quote:Here's the punch line: Old King Hamlet was an inadequate king because he was gay, an evil person because he was gay, and, ultimately, a demonic and ghostly father of lies who convinces young Hamlet to exact imaginary revenge on innocent people. The old king was actually murdered by Horatio, in revenge for molesting him as a young boy—along with Laertes, and Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, thereby turning all of them gay. We learn that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are now "as fusty and peculiar as an old married couple. I pity the woman who tries to wed her way into that house."
Hamlet is damned for all the needless death he inflicts, and Dead Gay Dad will now do gay things to him for the rest of eternity: "Welcome to Hell, my beautiful son. At last we'll be together as I always longed for us to be."
I just want to confirm here, this is a real thing he really did? Not a joke?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: Hamlet is also secure in his religious faith, with absolute and unshakable beliefs about the nature of death and the afterlife. He isn't particularly hung up on Ophelia, either. Throughout the novella, Prince Hamlet displays the emotional depth of a blank sheet of paper.
Sadly, most of OSC's characters display these virtues these days. Unshakable faith in their ideas. The convenience of always being right, and thus no need for difficult and emotionally taxing reassessment of, well, anything.
I think this started to really take shape with the Shadow novels. These days, I expect OSC characters to be incapable of change. The only "change" they usually display is actually just a change in what we know about them. He trades narrative tricks for actual growth of the characters. "Oh, you didn't *know* Bean was half black? Tut Tut sir. You shouldn't have assumed he wasn't. I know it seems like the kind of thing that might have been important in some way when he was a street urchin who didn't know his parentage... Oh, you didn't realize that my main character could speak a dozen languages and dialects? Well, be more observant."
Anyway, his Romeo and Juliet update was ghastly. The urge to do this seems to me like just one more eff you to academia and intellectuals. Oh well.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Wait, this is real?
quote:Here's the punch line: Old King Hamlet was an inadequate king because he was gay, an evil person because he was gay, and, ultimately, a demonic and ghostly father of lies who convinces young Hamlet to exact imaginary revenge on innocent people. The old king was actually murdered by Horatio, in revenge for molesting him as a young boy—along with Laertes, and Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, thereby turning all of them gay. We learn that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are now "as fusty and peculiar as an old married couple. I pity the woman who tries to wed her way into that house."
Hamlet is damned for all the needless death he inflicts, and Dead Gay Dad will now do gay things to him for the rest of eternity: "Welcome to Hell, my beautiful son. At last we'll be together as I always longed for us to be."
I just want to confirm here, this is a real thing he really did? Not a joke?
Well, what do you mean? I don't think the reviewer's making up the "old king was actually murdered by Horatio, in revenge for molesting him as a young boy—along with Laertes" part, but the rest of it seems like it might well be somewhat distorted. The last part especially. (The part about the old king wanting to "do gay things" to Hamlet forever. That's not a fair reading of the quote used to substantiate that claim, and so it makes me suspect the preceding claims are similarly distorted. The review is full of this kind of thing; it doesn't seem trustworthy.)
I don't especially want to pay $25 just to figure out whether I agree with the way the story is described in this review, though.
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I agree with the reviewer's moral concerns, assuming they're accurate, but he/she also seems to have an instinctive revulsion to the idea of Shakespear fanfiction, which I don't think is warranted.
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quote:Originally posted by Scott R: I thought his Romeo and Juliet update was pretty solid, as was his Taming of the Shrew. I haven't read the Merchant of Venice, though.
What was your specific complaint, Orincoro?
I didn't do an in-depth reading f it, but the sections posted on this site were clunky, lacked any charm in the language, and as I recall, reduced the dramatic tension of the piece to that of a flaccid rubber band. I found it ghastly to behold, but that's my taste. That is to say, I have taste. Writing such a thing is a testament to having little.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I agree with the reviewer's moral concerns, assuming they're accurate, but he/she also seems to have an instinctive revulsion to the idea of Shakespear fanfiction, which I don't think is warranted.
For my part, I have basic reservations about rewriting someone's work when it is not necessary to do so. And while it takes some practice, understanding Shakespeare in the original is possible, and it is an important experience that helps one to understand the language his works so heavily influenced.
I've also read a lot of Chaucer in the original, and though in That case I think the distance between us and the language warrants wholesale translations, again, I found the experience to be worthwhile.
