Posted by: Keir
On Galleycat, Ron Hogan expresses his surprise that the Wall Street Journal’s Jeffrey Trachtenberg (”Amazon Shows Its Clout“) didn’t mention an important detail about David Wroblewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle–that it
happens to be to Hamlet what Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres was to King Lear.
Good point, and one worth mentioning. Furthermore, Trachtenberg didn’t mention this summer’s other Hamlet homage, Lin Enger’s Undiscovered Country. (Booklist reviewers Ian Chipman and Jennifer Mattson, needless to say, have got it covered–Mattson makes the Smiley connection, too.)
Hogan also wonders whether there’s more Hamlet the offing:
Today, I’m just wondering if there’s another writer in, say, Montana tinkering with a similar idea who’s going to walk into a bookstore and then look for a wall to bang his forehead against.
