و دیگر خاموشی است....

به نظرم یکی از بهترین جملات برای سنگ قبر....

Goodreads reliably informs me that I first read Hamlet a decade ago, in 2012. I am not sure what I was thinking then – I doubt I understood much, but I seem to have liked it. I gave it 4 stars. That’s a lie… I remember some of what I was thinking, and a lot of it was confusion. 10 years later, I have gained that naïve confidence that tells me I have understood a lot more, but I will be looking back and laughing at this instance too, hopefully sooner than in 10 more years.

This time around it’s a 5. Hamlet is undoubtedly my favourite Shakespeare character that I have read or watched. I am not sure I ever wholly aligned with his nihilistic sentiments, but boy are they fun to read. A particularly powerful scene remains the prince’s musings at the grave of Yorick. I can only assume that the squeezing of the heart that I felt on reading the scene will grow in pain and magnitude as the years roll on.



Upon seeing the skull dug up by the gravedigger and asking for its identity (ha), Hamlet learns that it belonged to Yorick. He knew Yorick. The memories dredged up are so known to us all. We have all forgotten someone who, at a moment in our lives, meant the world to us. It’s truly an adaptive function of the mind to allow us to forget these reminiscences, else the day would be spent in a miserable and melancholy fog. “Alas, poor Yorick!” says Hamlet, “I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times.” And here is that portrayal, a work by Philip H. Calderon which I found recently called The Young Lord Hamlet:



The renewal of a beautiful relationship with this play. I hope to catch it in a theatre this summer.

“Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.”

I don’t know what to say about Hamlet. I could go on about how it is a story of madness and revenge. I could talk about the bonds of family loyalty, the sacrifices of love, the breaches of trust and their deleterious effects on the psyche. But this is old news—Hamlet has been around for over four hundred years. What could I possibly say that hasn’t already been said?

When my wife saw I was reading Shakespeare, her snippy comment went something like, “What are you reading that for? Don’t you you have enough drama in your life?” Which, thanks Cristina, and yes I suppose I do, but what of it? Drama can be so much freaking fun. There is a reason it sells, a reason there are countless dramatic television shows on the air, countless box office films released each year rehashing the same old dramatic plotlines (some to great effect; others, not so much). And there is a reason people are still reading Shakespeare centuries upon centuries after his death: they are fun, they are witty, they are ever so dramatic.

Hamlet is no exception. With plot elements involving fratricide, lethal potions, mistaken identity, forgery of correspondence, espionage and treachery, along with a solid dose of hanging out with the ghosts of dead relatives, one could imagine I’m reviewing an episode of General Hospital. But what is Hamlet if not a soap opera for the Elizabethans? It is an epically tragic train wreck crammed into five tiny acts.

What makes this piece of drama so timeless, though, is that its action is served in such perfect complement by its depiction of character. We all know what Prince Hamlet is going to do before he does it. Hamlet himself, even while doubting his abilities and struggling with his resolve, knows how it’s going to all play out. Why else would he be so cruel to Ophelia? And yet it is this internal turmoil that fuels our interest in the action. It might seem like an ordinary train wreck at its surface, but upon deeper inspection it is a train wreck in whose conductors and engineers we have a vested interest.

So, witty discourse meets fast-paced drama meets penetrating character introspection? It almost makes me wonder what would have become of Luke and Laura had William Shakespeare been in charge of the script.

"To be or not to be...," that is not my favorite line. My favorite is: "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times."

It's that recollection of innocent days that gets me every time, because you know Hamlet is being swept up in a vortex of innocence lost.

STUPID ADULTS! They screw up everything!

I grew up in a truly idyllic setting. As childhoods go, mine was a joy. But then you grow up and you wake up to reality.

My introduction to Hamlet came during high school in my early teen years. Its murderous plot of family deceit and infidelity struck home, my family being likewise stricken with such maladies. The parallels were all too similar and I love/hated the play for driving it all home.

Mel Gibson's movie version came out at this time, and its over-simplification and emotional heightening was a perfect fit for a simple-minded, emotionally-blinded teen. Less than stellar, the movie nonetheless had its effect upon me, furthering the torment.