The issue for me is: is it necessary? And in the case f Shakespeare, I just don't believe that it is. If you want to tell the stories yourself, do a wholesale rewrite. Nobody owns this material. But this kind of thing is sold as Shakespeare, when really it's using The bard as a kind of brand or franchise to sell something else. I feel much the same way about updates of classical and romantic symphonies that were popular in past decades, and enjoy some success today- sometimes a change is necessary to suit the new age of performers, or instruments, but seating 60 violinists in a concerto written for 20 is not quiet the same as rewriting the themes of that concerto to be more pleasing to a modern ear. The instruments do change, but the work is the work on some basic level.
It's an amorphous distinction, I realize, but we are not situated on any fine lines when it comes to OSC. This is not alban berg setting the Art of Fugue for orchestra- this s something anti-intellectual, anti-art, and sinister.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I agree with the reviewer's moral concerns, assuming they're accurate, but he/she also seems to have an instinctive revulsion to the idea of Shakespear fanfiction, which I don't think is warranted.
Well when it's shakespeare rewrites for modern audiences that turns the scene where hamlet learns of ophelia's death into this ...
quote: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?"
Also: no soliloquizing on the nature of life, death and the afterlife. Just because, you know....boring, hard to understand moral contemplation. Which is better served by gutting out the bard's musing and hamfistedly hammering in the author's own mormonism-compatible moral assurances in the void left over.
ahhhhh this is all so bad. I need to find a few additional sources on this text and see if it's as bad as raintaxi makes it sound.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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And anyway, as with the performance of music, the original material provides SO MUCH to work with and to interpret in so many ways, a written update seems, again, to be unnecessary and an act of unmaking that is cruel to the original work.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:I didn't do an in-depth reading f it, but the sections posted on this site were clunky, lacked any charm in the language, and as I recall, reduced the dramatic tension of the piece to that of a flaccid rubber band. I found it ghastly to behold, but that's my taste. That is to say, I have taste. Writing such a thing is a testament to having little.
posted
Nooooooooo! He probably took over a character to nag everyone about marriage and fidelity and monogamy being the best way to raise children! Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: (The part about the old king wanting to "do gay things" to Hamlet forever. That's not a fair reading of the quote used to substantiate that claim, and so it makes me suspect the preceding claims are similarly distorted. The review is full of this kind of thing; it doesn't seem trustworthy.)
I'm curious whether it was an unfair reading. I thought it was probably fair if raintaxi is correct that it is clear that Hamlet himself was spared his father's attentions by his mother. With this in mind, my parsing of "Welcome to Hell, my beautiful son. At last we'll be together as I always longed for us to be." supports raintaxi's view. - it seems implausible that Hamlet's father always wanted them to be in Hell together. - presumably they were previously located in the same abode at some time prior to the father's murder, so the sense in which he wants them to be together is presumably different from the sense in which they were together. - 'being together' is not an uncommon euphemism
Posts: 644 | Registered: Sep 2008
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posted
"Welcome to Hell, my beautiful son. At last we'll be together as I always longed for us to be." says the character rewritten by a boardmember of NOM to be an evil serial gay molester. In hell.
posted
For the record, I'm quite fond of OSC's rewrite of Romeo and Juliet; I think it's quite well-done, not least because it manages to resurrect the spirit of the puns and wordplay in the text for an intended audience who would otherwise need to interpret them through footnotes.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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So I guess it's time to bring up the fact that he wrote this when reviewing Airbender.
quote:It always baffles me that movie makers have such blind arrogance that they can take great works of art by other people and then add in their own "ideas" to "improve" them.
One thinks of some moron redoing the Mona Lisa with more cleavage, so she'll be "more attractive to the audience"; or turning the horns on Michelangelo's statue of Moses into flowers, thus removing the symbol of divine revelation; or adding a new "comic" motif now and then throughout Ravel's Bolero because the original is so "relentless" and "boring."
posted
I doubt OSC would ever say that he is "improving" any of these Shakespearean plays. Even a cursory look at his descriptions of Shakespeare makes it quite obvious he has nothing but the highest opinion of him. OSC was studying and writing theater long before he started writing novels, and continues to write for the stage today.
The idea that he believes himself qualified to fix Shakespeare is not borne up by evidence, it's almost ludicrous. His discussion of just how great the plays are, reveals a person who clearly understands the words, and what makes them so wonderful.
Further OSC was speaking to movie makers, not all artistic adaptations of any art. Were he doing that, he'd have to frown on all plays, since in essence they are interpretations of their original material. He'd have to despise musical covers of other musician's songs, something I've never heard anybody do.
