Ophelia

Author: Lisa Klein

Age: YA

I know, it seems like all I've reviewed lately have been young adult books. I was thinking about this when I went to the library a couple days ago, but I came home with two YA books anyway. It just seems like adult books are so often about one of two types--boring 20somethings with boring office jobs, or bitter menopausal divorcees. I've lived through the first one, and I quit that job, thanks...and as far as the second one goes, I'd rather just cross that bridge if or when I come to it. But I know that's not really ALL that's out there...so I'll try to come up with some good adult books to review soon.

Ok, here goes...Ophelia. Honestly, it was a bit of a disappointment. Not that there was anything too wrong with the book itself...it's just that I've always found Ophelia intriguing, and the book wasn't exactly what I was expecting, or hoping for, I guess. But it was pretty standard historical fiction, well-written (at least gramatically, if not necessarily in terms of plot...but more on that below), and if you like Shakespeare and/or Shakespearean-era historical fiction, you'll probably like it.

It wasn't as dramatic or as tragic as I would have expected from a book about a play about a tragedy. For starters, Ophelia doesn't kill herself...she pulls a Juliet and fakes her own death. That's not a spoiler; it's on the first page. According to the author blurb, Lisa Klein is a former professor of English who "has always been dissatisfied with interpretations of Ophelia and, since Shakespeare is not alive today to write stronger female characters, she has taken it upon herself to breathe new life into Ophelia's story." I take issue with several points here. For one, the implication that Shakespeare didn't write "strong women." Okay, if by a "strong woman" you mean a woman who pays her own rent, runs her own business, and still finds time to squeeze in a half hour on the treadmill every day...then no, Shakespeare didn't write strong women. But he certainly wrote vivid female characters. After all, if Ophelia wasn't interesting in her own right to begin with, no one would have written this book, would they. Second, all right, I can see that maybe committing suicide when your dad gets murdered by the love of your life, who also happens to have gone crazy, may not be the strong woman answer. But real women still do it, even in this enlightened era of property-owning and treadmills. But I can see that in a book for teens it's probably better NOT to write something that romanticizes suicide after your boyfriend ditches you. (Although that begs the question of why Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet are taught to teenagers at all.) Third, if the strong woman answer is, apparently, to fake your own death using a poison that makes you appear to be asleep, well, that's what Juliet tried, isn't it. And who wrote Juliet? Oh yeah, Shakespeare.

All of this is leading to a big old Beth rant. It really irritates me when historians try to impose modern values and ideas on past civilizations. I'm annoyed by the standard historical fiction/fantasy heroine...the one who's better educated than anyone else she knows, who loves to climb trees and wrestle boys and hates to be indoors, who's abyssmal at needlepoint, who's always disguising herself as a knight in order to have adventures, and whose only friends are males because women are just too stupid and petty and don't understand her or appreciate her! Oh feminist writers, don't you see what a disservice you're doing us, under the guise of telling the heretofore untold stories of womankind? What you're saying is that only women who live like men have stories that are worth telling. How is that different from saying that only stories about the lives of men are worth telling? And all right, many royal women did receive educations similar to those received by men. So if you're writing about one of those women, then it's factual and I won't complain. But why do you think that we modern readers will only be able to relate to stories about women who can read and do math? Why don't you ever give us a chance to relate to them because they, like us, try to live up to their parents' expectations, argue with their siblings, fall in and out of love, and bear children? Don't you think there were ANY interesting women in all of history who actually liked sewing? And the whole all-other-women-hate-me-because-I'm-beautiful-and-interesting thing...where does that come from? Yes, we women are a petty, gossipy, jealous group. But we usually manage to make a few female friends anyway. My theory is that writers, lacking sufficient creativity, are copying Scarlett O'Hara. But here's the thing...girls didn't hate Scarlett because they were jealous and dumb...they hated Scarlett because Scarlett wasn't very nice! (Remember when she stole her sister's fiance?) And men didn't love Scarlett because they were somehow more enlightened...they loved her because she was hot. And one more thing...I don't really think that women in history spent nearly as much time bemoaning their lot as historical fiction writers would have us believe. If they all really hated their lives THAT much, don't you think they would have revolted sooner? And it's just so heavy handed. Sure, you can show us that this girl has to marry this nasty old man her father has chosen, and we, as modern, enlightened women, can think to ourselves, "Oh, that sucks, glad that's not me!" You don't have to go on and TELL us, "She beat her breast and tore her hair and cried out to the night sky, 'Why must I be bound to do as my father orders? Why are women not free like men? Why, oh why, don't I get to live in some future wonderful enlightened era where I could marry or not marry as I pleased?'"

