A Wounded Name

by Hutchison Dot

[Angie]

I love Hamlet, so of course I was curious about A Wounded Name. Sadly, there’s nothing new or interesting here. It sticks very closely to the original, which I think works against it. Instead of being about the murder of the King of Denmark, it’s about the murder of the Headmaster of an elite boarding school. Ophelia is one of the students there and can see ghosts, as well as hear the banshees sing for the recently deceased. When the Headmaster’s ghost appears, Ophelia knows something is wrong, and she promises to stand by his son’s side no matter what.

A Wounded Name was just okay for me. I wanted to read an original twist on my favorite Shakespeare play, but all I got was a younger cast in a modern setting. The weirdest part for me was that every single name is the same. This always bothers me, because how can the characters not notice this? Hamlet must not exist in this world, or else they’d all know what was coming or at least think it’s an odd coincidence. Then there’s the dialogue. Sometimes it sounds like modern teenagers, other times it’s very old fashioned. It’s not like Romeo + Juliet where it’s Shakespeare’s words in a modern setting; that would have been awesome. It’s more like a modern twist on his words, and it felt out of place.

I really don’t have much to say about A Wounded Name. There are no surprises. It just exactly follows the original play, with some modifications to make it fit the time and place. I did like getting the story from Ophelia’s perspective, although she was a kind of watered down (pun intended) character. She just lets things happen to her. I guess I was just hoping for more from her than that. But this retelling really doesn’t stray at all, which made it boring despite my love for the original.

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