His retelling of Hamlet is obviously not because he feels Hamlet is flawed, but because we as a society have drifted away from the material such that we can't appreciate it properly. I doubt he would ever say, "Read Hamlet's Father instead of the original Hamlet!" If anything, his writing is probably written in the hopes that readers will enjoy the text, and be curious to read the original.
I doubt OSC would be anything but thrilled if just one reader read one of his adaptations and went on to read Shakespeare in the original English.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:If you're going to adapt a brilliant original into a different form or medium, treat it with respect. You may need to cut or combine incidents in order to make the film version fit within the allotted time, but there is no excuse for adding new material
He makes comparisons to painting, sculpture, and music, so it's not like he thinks this a mistake that only applies to filmmakers, and I think turning King Hamel into a gay rapist and using Shakespeare's work as an anti-gay mouthpiece certainly counts a "adding new material".
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Hearing that your favorite author as a child is corrupting Hamlet to ridicule a part of your identity has that effect.
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I think this rewrite is less about making the work accessible to modern audiences and more about making it more religiously compatible with mormon views, taking out questions and philosophizing about the nature of the afterlife and replacing it with clearcut moralizing and "here is how it is". So you can "introduce" mormon kids to it because it has been made more appropriate for them. And his homophobic agenda gets in there too apparently.
Let me guess where copies of this are going and where they are going to be used. Let me just guess.
Posts: 805 | Registered: Jun 2009
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How does turning Hamlet's father into an incestuous man who also rapes young boys, have anything to do with homosexuality? Or should we similarly castigate Frank Herbert for having an antagonist who drugs, rapes, and then kills boys?
Bear in mind, if there are other aspects of the play I have missed, that speak more to an anti-homosexuality message, I've yet to be made aware of them. And I found review linked above to be obnoxious reading.
Again, he is speaking about taking one medium and adapting it to another. Specifically into the limited time constraints of film. He isn't talking about film remakes of films, or paintings of paintings. He himself wrote Enchantment which is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, his Earthbound series is based on The Book of Mormon, Alvin Maker's bones are found in Joseph Smith's life. Women of Genesis is full of literary additions that add layers to the sparse Biblical account. Stone Tables is a play based on the story of Moses.
Film already must make sacrifices of its source material so as to fit it all into a two hour or so presentation. If you have such a limitation there is no excuse for adding new scenes, you rarely if ever please the audience with the additional cuts that make room for the new material, and the new material itself rarely fits properly with the original artists vision.
What OSC did with Hamlet is more akin to taking say The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, itself an adaptation of a French play turned into an opera, and putting it to country music, bringing all the notes down an octave or so, and translating it into English.
Having said all that, I'm not sure why he felt it necessary to make Hamlet's father an evil man, who even in the afterlife was attempting to cause mayhem through deception. Maybe he wanted to make the tragic elements of Hamlet that much more deep, as it turns out his entire quest for revenge after all the agonizing over whether he should go through with it, was actually his father's final ploy to have a chance at committing the ultimate evil act he never managed to commit by his timely murder. And now having tricked his son into committing murder, he might get to.
Does Gertrude protecting Hamlet, and thus making her a stronger character garner brownie points for OSC being a feminist then?
quote:Originally posted by Parkour: I think this rewrite is less about making the work accessible to modern audiences and more about making it more religiously compatible with mormon views, taking out questions and philosophizing about the nature of the afterlife and replacing it with clearcut moralizing and "here is how it is". So you can "introduce" mormon kids to it because it has been made more appropriate for them. And his homophobic agenda gets in there too apparently.
Let me guess where copies of this are going and where they are going to be used. Let me just guess.
I'd love to hear your guess. The church wouldn't buy materials like Hamlet's Father and use them in meetings. They don't use almost anything written unless the church itself publishes it. You can of course bring outside literature into Sunday School and use it as a reference, but the idea that somebody would write a play, with the intent of mass producing it for Mormons in their meetings is really untenable. For one thing you'd have to present the thing over the course of several weeks, and another Mormons are not particularly disposed to listening to the texts of plays in Sunday School. Where a teacher to use Hamlet's Father on any sort of regular basis, he'd probably be told to stick to the official material the church has already produced.
