Wednesday 17 January 2018

Review: Yorick by Salman Rushdie

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This story is available online at http://www.unz.org/Pub/Encounter-1982... .
I like it when reading to stumble across a previously unknown word to add to my vocabulary, but when this happens multiple times in a story, my readerships suffers - this is what happened in this reworking based on teh story of Hamlet, and I'm not just talking about unusual words but the very rarely seen variety eg "terigversation" which the dictionary defines as (1) "an evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut statement, an equivocation" and (2) a desertion of a cause, position, party, or faith. Compound this with Rushdie trying to combine writing as per Shakespeare with a modernism narrator, this makes for a jolly complicated read which lost me. Yes, some bits are very clever, but for me his reworking didn't come off and more's the pity, because this is an ambitious piece of writing, one which I have no doubt the literary critics and academics will have a field day with, but one which I fear would be too confusing and thereby too challenging a read for readers unfamiliar with Shakespeare's Story and style.

I read this as part of Salman Rushdie's short story collection East, West My Book Review

View all my reviews

1 comment:

  1. Senior Virgin Hair is Best Brazilian Hair Virgin Hair Wholesale Vendor, Hair Extension Suppliers, Providing Quality Virgin Human Hair Products and Services. There Are Various of Hair For Your Choice. Such as Weave Bundles, Lace Frontal Closure, Human Hair Wigs etc. Wave Frontal

    ReplyDelete