Frollo’s trouble with the fireplace really sunk its teeth into this book’s psyche, didn’t it? At least there wereÊtre Psycho Prêtre et Aimer Une Femme
Frollo’s trouble with the fireplace really sunk its teeth into this book’s psyche, didn’t it? At least there were callbacks to Victor Hugo’s original work, so kudos to the author for research, I guess.
I could talk about Cade and Amaya and how they and their dynamic become more and more implausible as the story goes along. I could talk about the plot holes. I could talk about the misogyny dripping from the narrative. I could talk about the bonkers (if hugely entertaining) mutual masturbation scenes. I could talk about the sudden and unnatural attempt by the author to make Amaya as morally gray as Cade even when her character just…isn’t.
But it’s really not worth it for an ultimately fun Frollo/Esmeralda fanfic read, so I’ll just give into my troll instincts and leave you with this:
For some incomprehensible reason, this playscript was required reading at my high school once upon a time (not in my class, per se, as eventually I reFor some incomprehensible reason, this playscript was required reading at my high school once upon a time (not in my class, per se, as eventually I read this on my own initiative, but in other classes). I say incomprehensible, because that without a working knowledge of Hamlet, this play truly is incomprehensible. And if you so happen to know Hamlet well, it's ten to the hundred this bland excuse of an exercise will inevitably disappoint.
Say what you will about fanfiction--nowadays, thanks to years of snobbish put down, plumped up and preened like a mediocre spoiled rich kid--but a solid decade of the big name fandoms have reaped some interesting fruit among the wish-fulfillment refuse. Shakespeare fanfiction especially is almost always a terrible disappointment, since it involves not only actually reading Shakespeare, but understanding the spirit and nature of the play in question, which fewer and fewer writers are up to. And when you set out to write about some of the blandest side characters in Hamlet--think Tweedledee and Tweedledum except with a sycophantic twist--some kind of rub would have to occur. Stoppard's rub is this: The whole play is about how they are really two-dimensional characters in a Shakespeare's play, ushered into existence by their creator's command, blinking bewilderingly at the events oftentimes not unfolding in front of their very eyes, and only occasionally realizing, then promptly forgetting, their fictional nature. So instead they pass the time exchanging quips and wordplay with varying degrees of wit until the plot of Hamlet comes along and they play their parts accordingly. There may be some overarching thematic meaning about the meaning of life, perhaps taking Jacques' "All the world's a stage / And all the men and women merely players" speech a little too literally.
So as you can tell, this is a one-joke play that very quickly wears off its welcome, and unless postmodern self-aware meta gives you the smirks and blushes and the tee-hee-hees, this joke will give you no pleasure nor insight. Me, I'm not too impressed with this meta, since it doesn't serve the purpose of bringing unexpected insight into the Shakespeare (on the contrary, it serves to make every other character in Shakespeare into bland nonentities and more egregiously, necessitates dumping the best of early modern dramatic verse into a less clever modern play) or the bigger questions of life. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern never do much with their sporadic awareness of their fictional existence, nor does Stoppard tap into the true comic possibilities of such self-awareness. Perhaps this is because Hamlet itself is so thematically rich and tightly construed, with its own very skeptical attitude towards medieval notions of honor and revenge and even justice, that it defeats any comic criticism or satire of substance. In any case, this '60s experiment is neither radical nor groovy enough to tackle such a behemoth, and is only tedious and quaint. ...more
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