And what on earth does "Here is how it is" mean? The theology that is true in Hamlet's Father is not more compatible with Mormon belief than it is with Islamic ones. Mormons don't believe that evil men after they die can appear as ghosts and talk to us. If they were going to use homosexuality as a negative attribute of any character, why not change the character of Claudius? It fits much neater if that's the cheap shot you want to make. Finally why do you think a character who questions the nature of the afterlife is anymore troublesome for Mormons to process than say a character who can't decide whether to obey their mother or their father? Mormons ruminate on the afterlife all the time, there's hardly any consensus on what goes on in the next life. Why should a reworked Shakespearean play by OSC be the lens by which clarity is established? Most Mormons probably don't even know who OSC is, I've certainly found that tons of them in Utah don't have any idea who he is. This says nothing about the majority of Mormons who don't even live in the US.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:How does turning Hamlet's father into an incestuous man who also rapes young boys, have anything to do with homosexuality?
I'm pretty sure you can answer that for yourself?
No I can't, I don't see the relation. Incest is frowned on in our society, and pedophilia even more so. We also look down on those who equate pedophilia as being somehow related to homosexuality. Or more especially when opponents of homosexuality say, "What if we allow gay marriage, what's to stop pedophiles?!"
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Homosexuality and pedophilia are not related and shouldn't be considered the same thing. The fact that they are often connected is disgraceful. That being said, however, it is something OSC has done in his essays so assuming that he is trying to connect the two is not completely unfair.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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If Hamlet was a woman, and Hamlet's father were doing all the exact same things, but with young girls, morally I doubt OSC would find it any less despicable.
So why then is it somehow a shot at homosexuality?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: If Hamlet was a woman, and Hamlet's father were doing all the exact same things, but with young girls, morally I doubt OSC would find it any less despicable.
So why then is it somehow a shot at homosexuality?
Because the evil of homosexual pedophilia is often used to construe homosexuals as depraved perverts, by association. Essentially- the fact of being homosexual is claimed as the cause of being a pedophile, while heterosexual pedophilia is regarded as a different moral or psychological ill.
As Scholarette suggests, the implication that this is what is being done is only fair in light of other statements from the same source which conflate pedophilia and homosexuality.
quote: We also look down on those who equate pedophilia as being somehow related to homosexuality. Or more especially when opponents of homosexuality say, "What if we allow gay marriage, what's to stop pedophiles?!"
You and I look down on the people who equate the two. But I am quite sure the numbers of people who look down on incest and pedophilia in general are much higher than the numbers of people who look down on this kind of thing. I mean, the proof of that is contained in the statement itself: we express our disapproval at the people who do this. There are people who do this. And while we all (all functioning members of society) abhor sexual abuse and incest, we don't all abhor the notion of conflating homosexuality and pedophilia. Many people are okay with that kind of thing.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I think it is that Hamlet's father's victims become gay because of the experience.
Didn't OSC write a really disturbing short story once about a guy who has incestuous thoughts about his daughter?
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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OSC has written many disturbing accounts of abusive and dysfunctional families. Incest, spousal and sibling abuse, homosexuality, pedophilia- it often seems most of his characters are victims of one kind or another.
And yes, the story you're probably referring to appears in The Worthing Saga, and it is about Abner Dune's lover, who's crippled father makes pathetic attempts to initiate a sexual relationship with her, until he dies, and she loses her mind.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: So then why then is it somehow a shot at homosexuality?
Here, let me make a hypothetical scenario for you.
Let's say I'm a somewhat known artist, and I am by now well-known to write vitriolic screeds where I described Mormonism as a deviant lifestyle that we can not accept, that it should be purposefully kept illegal to protect society from exposure to it and force Mormons to keep their disgusting behavior discreet, and then I write this:
quote:"The dark secret of Mormon society — the one that dares not speak its name — is how many Mormons first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the Mormon community and live normally.
It’s that desire for normality, that discontent with perpetual adolescent spirituality, that is at least partly behind this hunger for Mormon "spirituality."
Then I write a remake of Hamlet where Old King Horatio is a Mormon, and he molested four children and this molestation turned them into Mormons.
Would you really be asking others, in this situation, how this is 'supposed to be a shot against Mormons?"
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
The Publisher's Weekly review back from when this got released seems to confirm the interpretations of the raintaxi review:
quote:Hamlet's Father Orson Scott Card, Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $35 (96p) ISBN 978-1-59606-269-6
Hugo and Nebula–winner Card (Pathfinder) tinkers with the backstory of Shakespeare's play in this flimsy novella. When Hamlet is a boy, his father snubs him while doting on all his friends in a manner that the reader will immediately identify as perverse. After a blissful interlude at school, Hamlet returns to Elsinore for the events of the play. Card's Hamlet is more calculating, less dark, and almost completely isolated. He despises his father; his close relationship with his mother is only briefly shown; and even his closest friends, Horatio and Laertes, get little page time. The writing and pacing have the feel of a draft for a longer and more introspective work that might have fleshed out Hamlet's indecision and brooding; instead, the focus is primarily on linking homosexuality with the life-destroying horrors of pedophilia, a focus most fans of possibly bisexual Shakespeare are unlikely to appreciate. (Apr.)
quote:And yes, the story you're probably referring to appears in The Worthing Saga, and it is about Abner Dune's lover, who's crippled father makes pathetic attempts to initiate a sexual relationship with her, until he dies, and she loses her mind.
