Customer Reviews

Dating Hamlet: Ophelia's Story

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I normally put down any book that I realise is written in first person, with a few exceptions. It takes a certain amount of skill to write in the first person and sound like a character, a character I am willing to deal with for an entire book.

Ophelia's voice in "Dating Hamlet" was at once engaging and easy to follow, inspite of a pretty good attempt to mirror Shakespearan english. (Mind you it isn't perfect and the characters do not, except when being a bit silly, speak in verse). The book is the author's effort to give the power back to the female characters that she had encountered in the classics, Ophelia is one of the most unempowered women in Shakespeare's whole opus. To empower her took alot of back plot that was not in the original work.

With few exceptions it works really well, in my opinion. One example being when Hamlet is making his first mad speech to himself in the court and looks up (a gesture I remember) he is actually speaking to Ophelia who has hidden herself up in the gallery of the throne room. As I was reading this I was imagining how this could be staged in tandem with the play, how a director might alter Ophelia and Hamlet's actions to allow the audience to know, that Ophelia was in on the plot. (I am inclined to this anyways, having in yesteryear written a paper taking that side, just for the outrageousness of the idea)

Mind you, a few moments are a bit too contrived, but it wasn't so painful as the rest of the book was very enjoyable, and remarkably realistic. The ending is probably the most contrived bit about the whole work, but I am not going to argue with it, in fact I wouldn't mind reading her other book about Juliet.

It was also amusing to see that the crux of this book rested on a frequent plot device of Shakespeare, one that is utilized in Hamlet. That being the play with in the play. We have here, the traditional play used to catch Claudius, and Hamlet's play acting at being mad but also--Ophelia, Laertes, the Gravedigger, Horatio and Ophelia's lady in waiting, Anne, in on the plot. A whole new cast of inner play players.

The book is an easy read, I picked it up on my dinner break and finished it before going to bed. Enjoyable, probably more so for anyone who is rather more than less familiar with "Hamlet."

Dating Hamlet is a great read and it's the kind of book you can read again and again. I first read this book when I was 10 and now I'm nearly 13 and I have read it again I really understand and appreciate the book. The story is very good because even though I loved the Shakespeare play,and this book gives more depth into the characters and Ophelia is portayed as a much stronger person than she is in the play. It is a very moving book in some parts, like at the funeral of Ophelia.
I like the way Lisa Fielder has wrote it, by using the proper language and writing with Ophelia's thoughts and emotions.
I would recommend this 'Dating Hamlet' highly as it is such an excellent book you can read over and over again and still get new things from it. I hope Fielder writes a sequel!
It may be predicable, but what's wrong with a happy ending?

I have read and seen hamlet many times and people who are fond of them may not get or like this story but I always thought that Ophelia was a deeper character than what was shown and we get it in this book without giving too much away hamlet and ophelia work together and apart to try to get king Clauidus to admit to a murder (I will not say whose murder in case you have not seen the movie or read the play) I thought it was a good read and an interesting reimagining of the story! I think it is a good way to get kids interested in Shakespeare and hopfully will encourage them to read some of the greatest plays ever written!

I'm a fan of the original work (you know, Hamlet), as well as a consistent reader of any sort of updated fairy tale young adult novels (despite my growing age), but I was bored within the first three pages of this one and stopped reading after I hit around page twenty. For the first time in years I skipped ahead to the ending and was glad that I did so, to spare me the trouble of reading the middle. I won't ruin any of the few details, but in the author's blurb it claims that she was never satisfied with the original handling of female characters like Ophelia. Having written several term papers on various Shakesperian plays, I feel confident when I say that re-imagining the life of Ophelia, a character as fascinating as she is complex and tragic, is really unnecessary. Instead, stick with Roselind, Romeo's Ex, a book that works with the original story instead of against it.

Like with many people, I would think, Shakespeare often depressed me to read or study and therefore I had to suffer the loss of absorbing great literature. Ms. Fielder's book, "Dating Hamlet," most seemlessly mixes the traditional tale with a far more up-beat (yet still dramatic!), behind-the-scenes version for young children and young adults to enjoy. Whilst (addictedly) turning each page, the reader enjoys a highly entertaining tale WHILE reading true Shakespeare and learning the orginal play. By contrast, Ms. Fielder's book, is, should I say, more enjoyable? Yes. It was a good read, took me only a few hours, and for a 200 page book was quite fascinating, exciting, and taught me a great deal about a play I would have otherwise avoided.

