Reviews

Literature and Compassion: From Hamlet to Anne Tyler
by Marilyn Green Faulkner

There’s no way around it. If we are going to talk any more about novels, we’ve got to watch Hamlet together. Yes, I know that our Best Books Club selection for March is Celestial Navigation, by Anne Tyler, and I agree that Anne Tyler’s quaint, wry style seems to have very little to do with swordplay, court intrigue and iambic pentameter. But stay with me for a moment while I attempt to convince you that we need to watch Hamlet together in order to talk about any novels, from Tyler to Tolstoy to Tolkein, for it is there that we gain the background to understand what novels do.

“Marilyn,” you may reply cautiously, fearing that I am losing my grasp on reality altogether, “We are talking about novels, and Shakespeare wrote plays. Hamlet is not a novel, so how can it be relevant?”

I’m glad you asked that question. It’s true that Hamlet is not a novel, but Hamlet is a character, arguably the greatest character in all literature, and the forerunner of all the interesting characters we meet in great novels. (Remember that average novels are plot driven; great novels are character driven.) Before Shakespeare there were stories and plays, but it was Shakespeare who created the first really round, complex, confusing characters that continue to intrigue us after hundreds of years. In Harold Bloom’s monumental work, Shakespeare and the Invention of the Human, Shakespeare’s contribution to all the literature that follows is summarized in terms of character development: “Literary character before Shakespeare is relatively unchanging; women and men are represented as aging and dying, but not as changing because their relationship to themselves, rather than to the gods or God, has changed. In Shakespeare, characters develop rather than unfold, and they develop because they reconceive themselves.” (xvii) The way we experience Hamlet’s character development is through his soliloquies. We hear his thoughts and share his inner as well as his outer life. We agonize with him over every choice and challenge. This revolutionary idea of entering into the inner life of a character laid the foundation for the fiction we read today.

Are you beginning to see why we need to watch Hamlet? Notice I’m not suggesting we do anything as difficult as read Hamlet. Reading Hamlet in high school was what convinced you that Shakespeare is boring. No, Hamlet is meant to be experienced, and there are several screen versions that are quite wonderful. The best, in my opinion, is Kenneth Branaugh’s film, which retains all the scenes that are usually cut from the play, meaning that you will need a major supply of snacks. Everybody is in it, from Jack Lemmon to Charlton Heston, and nearly everyone (with the exception of Jack Lemmon, who is stuck with the “something is rotten in Denmark” line, impossible to say seriously) is outstanding, and the scenery is absolutely fabulous. This is a big, sprawling production that I think the Bard would have loved.

So, when shall we do this? How about the ides of March? That’s a nice Shakespearian date (even though it’s lifted from a different play) and that will give us a little time afterward to turn back to Anne Tyler and take a fresh look at the quirky, flawed characters she creates in the light of Hamlet’s introspective melancholy. Yes, I’m still thinking about Anne Tyler; I haven’t forgotten Jeremy or his sisters, or any of the odd inhabitants of the boarding house in Celestial Navigation. Anne Tyler is a great novelist, in my opinion, because she is such a careful and compassionate observer of every kind of human being. Tyler writes about people with fears and flaws who struggle in ways all too familiar to most of us. While Shakespeare created great tragedy, Tyler’s work might be termed “trivial tragedy.” Her characters are not princes or courtiers but waitresses and spinsters. Her conflicts are not between armies but between siblings, her battlefields are no larger than the kitchen table. Still, there is a connection between Hamlet and Jeremy with all their differences. As Jeremy sits, frozen on the stairs where his mother died, unable to rise to his feet, his sister chides him for his unwillingness to observe the conventions of mourning, to attend the viewing and greet visitors. In his simple reply, “I don’t think I could manage that,” we hear Hamlet’s echo, “I have that within which passes show, These but the trappings and the suits of woe.” His is a sensitive, fragile nature, the soul of an artist, unable to face the demands of a senseless world.

The careful and compassionate observation of a human soul is the great gift that a great novel brings us. We cannot live everywhere. We cannot be everyone. But we can read, and when we read we can send out a thread of connection to another kind of human, and then another, and then another, until we are reinvented by our interconnectedness with our race. This is what Bloom means when he claims that Shakespeare invented our conception of what it means to be human, and that great novelists continue to do so for thoughtful readers. So invite a few friends over for a Hamlet party. (Menu ideas: how about pigs in blankets or ham and cheese croissants?) Don’t worry about the language, you read the King James Version of the Bible so you’ll understand more than you think you will, and a little poetry is good for the soul, especially when it is as beautiful as this. Think, as you watch, how unique this fellow Hamlet is, and marvel with the millions who have marveled before you at the genius of his creator. Then, write and share your insights with the rest of us. There’s no question about it, it’s time to watch Hamlet together. It will change the way you look at novels, and it may surprise you with its power to entertain as well as enrich.

2001 Meridian Magazine.  All Rights Reserved.