More likely, the story scholarette is thinking of is Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavoratory.
Anyway, I found that story more disturbing that the one you referenced in the Worthing Saga.
quote:I think this rewrite is less about making the work accessible to modern audiences and more about making it more religiously compatible with mormon views
Let's back up a second:
1) What do you know about Mormon beliefs about the afterlife? 2) Have you read this story?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Orson Scott Card has rewritten Hamlet. The back of this slim novella boasts that once we have read this "revelatory version of the Hamlet story, Shakespeare's play will be much more fun to watch—because now you'll know what's really going on." The author has previously updated other Shakespearean plays, rendering them more intelligible to modern audiences while supposedly retaining the “flavor” of the originals.
See, I have a problem with this basic premise - that someone needs to tell me what's "really going on" in another work when I can just read the original work myself and figure out "what's really going on."
Shakespeare is not that difficult to understand if you apply yourself, or perhaps with the help of a good English literature teacher. Not that I consider myself all that good, but I taught Julius Caesar to inner city kids who hate to read last year, and they truly enjoyed it. Once they got over their fear of the unusual language, they got into the story and were fascinated by Brutus' manipulation of the facts to suit his own interpretation of them, and got into the question of who is the hero in this play, if there is one. We studied Brutus and Antony's speeches and how they worked the crowds - and related it to how persuasive speakers can do the same today.
If, with a little guidance, kids like the ones I teach can figure out what's going on in a Shakespeare play and appreciate it for what it is, then why would we even need anything like these re-tellings? I just cringe at the thought of messing with classics - I feel it robs people of the chance to appreciate their brilliance and complexity without preconceived notions. I'd rather people read Hamlet without going into it thinking that Hamlet's father was a child molester.
Now, gotta go - my darling students are about to come in so we can talk about Mark Twain. Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
What Belle said . Not to mention the fact that there is often a level of ambiguity in most complex literature-- for example, who is the hero in Julius Caesar or is there one? What OSC has done is simply write his essay interpretation into fiction form. I just seems a little heavy handed, even aside from the appalling plot manipulation.
I love Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. When I was a teenager, the movie was a revelation and I recently saw the play in London-- done very well. Aside from the relentless wordplay, which is all new and/or interactive with the text, it is actually telling a story that is at once harmonious with the original text and clearly quite separate from it. You don't watch Hamlet and see Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead-- usually you are fully focused on Hamlet.
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I don't like the idea of revelatory fiction either. I think of works like the "sequel" to Gone With the Wind, or Les Miserables, or the Phantom of the Opera and cringe.
As for updating the original work-- I see LOTS of value in that, for Shakespeare. Take the first scene of Romeo and Juliet-- Card's update, as Tom noted, makes it comprehensible to audiences without destroying the authenticity. Shakespeare's works are plays, not prose; they are meant, in my opinion, to be performed and understood in the moment that the words are spoken.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:If, with a little guidance, kids like the ones I teach can figure out what's going on in a Shakespeare play and appreciate it for what it is, then why would we even need anything like these re-tellings?
Because in order to love something, you can't really maintain an academic distance from it. It's one thing to know intellectually that when a teenager is snarking around the phrase, "I bite my thumb at you, sir," he's doing the rough equivalent of scratching his forehead with his middle finger, but it's another thing to be able to feel the way an audience steeped in that culture would actually feel in response. The way I look at it, any rewrite that brings the sense of the material closer to more people is a God-send, especially since the original material remains out there for people who want it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: Shakespeare is not that difficult to understand if you apply yourself
Apparently not, while reading Hamlet myself I never caught on to the absolute fact that gay's are evil and they are everything wrong with everything. Maybe Shakespeare only wanted enlightened christians to be able understand that point so he hid it in a secret christian way, and being an atheist I do not have that particular decoder ring.
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posted
So, rivka, how is the story? Also ScottR got the story. Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavoratory- most disturbing OSC story I have read.
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