The main character is a bold woman, and a heroine you would root for, and gives the usually-thought insane Ophelia a much stronger, more intelligent side. I thank the author for making Ophelia a better role model through this book.

I hope they make this book into a movie -- it was very entertaining and sweet and will forever more let me watch the classic play "Hamlet" with ease.

On the good side, the book draws young readers in and should prove to be a good source for comparison with the original. Ophelia's character is anything but objectified as it is in the original. Fiedler's character has spirit and intelligence that may be inspiring to young girls reading the book.

However, there are some drawbacks to this book. 1) Everything seems to go right. The happy ending is a little too contrived and might dissapoint those true Shakespeare fans out there. 2) If the book is for young readers who identify with the teenage Ophelia, is it really a good idea to have Ophelia and Hamlet consumate their relationship? I'm not sure how to see this. 3) The author seems to take great joy in her little allusions to the real text, other Shakespeare works, and to modern slang (like "Just add water"). This can be corny and a little annoying.

All in all, this is much better than "Hamlet II: Ophelia's Revenge" but not nearly as good as the original. A good read for fun.

Well, I'm afraid I must sharply disagree with the review above. I found this book to be faulty in several ways, not least of all the slips of modern idiom and turn of phrase into a story intended to be written in the middle-English style. The ending was a travisty that frankly, I found insulting to one of the Bard's greatest tragedies. The idea that they were all play-acting at the emotionally stirring events of the story cheapens the power of the Hamlet drama to no end. The sly references to things that happened in others of Shakespeare's works, while slightly amusing, threw off the story (such as a woman faling in love with another disguised as a man--Love's Labours Lost), and I thought the foreshadowing of modern inventions quite tactless (someday man will harness the lightning from the sky, etc.). Also, the main character, Ophilia, was entirely re-written from the person Shakespeare made her to be. This was less a re-telling of Hamlet than it was an alternate-reality style new story. Overall, I found it very disappointing.

I'm interested in the way that classic stories can be reworked for modern audiences, and in fanfiction as a phenomenon. However, if this appeared on a fanfiction forum, it would be pounced upon immediately as a preposterous piece of 'Mary-Sue'-dom, and the author would be suspected of being a 14-year-old with a crush on whoever is the current hot young actor playing Hamlet. As satire, it might work, but unfortunately, I suspect it is meant to be taken at face-value.

Fiedler's Ophelia is a classic Mary-Sue, with entirely anachronistic values and attitudes to gender, class & c. Even her paternity is changed in a silly plot-twist. In draining the story of any real tragedy (no sympathetic characters are allowed to remain dead, so there is no real grief or pain), this novel drains it equally of meaning. It's a Young Adult version of the wilfully anachronistic 'bodice-ripping' romance novels that, I suppose, its readers will be expected to move on to when they're old enough to handle greater sexual content. But an older/more emotionally mature teenaged reader, who feels ready to cope with more explicit love-scenes, would perhaps do better to meet the teenaged Queen Gertrude in the first part of Updike's 'Gertrude and Claudius', a spirited girl for whom the limitations of her time and social status are *real* obstacles to happiness.

I read this book for a paper I was writing regarding the use of YA novels in helping students better understand Shakespeare's play Hamlet. This book does a poor job at reflecting the true story. It completely twists Shakespeare's plot and characters in an undesirable way. Fiedler completely removes the tradgedy from the play. This story has no value and fails to address the key themes and dillemas that the original has to offer. Michelle Ray's Falling for Hamlet is a much better choice and is executed beautifully. I would recommend reading that version over this one.

I had just returned from the Shakespeare Theatre Festival, Ontario, Canada, and asked at the book store there about good books w/ a Shakespeare theme for a teenage grandaughter, and Lisa Fiedler's books were recommended. I bought Rosaline's Ex and Dating Hamlet, and my 13 year old gdaughter loved both. It's a nice way to introduce young girls to the women in Shakespeare and their stories.