Orson Scott Card rewrites Shakespeare

[Anders]

And the moral? It's bad to be gay.

[ricree]

A Parody

[Anders]

A Parody

 

[WC]

Can't say I'm surprised.

[Bunsen]

It's always cracked me up that Card is such a homophobe, and yet the best scene he ever wrote was about a bunch of naked pre-pubescent boys wrestling in a shower while lathered up.

[Skeptress]

In this adaptation, Hamlet was never close to his father. The prince is unfazed and emotionally indifferent to the old king's death, feels no sense of betrayal when his mother speedily remarries, and thinks that Claudius will make a perfectly good monarch. Hamlet is also secure in his religious faith, with absolute and unshakable beliefs about the nature of death and the afterlife. He isn't particularly hung up on Ophelia, either. Throughout the novella, Prince Hamlet displays the emotional depth of a blank sheet of paper

.

W.T.F.   

ETA: If you want Shakespeare made more comprehensible I suggest the Charles and Mary Lamb editions.  Very high quality.  Read that then take on the original if it makes you more comfortable.

[Halleyscomet]

And the moral? It's bad to be gay.

That's not the moral. Let's look at Card's version from the viewpoint of Hamlet's father:

Hamlet's father is a lousy king who sexually assaults a number of underage boys. He gets away with this for AT LEAST 20 years, possibly longer. Even though he's murdered by one of his victims, the death is fairly quick. Even AFTER dying he gets to come back as a ghost and bully his son, the one boy he DIDN'T rape, into killing off his surviving victims, thus preserving the dead old pedophile's legacy. To cap it all off the death of Hamlet's father is blamed on Claudius, ensuring that the single surviving victim, Horatio, will be forced to choose between his own execution for treason and murder, or holding his tongue on what Hamlet's father did to him as a kid.

After all of this, Hamlet's father gets to spend eternity raping his own son.

This isn't a condemnation of homosexuality, but a roaring love letter to pedophilia. It might as well have the subtitle "The pedophile triumphant" or "the virtues of raping little boys."

And yes, I'm posting that as an Amazon review of the book.

[Bunsen]

I suggest the Charles and Mary Lamb editions.

Man, that is one fucked up family.  A woman who stabbed her mother to death in a fit, and the brother who was forced to witness the events.

Great writers, though.

[Ah.hell]

Ok, so the review makes seem like it will suck but is it that different from "westside story" or "10 things I hate about you"?

[WC]

Card sucks butt. Screw that guy.

[Johnny Slick]

Ok, so the review makes seem like it will suck but is it that different from "westside story" or "10 things I hate about you"?

Neither of those movies had the hidden moral of "gay sex is wrong pedophilia is awesome"?

[pandamonium]

It seems to me that we might rather lose our contempt for Bowdler’s attempt to make Shakespeare watchable to the audience of his time, and realize that the standards of taste and decorum change from age to age, and it is not at all unreasonable to make such temporary changes in the script as will allow a play to continue to find an audience—as long as the original remains available, so it can be restored to public view when tastes change again.

But.. Shakespeare is so very tame compared to modern anything that has sex in it... Does Card live in the 50s?

In this adaptation, Hamlet was never close to his father. The prince is unfazed and emotionally indifferent to the old king's death, feels no sense of betrayal when his mother speedily remarries, and thinks that Claudius will make a perfectly good monarch. Hamlet is also secure in his religious faith, with absolute and unshakable beliefs about the nature of death and the afterlife. He isn't particularly hung up on Ophelia, either. Throughout the novella, Prince Hamlet displays the emotional depth of a blank sheet of paper

.

W.T.F.   

ETA: If you want Shakespeare made more comprehensible I suggest the Charles and Mary Lamb editions.  Very high quality.  Read that then take on the original if it makes you more comfortable.

Also, isn't the whole existential thing kind of a key part of Hamlet? I haven't read or seen the play, so I don't know... but "To be or not to be" is pretty emo.

[Halleyscomet]

My review has gone live:

What's Card trying to do, recruit pedophiles?, September 28, 2011

Despite the temptation to be snarky, this is an honest review. The book depicts a life of suffering, misery and death for the victims of pedophilia. The pedophile receives what amounts to an eternity of the very sexual perversions that caused so much misery for his victims. I can't help but wonder what will happen in Card's next book. Will the central character be a serial rapist who receives a lifetime supply of Viagra and diplomatic immunity as "punishment" for his crimes?

[Neon Genesis]

This isn't a condemnation of homosexuality, but a roaring love letter to pedophilia. It might as well have the subtitle "The pedophile triumphant" or "the virtues of raping little boys."

And yes, I'm posting that as an Amazon review of the book.

According to Orson Scott Card, everyone secretly knows that homosexuality and pedophilia are the same thing anyway: http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html

The dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.

It's that desire for normality, that discontent with perpetual adolescent sexuality, that is at least partly behind this hunger for homosexual "marriage."

They are unhappy, but they think it's because the rest of us "don't fully accept them."

[pandamonium]

Jesus christ. I tried reading the first in the Alvin Maker series but I just can't. It's so f*cking Mormon it hurts. The protagonist has a work to complete, the female wants to better herself only because it'll help Alvin complete his work (and bettering herself includes making herself more attractive, vomit). The woman has no personaality outside of wanting to be with the man. The man has no drive except wanting to find his holy purpose, and that wouldn't be so bad except there's a scene where he butts up against his mysterious antagonist (who appeared out of no where and who is just some random opposite force; it'd be interesting if the force were a part of Alvin, but that would destroy the precious black and white morality of this story). So, in this scene against the antagonist (who, again, is basically a dumb entity with no will) Alvin is in trouble and he gets out of it based on dumb luck. He's apparently super-powerful and nothing, not even the antagonist can touch him even though Alvin doesn't know what he's doing.

I'm just glad I didn't pay for the book.