time". Yes, and he got all his clothing from Hot Topic, I'm sure!
So he pretends that he's mourning his father, when actually he didn't give a shit about his death, his only sorrow is that now he'll never get his father's approval, and that actually doesn't bother him much because he figures he'd never get it anyway. In fact, he figures Denmark is much better off, it's much better off not to have Hamlet's "brooding, scholarly" self as king, and it's well enough off with its current one because "God had ordained that Claudius be King". In fact, so long as Hamlet's "allowed to return to his books and his philosophy as soon as possible after the funeral and the wedding", he's happy.
After trying to come up with an analogy for how badly Card is mangling everything about the original characters and to what little point, I now have the following image burned into my mind's eye: Orson Scott Card clad in a cheap mumu, perched in front of a dim, flickering iMac, and eagerly flailing and squealing over a new update on Snapedom.
As payment for this liveblogging, you can tell me HOW TO GET THIS OUT OF MY HEAD.
On the bright side, I discovered the Google Books version cuts out at p. 124, so I have only eighteen more pages to go of this! :D ...Wait, how long did this go on for? Until p. 164?
...Yeah, I think the editor must have slashed his own wrists.
Only Horatio greets Hamlet upon his return, for Rosencratz and Guildenstern are living together and Laertes hasn't turned up yet.
In some ways, Horatio was still a boy, for to Hamlet all the practicing for death and war was a child's game, now that he had become a man of thoughts and words. In other ways, though, Hamlet was in awe of him, for Horatio had grown to be a strong man, looking older than his nineteen years, with an easy manner and a confidence born of strength - Horatio had nothing to fear.
Oh, are not TOTALLY PLATONIC ADMIRATION and NOT AT ALL GAY LOVING DESCRIPTION the most beautiful of things? I-i-in a straight way, I mean.
TL;DR - Fortinbras in Norway is gearing up for war with Denmark, and Hamlet just wants to join the church in case Uncle Claudius doesn't LIIIIKE him. And Horatio ribs Hamlet for his utter lack of ambition. And it is all very long and tedious and pointless.
Hamlet tells Horatio "earnestly" that he's "always been [his] wisest friend". And, furthermore, that "a woman is much like a pudding: when you’re hungry, of all things the most beautiful; but when you’ve had your fill, the dregs are disgusting to look at, and you can’t wait for someone to take the dish away.". And FURTHERMORE that "I didn't know how much I missed you till we talked again"... and that Horatio was "the best" of his Companions... and...
Tell you what. This pudding thinks this sounds painfully like Misogynistic Slashfic #342201, and that Hamlet is going to start making out with Horatio at any moment. Since there are only twelve pages of my preview left, why don't you just pretend that's how it ends and walk away happy?
Well, it doesn't, because Horatio mentions that "Laertes was the angriest of us", and Hamlet is confused, and - we all know this story had Hamlet's father as a child molester, right? So no need to dance around the bush.
And Hamlet and Horatio engage in some mildly homoerotic dueling and wrestling. I'll just let Horatio sum it up for me.
"[...] Imagine - a man so lonely that the only way he can have any companionship is to challenge someone to a duel!"
Thank you, Horatio.
There is a brief exchange with Claudius, and then we go on to two days later, when Horatio shakes Hamlet awake because he thought he saw Hamlet's father's ghost and he's terrified. And yes, Hamlet's father raped all the boys except his son and everyone knows about it but Hamlet, let's skip over the dancing around the subject from Horatio.
Anyway, the ghost shows up, Hamlet tells everyone else to shoo so they can talk in private, and they talk. For 6 pages, and then I'm done - so LET'S FINISH THIS!
Note that the ghost doesn't actually say Claudius killed him. That's because - spoilers - HORATIO did in this version, according to the Raintaxi review! But Hamlet is an idiot who doesn't ask, so we just go onto the plot-rails because our clever, intellectual hero is a thoughtless fool. That's SO much better than the original, right? And if you don't think so, you're part of the vast gay conspiracy!
Okay. Now, I'll give Card credit. If you view Hamlet's father as a foul tempter driving Hamlet onwards to sin by pushing him to take revenge, it makes interesting sense to turn him into a predator. That would be a decent re-imagining, along the lines of other 'What if the Wise Old Mentor was evil?' stories. The IDEA is good.
...I... suppose... it... vaguely... makes... sense to also make him a pedophile, since his new role would be a predator going after his own son. ...In the same sense that it makes sense to make Vernon Dursley rape Harry because all child abuse is sexual, or something. Take note, sporkers: a middle-aged man can be just as focused on using child-rape as a cheap shock tactic as any teenage slashficcer.
