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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Reworking of Hamlet Well Worth Reading on its Own Merits, June 30, 2008
This review is from: Undiscovered Country: A Novel (Hardcover)
This striking debut novel opens in California with an adult narrator explaining that he's finally going to write down the truth about what happened back home in Minnesota some ten years ago, in what what seems to be the early 1980s (although it often seems more like the '40s or '50s). Jesse's never told his younger teenage brother Magnus the truth -- and this manuscript is going to lay it all out for him. Ten years ago, when Jesse was 17, he was hunting deer with their father in the woods outside Battlepoint, MN. Sitting in his blind, he heard a shot from where his father was a few hundred yards away. He ran over to find the top half of his father's head blown off, in an apparent act of suicide. Although the local authorities confirm this, Jesse was very close to his father (who was also the local mayor and restaurateur) and can't believe he would kill himself.
What ensues is a taut psychological mystery, as Jesse's mother retreats into a depressive shell and Jesse starts poking around, trying to figure out who might have wanted to kill his father and why. This leads him pretty much straight to his father's brother Clay, a knockabout rouge who's never been able to make much of himself. Jesse knows that his still-beautiful mother dated Clay before his father came along, and suspects Uncle Clay of harboring deep resentment against his successful brother. Even though there's no evidence of murder, and his mother tries to dissuade him, Jesse is spurred on by repeated visitations from his father's ghost. The question then becomes whether or not Jesse will require any evidence before deciding his uncle is guilty, and what form his revenge will take if he does decide that way.
Yes, this is a reworking of "Hamlet," but the handling of Jesse's desperate internal struggle feels fresh and vivid, as the teenager struggles with very adult issues he's not quite prepared for. Matters are further complicated by his developing relationship with an immigrant classmate who has her own dire family problems to grapple with. For the most part the writing does a great job of capturing the blinding anger and confusion of a teenager, although at times it does slip into allowing Jesse and his girlfriend to be a touch too articulate or wise. Reworkings of classics are usually either fun romps or a total flops -- this is that rarest of outcomes, one well worth reading on its own merit.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
O my prophetic soul! My uncle!, June 24, 2008
This review is from: Undiscovered Country: A Novel (Hardcover)
Yeats' words "a terrible beauty is born" seem appropriate here--"cold glitter" would also be fitting. This is a powerful and lyrical story, almost entirely told in a small northern Minnesota town in the dead of winter. Harold, the father of 17-year-old Jesse Matson is shot a quarter-mile away from his son while both are hunting deer. Accident, murder, or suicide? Jesse immediately suspects his father's younger brother Clay, but the authorities are convinced it was self-inflicted. Harold was having business problems and was not a happy man.
Jesse's mother was Clay's girlfriend before Harold married her. Things begin to get very strange: Harold's ghost appears to Jesse. In school, Jesse's class had read Hamlet, so here we have, in ways, a version of the King, Claudius, and Hamlet, along with the King's ghost. Jesse becomes convinced that he must lay a trap for Clay to establish his guilt: for Jesse the ghost is real, but he also realizes that maybe his mind is playing tricks on him. You see through the eyes of a troubled 17-year-old, and you understand that Jesse believes (mostly) that he sees the ghost, but at the same time the reader is not being asked to believe it--so this never devolves into some kind of supernatural tale. Jesse does come to believe that he must avenge his father--not an easy task for a boy/young man like Jesse, and of course it was not an easy task for Hamlet either.
So the reader is carried along, through a beautifully-drawn setting, wondering how Jesse will resolve matters. There's even an Ophelia in the form of Christine Montez, Jesse's girlfriend. If this seems a bit too heavy-handed on the Hamlet side, it's not, and it isn't a modern-day retelling of Hamlet. It works well and effectively. This is a fine and compelling first novel--and it certainly is on a par with Peace Like a River and So Brave, Young, and Handsome, two fine novels by Lin Enger's younger brother Leif. Both of Leif Enger's novels have a slightly surrealistic/supernatural feel to them, along with a wonderful feel for time and place. Lin Enger's work shares those same qualities: an excellent novel!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There's something rotten in the state of Minnesota, October 22, 2008
This review is from: Undiscovered Country: A Novel (Hardcover)
Ten years afterwards, Jesse Matson tells the story of what happened--how he found his father dead in the woods when they were out hunting, an apparent suicide. Despite the coroner's determination, Jesse can't accept that his father killed himself. Harold Matson wouldn't have done that to his family; he wouldn't have done it to Jesse, whom he knew would be the one to find him. A nagging feeling in his gut leads Jesse to suspect that his father was murdered by his own brother. Jesse's Uncle Clay is a ne'er-do-well who has long resented his brother's success, in particular his success at getting the girl: Jesse's mother had dated Clay before she met and married Harold.
If the plot of Lin Enger's Undiscovered Country sounds familiar, the echo is intentional. The novel is a modern-day retelling--in five acts and complete with ghost--of Hamlet, set in the frigid temperatures of northern Minnesota. The relationship between the two stories is acknowledged in the book itself: Jesse is conscious that he's been cast as Hamlet in his own version of the tragedy.
The drama of Undiscovered Country lies not so much in uncovering the mystery of Harold Matson's death--though for much of the story there is room to doubt whether Jesse's instincts are correct. The suspense comes rather from waiting to see how Jesse will act on his suspicions, and whether the choice he makes will result in his own destruction.
What's particularly good about this book is its depiction of setting, the abiding cold that Enger's characters seem largely inured to. Reading it, one can almost feel the bite of the air, hear the crunch of snow breaking underfoot. Undiscovered Country is well-written, but it's also a page-turner. You'll want to keep reading it, even if you think you know what happens.
-- Debra Hamel
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