Luckily my family drama was not as murdery as Hamlet's, although if the personalities of some of the principle players were slightly more volatile, there could easily have been a bloodbath of Hamlet-esque proportions. In my reality, we all got over it, sorted it out, and moved on with our lives wherever they led. The beauty of fiction is to see the deepest of fantasies played out. It gives us - I hesitate to use the melodramatic "victims" here, but that is essentially what we amount to - it gives us release from the pent up anger when we see the wrong-doers get their comeuppance.

For that reason, I doubt I'll ever be able to view this work through a truly unbiased, critical lens. Just because it's a "classic" doesn't mean you have to adorn it with a 5-star laurel wreath, but - for what it means to me - I do.

Because the figure of Hamlet has so fascinated successive generations, the play has provoked more discussion, more performances and more scholarship than any other in the whole history of world drama.

IN PRAISE OF FOLLY!

"Thus are all things represented in counterfeit, yet without this is no living!"
Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly.

Hamlet goes nuts because he wants to somehow truly Live in a counterfeit world. He tells Horatio at the outset he's going to put on an antic disposition...

Fact is, though, seeing a Ghost has Driven him Antic! He's now crazy as a coot.

When the counterfeit world forces is into a corner at our Coming of Age - and we're labelled from that point on - the world WINS. We don't like it, but there it is.

The freedom of childhood now gone, we either pay obeisance to the True and Counterfeit State of Things or - like Hamlet - act weird over in a corner, as Dostoevsky's Underground Man does.

What's WRONG with Hamlet, folks? Better yet, what's RIGHT with him? All's well, he says, with him. Logically he just HAS to be nuts in a loony tunes world.

He knows cause the World knows. And he drops out of polite society, which sugarcoats its hidden knowing. So, out of spite, the World gives a label to such noncompliant ones.

And Hamlet? Freud says he has an unresolved Oedipal complex. And T.S. Eliot says his emotions have no "Objective Correlative," which means, I guess that he cannot link any FACTS together to express his anxiety.

But, dear Sigmund and dearer Tom, our world is skewed - and you know it. It doesn't FORGIVE. Because the State of Denmark is in charge. And that state is rotten.

So, bottom line, as the great philosophe Jacques Derrida says, our consciousness - Hamlet's, and Ours - is APORETIC. The world is unjust. It favours the Phony.

Not the Authentic. And Hamlet is Authentic.

Which means he's a tangled knot!

Therefore the Bard never successfully resolved the incredible Tensions of his play - hence, only four stars. You see, he never sugercoats it. But, man oh man, did we 18-year-olds dig our teeth into its words and its plot back in 1968!

We loved it. THIS, guys, was COMING OF AGE. No wonder I was a dud.

My friend Brian bought a powerful motorbike, Robert Pirsig's chosen weapon of Resistance. Camus wrote Resistance, Rebellion and Death. If the Establishment had a bone to pick with us real items our lock was Pick Proof.

For me too. I buried myself in existentialism. And that's the main reason MY consciousness has Remained aporetic all these years. I had no choice. If I couldn't win, I had to resist. And Bad luck has hounded my every act ever since.

I've been perched on my aporia for 50 years.

I loved this play because it showed me how to find a peaceful hiatus from its storm, now and then:

No! I am not Prince Hamlet (I said)
Nor was meant to be!
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, and a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, Almost ridiculous -
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I'm other words I SAW THROUGH myself, all the way to the Emptiness.of all play acting.

Those words of T.S. Eliot heralded the beginning of long-delayed precarious peace for me.

The key, to me, was in the Gospel: "resist not evil." On a personal and not, however, international level - which remains in God's hands. That we can only pray about.

Resist not evil, because violence breeds further violence. KNOW that there's a solution for our pain. That solution is an outsider's authenticity.

Its way of Fractured Peace is best...

Even if its aporia has to be a personal MARTYRDOM:

For such is, in the end, our Unbalanced Purgatory and its final product, Everlasting Peace.

Have seen and taught this play many times and may at some point write a review, but this is widely seen as one of the four great tragedies of Shakespeare including Macbeth, Othello and King Lear. Many great screen adaptations exist including that of Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Brannagh and others. Tremendous characters, and memorable speeches.

