Ugh. I hate to rate such a lyrically written book with two stars, but it really was "just ok." For a love story about famous Shakespearean lovers, the book is really lacking in passion. (Though not in sex scenes, which are also pretty dull.) I agree with reviewers who say Updike's characterizations are superficial. King Hamlet is predictably egotistical and sexually underwhelming, Claudius is his hot younger brother, Ophelia is, well, Ophelia. I prefer the mystery and possible deviousness of Shakespeare's, or even Branaugh's Gertrude to Updike's; here her motives are so straightforward as to be completely boring. And Updike LOVES to hate on Hamlet, and argues in the afterword that everything would have been fine for Claudius (yes, the murderer) and his court if that jerk Hamlet hadn't led them all to death. Um, no. This frustrates me for a bunch of reasons, not least of all because one of Updike's most successful themes involves the sort of chain reaction that happens when the various Kings in the story selfishly treat people like pawns, or accessories. (See King Hamlet -> Claudius -> Prince Hamlet.) Spoiler alert: this tends not to work out so well. Sorry, Claudius. You're still doomed, and I'm still not sorry.

Wow, was this a difficult book to get through. I picked this up at the library in honor of John Updike who recently died. I must say I am glad I didn't purchase it!

The idea of this book is wonderful; it is the story of Hamlet's mother as she has reached womanhood and is married to Hamlet's father. The book explores what kind of a marriage they might have had and what might have driven her into the arms of his brother and how that relationship resulted in the murder of her husband.

While the plot line was good, I think Updike tried too hard to tap into the language of ancient writing (I was reminded of everything from Grendel to Shakespeare) which did not add to my enjoyment of the book. We miss the poetry of the play.

The ending however kept this from being a "blech" to an "o.k.". Nicely wrapped up and made me want to pick up the play again to continue the story while enjoying the mastery of Shakespeare.

Not as creative a I had hoped. But not terrible.

So much... unnecessary sex... SO MUCH.

Eh. Bland, unengaging, too straightforward and unsurprising to warrant any kind of emotion. It's basically every "bored housewife living in the lap of luxury hates her legitimate marriage and has an affair with the dangerous hotter guy" story, except Gertrude is even more annoying because she just flip-flops between the two men. When your female lead's most important attributes include "cares most for whatever man is in front of her," you've got a problem.

Did I mention that there's a lot of unnecessary sex and sex talk? Ugh.

I found this wonderfully entertaining! Updike gives us a "prequel" to Shakespeare's Hamlet. He draws on several ancient sources to tell the love story of Gertrude and Claudius. I hadn't ever thought of Gertrude and Claudius as anything more than villains in the story but Updike makes them truly human and relatable. The first half of the book is one of the most satisfying love stories I have read (I should note that I have read very few).

This is the first of Updike's writing that I have read. It was obvious from the opening paragraph that Updike is a poet. His words were a pleasure to read and I will be seeking out his other work.

This was really excellent, one of Updike's later novels. If you're a fan of Shakespeare's play, and have read about some of the Bard's sources, you'll find this an interesting take on the source material. It's really a sort of "prequel" to Hamlet, a novel that fills in the sketchy backgrounds of Gertrude, Claudius, and Hamlet's father. Interestingly, Updike changes the names of the main characters in each of the three sections of the book, using the names as they appear in Saxo Grammaticus in the first section, the names from Belleforest in the second section, and the names from Shakespeare in the third. If you're not very familiar with the Shakespeare play, you may find this book pretty confusing. Even if you are familiar with Shakespeare's version of the story, if you haven't read about Shakespeare's sources, you may find it a bit confusing. Still, well worth reading for any fan of the play, I think.

I can tell you the exact line in this book that lost me, referring to Gertrude saying, "her father's court held no more eager slut than she." I can also tell you the second time it lost me, when referring to Ophelia as "a novice slut." While everything else had such a mindful, romantic depiction, that is the word used to describe the two main female characters, standing out like two very sore thumbs. Poetic portrayals of Elsinore aside, this was an uninteresting take on Shakespeare's Hamlet, from an old white cis male gaze, that I am positively exhausted of reading. Villianizing a woman's sexuality while celebrating a man's is boring and I'm tired of reading about it. I am usually really engaged with familiar stories that come from a different character's point of view. I was not with this one. That being said, it's undeniable that Updike has a beautiful writing style, if the subject matter wasn't so cringy, I could see myself enjoying it very much. Imagery and foreshadow with the falcon and other birds had a lot of potential but did not have the follow through I was hoping for.