Now that I've got that out of my system, I will say, to be fair, that this book doesn't do quite as much of the above as I initially feared. Ophelia ends up at a convent where she meets lots of honest-to-goodness, in-any-century strong women, and she finds some good friends and some good role models. So that's cool.

As I mentioned before, Klein was an English teacher, and that's very apparent. The dialogue is all very Shakespearean. I can't make up my mind about whether it's contrived or clever, but either way she is very good at it...puns and double entendres and whatnot. It's clear that she's spent a lot of time reading Shakespeare.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part is Ophelia's life before all the tragic stuff happens, her childhood and how she falls in love with Hamlet, which is sweet. The second part details the events covered by the play. The third part is what happens after, which is that she ends up at a convent. Not a spoiler...like I said, it comes up on the first page of the story. I liked the first part okay and the third part the best. Those are the parts where Klein makes up her own story. I wasn't really a fan of the middle part. Klein pretty much just copies out the play, word for word, without really shedding much more light on what happened and why. She doesn't even attempt to explain Hamlet's or Gertrude's motivation. And I can see that to the audience, and to Hamlet himself, Gertrude's actions are supposed to be a bit of a mystery. Does she really love Claudius? Was she overcome with lust? Is she in league with Claudius, or does she honestly believe he's innocent? Is he holding something over her, keeping her in line because she's terrified of him? Is she making a personal sacrifice, marrying a man she doesn't love because she thinks it is best for her country? Interesting questions to ponder, at least according to my high school English teacher...and, okay, to me too. But I feel like if you're going to write the backstory to the play, and you're going to write about Gertrude, then you need to pick one. You at least need to make it seem like Gertrude has some reason to do what she's doing. And Klein doesn't do that.

I also have problems with how the Hamlet-and-Ophelia story progresses. It's like, they're both totally in love, and then all of a sudden they have the whole "Get thee to a nunnery" scene, and Ophelia gives up on him. He's yelling at her, and she turns into one of my high school classmates--"What's he SAYING? I don't get it!"--even though two chapters ago they were doing the double-meaning banter and loving it. I personally wouldn't class myself much higher than moderately strong, on the strong woman scale, but if the love of my life apparently went crazy, I would fight a little harder. I wouldn't just go, "Oh, that's it then, better fake my own death." I would seek him out and at least try to have one more conversation. And okay, he's crazy and he's not paying any attention to her anymore, so she's done with him, I can see that. Or they're both still in love but he's bent on revenge and he knows it's a dangerous path, so he breaks it off with her, I can see that. But not just, oh, I'm confused, I guess I won't ever talk to him again because it isn't in the play. I can't see that.

The thing is, it kind of fails as a tragedy because not one of the characters to whom tragic things happen ends up being all that likable. Ophelia's actually pretty likable, but she survives. And that's okay, I guess...I'm a fan of happy endings. But even if the author's going to give her a happy ending, she can still make the middle part sad. And it's hard to feel that, to really feel any grief for Hamlet, because it seems like Ophelia's done with him anyway, and like he's not really good enough for her.

But I did really like the third part of the book, where Ophelia's at the convent. I'm not a historical expert, but from what I do know of the era I like the depictions of both court life and convent life. Also, Ophelia goes through this whole "How have I sinned to bring this tragedy upon everyone I've loved?" soul-searching phase, and I like that. It seems like a much more believable response for a girl of her society than the "hating needlepoint, why must men define me" thing. Plus there's even some strange visions and stigmata incidents.

So there you have it. Lots of ranting, I know. It might seem like I hated it, but I don't think I did. I didn't love it. But I am still interested in seeking out Klein's other books and reading them. So it wasn't all that bad.

Recommended for readers who like: The Royal Diaries series; Hamlet; Philippa Gregory