I write this here now because under the worldwide restrictions internationally I saw online a wonderful (zoomed) reading of the play managed by a Hong Kong theater company, with actors reading the script in Hong Kong, LA, NYC, Chicago, and Milwaukee, including a friend of mine. On the right you could read the same script they were using, and I tacked back and forth between the reading and the lively inventive production that sometimes allowed for minimal costumes and props (Yorick was raised from the grave as a roll of toilet paper; how's that for improvisation with a nod to contemporary circumstances!?). Many such live productions are now available online; now how to get them paid!

Shakespeare at his best!

بين العبقرية و الجنون شعرة. فهل ادعى هاملت الجنون ليثأر لمقتل أبيه أم أنه جن فعلا و تصرفاته بعد ذلك هي قمة الجنون؟
في مسرحية لم ينج منها أحد من السيف أو السم أو الغرق ... هل خسر الجميع و فاز الجمهور؟

تبدأ الحكاية بموت الملك و عودة ولده هاملت إلى الدنمارك لتولي العرش فيجد أن أمه قد تزوجت عمه الذي اعتلى العرش فيصاب بالإكتئاب الشديد حزنا على والده و أمه و عرشه. يتصور طيف أبيه الذي يصرح له بأنه مات بالسم صريع مؤامرة من زوجته و أخيه و يطالب ابنه بالثأر فتتصاعد الأحداث الدرامية ذات النكهة الفلسفية كعادة العبقري وليام شكسبير حتى النهاية في مشهد ميلودرامي مؤثر يموت فيه هاملت بعد أن انتقم لوالده و أراق بركة من الدم بها من الضحايا اللذين لا ذنب لهم أكثر مما بها من الخونة المستحقين للقتل.

هل تستحق الحياة الموت من أجلها؟ فماذا سيبقى بعد الموت؟ و هل الشرف في لذة العيش أم في الاستغناء عن الملذات في سبيل تحقيق الذات؟

عندما هتف هامل�� بعبارته الشهيرة أكون أو لا أكون .. تلك هي المشكلة. هل سلك الدرب الوعر الذي أفضى إلى حل المشكلة أم أنها ازدادت تعقيدا؟ ما جدوى الحياة أصلا و هي مليئة بالشر و المطامع و لن ينج منها أحد مهما اقترف من خير أو شر؟

مسرحية تم تقليبها على كل الوجوه منذ عدة مئات من السنين و ما زالت طازجة حتى الأن حتى أن دم هاملت ما زال ينزف و صوته يتردد بالأسئلة التي ليس لها أجوبة.

n  n    Book Reviewn  n
4 out of 5 stars to Hamlet, a tragedy published in 1600 by William Shakespeare. Buckle your seat belts, as I have a 38 page review to share... Just Kidding! Well, I do have a lengthy review I could include from a previous course on Shakespeare, but I will not do so here... chance are you've already read the play or seen some film adaption, perhaps even a staged version. I've seen a bunch of them and read the place 4 times (once in high school, twice in college and once just for pleasure). Here's the thing about this play: There is WAY too much to absorb in just one or two reads. Each time you read the play, you pick up on new interpretations, new meanings and new thought patterns. Each time you watch a new performance, the actors and directors choose a different angle or approach. Hamlet is all of us. And we will always take from it something we want to believe... likely based on what's going on in our life at that time. If you are having relationship issues, you'll probably focus on that aspect of Hamlet's life. If you feel depressed, you'll questions "to be or not to be." If you are happy, you'll root for him to do the right things. I'm not sure if that's how Shakespeare intended it to happen, but he certainly left it open on purpose. Maybe not to allow us to have completely widespread views and interpretations, but enough to choose the key things we want to focus on. I think maybe I need to read it again this summer!

n  n    About Men  n
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by.

1 like = 1 cookie for Lila Bard

I loooooved the plot of this book. Hamlet was amazing and sassy and I loved reading about him. It was just very hard to read because, obviously, it's shakespeare. Had I read this book without spark notes and my teacher, I would NOT have understood it.