Hamlet Saddles Up

As Carrie La Seur references in her Acknowledgements, Hogarth Press is, over time, issuing well known authors’ modern takes on various plays of Shakespeare, among them Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap of Time (The Winter’s Tale), pretty good, and Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed (The Tempest), a bit disappointing, considering it’s Atwood.

La Seur has undertaken the task in The Weight of an Infinite Sky, loosely patterning the novel along the lines of Hamlet. The setting here is modern Montana. The prince, Anthony, is a rancher’s son, who wants to work in entertainment, rebelling against the idea he must be a rancher. Claudius is Uncle Neal, the cur, object of Anthony’s animosity, whom he suspects of killing his father. Mother Susan is Gertrude, timid rather than calculating. Dean is the old king, quite a demanding and tight-wound fellow, who while dead lives in the minds of the characters. Hilary is Ophelia, based on her history in a psychiatric institution, and her past relationship with Anthony. And since Anthony is in theater, having failed in New York, he returns to run a summer children’s theater camp. The references to Shakespearean works abound, along with more modern plays and musicals, and just music in general; it can be trying in its volume. To tie the novel even more closely to Hamlet, La Seur forgoes standard chapters in favor of five acts with scenes as subsets.

Does it work? Not really, which is not to say it’s a bad novel, just maybe not the worthiest paean to the Bard, one who himself knew how to lift and raise up material, Hamlet included. Whereas Hamlet is a tragedy of a tormented soul, of frustrating indecision, and of bloody revenge (death toll: 9), The Weight of an Infinite Sky descends into something like a big Kumbaya moment (one apparent accidental death). Modern audiences are no different from Elizabethan playgoers, a work of revenge requires blood.

La Seur does paint an educational picture of Montana. The rugged land, the vastness of it, come across. Even more, she portrays the people who live on the land, the ranchers and tribal people, in ways that might help coastal folks better understand them. And she, in literary terms, takes strip miners to task not only for denuding the land but for mistreating and deceiving people who only want to be left to their traditional lives living off the land. (Anyone’s who flown over strip mined mountains has witnessed firsthand how devastating these earth gougers are.)

Probably if you intend to read the novel, you might enjoy it more by tempering your expectations on the Hamlet front.

( )

Hamlet Saddles Up

As Carrie La Seur references in her Acknowledgements, Hogarth Press is, over time, issuing well known authors’ modern takes on various plays of Shakespeare, among them Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap of Time (The Winter’s Tale), pretty good, and Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed (The Tempest), a bit disappointing, considering it’s Atwood.

La Seur has undertaken the task in The Weight of an Infinite Sky, loosely patterning the novel along the lines of Hamlet. The setting here is modern Montana. The prince, Anthony, is a rancher’s son, who wants to work in entertainment, rebelling against the idea he must be a rancher. Claudius is Uncle Neal, the cur, object of Anthony’s animosity, whom he suspects of killing his father. Mother Susan is Gertrude, timid rather than calculating. Dean is the old king, quite a demanding and tight-wound fellow, who while dead lives in the minds of the characters. Hilary is Ophelia, based on her history in a psychiatric institution, and her past relationship with Anthony. And since Anthony is in theater, having failed in New York, he returns to run a summer children’s theater camp. The references to Shakespearean works abound, along with more modern plays and musicals, and just music in general; it can be trying in its volume. To tie the novel even more closely to Hamlet, La Seur forgoes standard chapters in favor of five acts with scenes as subsets.

Does it work? Not really, which is not to say it’s a bad novel, just maybe not the worthiest paean to the Bard, one who himself knew how to lift and raise up material, Hamlet included. Whereas Hamlet is a tragedy of a tormented soul, of frustrating indecision, and of bloody revenge (death toll: 9), The Weight of an Infinite Sky descends into something like a big Kumbaya moment (one apparent accidental death). Modern audiences are no different from Elizabethan playgoers, a work of revenge requires blood.

La Seur does paint an educational picture of Montana. The rugged land, the vastness of it, come across. Even more, she portrays the people who live on the land, the ranchers and tribal people, in ways that might help coastal folks better understand them. And she, in literary terms, takes strip miners to task not only for denuding the land but for mistreating and deceiving people who only want to be left to their traditional lives living off the land. (Anyone’s who flown over strip mined mountains has witnessed firsthand how devastating these earth gougers are.)

Probably if you intend to read the novel, you might enjoy it more by tempering your expectations on the Hamlet front.

( )

A nice presentation of life in the plains of Montana where the historic ways of life are being challenged, by economics of ranching and the incursion of natural resource companies. The fictional story of a young man who was brought up ranching and expected to take over the family ranch and his battle over doing what he feels is his obligation is versus his love of performance arts. ( )

This book was just okay - while well-written I felt it was very slow moving. I also felt like I needed more of a background story for Anthony and his family. I won an ARC of this book from Goodreads. ( )