Gertrude and Claudius, John Updike
Gertrude and Claudius, John Updike
1 Rating(s)
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Gertrude and Claudius

Author: John Updike

Narrator: John Lee

Unabridged: 6 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/03/2019

Synopsis

Gertrude and Claudius are the “villains” of Hamlet: he the killer of Hamlet’s father and usurper of the Danish throne; she his lusty consort, who marries Claudius before her late husband’s body is cold. But in this imaginative “prequel” to the play, John Updike makes a case for the royal couple that Shakespeare only hinted at. Gertrude and Claudius are seen afresh against a background of fond intentions and family dysfunction, on a stage darkened by the ominous shadow of a sullen, erratic, disaffected prince. “I hoped to keep the texture light,” Updike said of this novel, “to move from the mists of Scandinavian legend into the daylight atmosphere of the Globe. I sought to narrate the romance that preceded the tragedy.”

About The Author

JOHN UPDIKE was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, in 1932. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954 and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of the staff of The New Yorker. His novels have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rosenthal Foundation Award, and the William Dean Howells Medal. In 2007 he received the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Updike died in January 2009.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jill

In grade 11 English, I read Hamlet for the first time. Back then, Shakespeare wasn't an author I independently found brilliant -- he was just a guy I felt I had to love (you know that kid -- the one who loves English class and passionately devotes themselves to the classics because they don't have t......more

Goodreads review by Occhionelcielo

Premessa: non cercato, capitato per caso in casa mia e poi ruzzolato sul mio comodino. Non male l'idea del prequel dell'Amleto, per il resto la solita storia di infedeltà coniugale; si lascia leggere, per carità, ma in giro se ne trovano a dozzine; consigliato solo agli amanti del genere. Ultima osser......more

Goodreads review by Old Man

An exceptionally well written story by Updike of the events leading up to Shakespeare's Hamlet. I read Hamlet almost sixty years ago and really didn't recall a lot about it but as I was reading Updike's book it all came back to me. He really brought the characters of Gertrude and Claudius come to li......more

Goodreads review by Stratos

Ενδιαφέρον και γι αυτούς που έχουν διαβάσει τον ΑΜΛΕΤ του Σαίξπηρ αλλά κι γι αυτούς που δεν τον έχουν διαβάσει. Η ιστορία της οικογένειας του Άμλετ πριν από το θεατρικό έργο του μεγάλου συγγραφέα. Η οικογένεια του Άμλετ μέσα από ένα ενδιαφέρον χρονικό της Δανίας αλλά και των γύρω σκανδιναβικών χωρών......more

Quotes

“Shakespeare’s plays have had many offshoots. Gertrude and Claudius, though, stands in a class of its own: a superlative homage from one imaginative veteran to another.”—The Sunday Times (London)
 
“[A] pearl of a book . . . a game for real stakes . . . Updike has used Shakespeare to write a free-standing, pleasurable, and wonderfully dexterous novel about three figures in complex interplay.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“A living, powerfully physical work . . . Updike is a superbly skillful writer.”—The Wall Street Journal

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