...I'd prefer to think he was using it for shock value, anyway. From browsing links, I've learned that apparently he's put older men pursuing teenage boys in other work (and equated this to plain homosexuality), and I remember at least one of the books - Songmaster. In that one, there's a guy who just wants the teenaged main character so badly, and the main character acquiesces because, IN CARD'S OWN DESCRIPTION, "Ansset responded, not to his own sexual desires, but to Josef's unspoken need for him.". Anyway, it all ends ridiculously badly.
And Card has a weird fascination with selfless young male main characters who often unintentionally do themselves harm in attempts to fulfill perceived desires of paternal figures. Even this story is an example - Hamlet really doesn't care for his father, but dedicates himself to vengeance out of duty. (And thus - whee, spoilers - damns himself to Hell.)
And, even though I was about to say "Well, the Tales of Alvin Maker doesn't have any weird subtext", I remembered that Alvin's father does have nearly overwhelming urges to kill him that were put into his head by the Unmaker...
And that, in the Homecoming series, a gay character apparently considers himself cured of homosexuality by straight marriage when, once he has children, he doesn't feel any desire for his SONS...
And Hamlet's Hell is to be raped by his pedophile father for all eternity...
...And Orson Scott Card is infamous for his insistence that "[t]he dark secret of homosexual society-the one that dares not speak its name-is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse"...
...
...
...
Yeah. Let's - let's not think too hard about this.
Well, completely changing the subject, Hamlet's father says, "I was a better father to you than you know. [...] I never laid a hand on you." and also "My sweet, pure-hearted, golden-haired, lovely, strong, and clever son. How often I stood at the window and watched you practice with the sword, the grace of God upon you, the sun shining in your hair. You were the only joy in my life." -
CARD, I'D LIKE TO MOVE ON.
"The only good gift your mother gave me. My only hope for the future. All lost. All stolen from me just when I was ready to take you into my confidence and set you on the throne beside me."
CARD? DO YOU HEAR ME?
Ahem. Well, he does, because Hamlet's father then moves on to non-creepy flattery, and claims Hamlet's mother will kill him 'cos he's competition. Hamlet doesn't give a shit, since he JUST WANTED TO GO INTO SPACE! just wants to be a monk abroad. The ghost throws a tantrum, and gives a botched version of his account of his murder in the play. In short, he whines and moans until Hamlet gives in and swears, and then runs off.
Hamlet contemplates his navel in an utterly pouting way. Oh, he'll be killing his beloved uncle in revenge. Meh, if he really did kill Daddy, he deserves to die. But did he? How can a ghost know who the heck killed him in his sleep? Oh, Daddy says I'm pretty! But did he just say that to make me do his bidding? Was he a bad man?
This much is sure: The spirits of the righteous do not walk the earth. They are caught up into heaven, and look no more upon this poor land of shadows, having beheld the light that can be seen only by the pure in heart. My father is here because he was a wicked man. Now he is an angry spirit, and mine are the hands that he has chosen to act out his rage.
And yet by justice and ancient law, my hands do belong to him, until his murder be avenged.
Yep, lots of indecision there, all right. 'I deduce he's a wicked, possibly lying, creature, but I'm naturally going to take him at his word, despite no other indication that my uncle is actually the sort who would do such a thing and my own doubts that he'd know who in blazes killed him in his sleep. Hooray for getting railroaded by the DM! :D'
Card then takes a full page to have Hamlet come down and tell the guards to amscray. They have a mostly pointless conversation, Horatio's last act on the page is to SUBTLY FORESHADOW (SUBTLY, SUBTLY!) that he killed Hamlet's father:
Horatio laughed. "I'm only a soldier," he said. "But I always thought assassins must know ways to kill a man that leave no trace upon the body."
And...
That's all, folks! :D I'm not about to pay THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS to get a copy from his site's shop, so that's all for Hamlet's Father - thank heavens!
In case you want to know what else happens, see the Raintaxi review.
In short, Ophelia becomes a dead pudding:
Horatio brought him his sword. "Laertes is looking for you," he said.
"I don't have time for Laertes. He must know I didn't mean to kill his father," Hamlet said.
"It's not his father," said Horatio. "It's his sister."
"Ophelia? I didn't touch her."
"She killed herself. Walked out into the sea, dressed in her heaviest gown. A funeral gown. Two soldiers went in after her, and a boat was launched, but when they brought her body back, she was dead."
"And for that he wants to kill me?"
And Hamlet gets to be, as I said, raped by his father for eternity:
"Welcome to Hell, my beautiful son. At last we'll be together as I always longed for us to be."
...
This is what it takes to make Orson Scott Card care about Hamlet, folks: women as puddings, a hero as bland as an unflavored pudding, and a ghostly child-fucking king.
And, you know, I never thought I'd type any part of the preceding sentence, much less all of it at once.
Overall review of the Google Books sample forthcoming.
This entry is mirrored at http://guardians-song.dreamwidth.org/137277.html. Comment wherever you like. Just remind me to get off the internet and do my homework.