Gertrude and Claudius
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
Set before the action begins in Shakespeare's "Hamlet," this speculative novel follows the lives of Gertrude and Claudius, King and Queen of Denmark, as they wend their way towards adultery and treachery to ascend the throne
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Set before the action begins in Shakespeare's "Hamlet," this speculative novel follows the lives of Gertrude and Claudius, King and Queen of Denmark, as they wend their way towards adultery and treachery to ascend the throne
Klappentext zu „Gertrude and Claudius “
Gertrude and Claudius are the "villains" of Hamlet: he the killer of Hamlet's father and usurper of the Danish throne; she his lusty consort, who marries Claudius before her late husband's body is cold. But in this imaginative "prequel" to the play, John Updike makes a case for the royal couple that Shakespeare only hinted at. Gertrude and Claudius are seen afresh against a background of fond intentions and family dysfunction, on a stage darkened by the ominous shadow of a sullen, erratic, disaffected prince. "I hoped to keep the texture light," Updike said of this novel, "to move from the mists of Scandinavian legend into the daylight atmosphere of the Globe. I sought to narrate the romance that preceded the tragedy."
Lese-Probe zu „Gertrude and Claudius “
THE KING was irate. His daughter, Gerutha, though but a plump sixteen, had voiced reluctance to marry the nobleman of his choice, Horwen- dil the Jute, a beefy warrior in every way suitable, if Jutes could ever suit in marriage a Zealand maiden born and reared in the royal castle of Elsinore. To disobey the King is treason, Rorik admonished his child, the roses in whose thin-skinned cheeks flared with defiance and distress. When the culprit is the realm s only princess, he went on, the crime becomes incestuous and self-injuring. In every way suitable to you, Gerutha said, pursuing her own instincts, shadows chased into the far corners of her mind by the regal glare her father cast. But I found him unsubtle.
Unsubtle! He has all the warrior wit a loyal Dane needs! Horwendil slew the tormentor of our coasts, King Koll of Norway, by taking his long sword in two hands, thus baring his own chest; but, before he could be stabbed there, he shattered Koll s shield and cut off the Norseman s foot so the blood poured clean out of him! As he lay turning the sands beneath him into mud, Koll bargained the terms of his funeral, which his young slayer granted graciously.
I suppose that could pass for nicety, said Gerutha, in the dark old days, when the deeds of the sagas were being wrought, and men and gods and natural forces were all as one.
Rorik protested, Horwendil is a thoroughly modern man my battle-mate Gerwindil s worthy son. He has proven a most apt co-governor of Jutland, with his rather less prepossessing brother, Feng. An apt governor solus, I might say, since Feng is forever off in the south, fighting on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor or whoever else trusts his arm and his agile tongue. Fighting and whoring, it is said. The people love him. Horwendil. They do not love Feng.
The very qualities that make for public love, Gerutha responded, her rosy blush slowly subsiding as the moment of most heated opposition between father and daughter
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passed, may impede love in private. In our fleeting contacts, Horwendil has treated me with an unfeeling, standard courtesy as a court ornament whose real worth derives from my kinship with you. Or else he has looked through me entirely, with eyes that see only the rivalrous doings of other men. This is the gallant who, having laid Koll and sufficient gold on the buried black ship to the next life, pursued and butchered the slain man s sister, Sela, with no merciful allowance for the frailty of her sex.
Sela was a warrior, a rover, to equal a man. She deserved a man s death.
The phrase piqued Gerutha. Is a woman s death less than a man s, I wonder? I think death for both is exactly as big as it must be, like the moon when it blackens the sun, to eclipse life completely, even to the last breath, which perhaps will be a sigh over opportunities wasted and happiness missed. Sela was a rover, but no woman wants to be a mere piece of furniture, to be bartered for and then sat upon.
So defiant a formula, emerging from his fair daughter s flushed face, lifted Rorik s tangled half-gray eyebrows in synchrony with his upper lip, from which a long limp mustache drooped. His lip stopped lifting as his instinctive indulgent laugh was checked and hardened, by the pressure of royal policy, into a snarl. He was reminding himself to be stern. His mouth looked meaty and twisty and red between his mustache and his uncombed, grizzled beard. He would have been ugly, had he not been her father. Since your mother s untimely death, my dear child, your happiness has been my supreme concern. But I have pledged you to Horwendil, and if a king s word is broken, the kingdom cracks. All the three years
Sela was a warrior, a rover, to equal a man. She deserved a man s death.
The phrase piqued Gerutha. Is a woman s death less than a man s, I wonder? I think death for both is exactly as big as it must be, like the moon when it blackens the sun, to eclipse life completely, even to the last breath, which perhaps will be a sigh over opportunities wasted and happiness missed. Sela was a rover, but no woman wants to be a mere piece of furniture, to be bartered for and then sat upon.
So defiant a formula, emerging from his fair daughter s flushed face, lifted Rorik s tangled half-gray eyebrows in synchrony with his upper lip, from which a long limp mustache drooped. His lip stopped lifting as his instinctive indulgent laugh was checked and hardened, by the pressure of royal policy, into a snarl. He was reminding himself to be stern. His mouth looked meaty and twisty and red between his mustache and his uncombed, grizzled beard. He would have been ugly, had he not been her father. Since your mother s untimely death, my dear child, your happiness has been my supreme concern. But I have pledged you to Horwendil, and if a king s word is broken, the kingdom cracks. All the three years
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Autoren-Porträt von John Updike
John Updike
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: John Updike
- 2001, 226 Seiten, Maße: 14 x 21 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Ballantine
- ISBN-10: 0449006972
- ISBN-13: 9780449006979
- Erscheinungsdatum: 12.03.2009
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Shakespeare s plays have had many offshoots. Gertrude and Claudius, though, stands in a class of its own: a superlative homage from one imaginative veteran to another. The Sunday Times (London)[A] pearl of a book . . . a game for real stakes . . . Updike has used Shakespeare to write a free-standing, pleasurable, and wonderfully dexterous novel about three figures in complex interplay. The New York Times Book Review
A living, powerfully physical work . . . Updike is a superbly skillful writer. The Wall Street Journal
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