Word: ghostly
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...assumed the reins of power in more ways than one. Along with taking over his company, Claudius has married Old Hamlet's wife, Gertrude (Diane Venora), which understandably angers her son, Hamlet (Ethan Hawke). Torn between concerns for his mother and spurred by a visit from his father's ghost, our protagonist seeks to uncover the truth of his father's death by feigning madness. Couple Hamlet's anxiety to a tortuous romance with Ophelia (Julia Stiles) and meddling from her father (Bill Murray), and the plot unfolds from there. Or rather implodes, because Hamlet's acted lunacy causes...
...consequence, the work remains one of confusion punctuated with moments of humor-the latter derived mainly from product placement. The ghost of Old Hamlet disappears into a "Pepsi One" sign, and the infamous brooding and melancholic speech "To be or not to be" is delivered in a Blockbuster video store in the "Action" section, next to the sign "Go Home Happy." Whether intentionally comic or not, they detract from the play's tension, sucking out any emotional involvement that might otherwise have existed...
Seven years after Booker Prize-winning Michael Ondaatje won nearly universal acclaim for The English Patient, he returns to the literary world with Anil's Ghost-a tale that verges on the same dark terrain: war. Waiting years for him to publish again, one could not imagine where on the globe Ondaatje would choose to place his pen next. The Sri Lankan-born author (transplanted to Canada) who has written evocative pieces set in the old West, the early jazz era and World War II, chooses a different time and place for this story: the Sri Lanka of the present...
...ANIL'S GHOST...
...people in Anil's Ghost do not have the sanctuary of the Italian villa that harbored the damaged characters of The English Patient in the backwash of World War II. The war in Ondaatje's new novel has no clear demarcations between opposing forces, allies and enemies. The terror has become ubiquitous--that is to say, contemporary...