Enter the Body

Enter the Body

by Joy McCullough

Under the stage, beneath the trap door, the women of Shakespeare's plays wait to be called up to die again in yet another retelling of their stories. But on this day, three of the women take the time to tell their stories and maybe even change the narratives.

Cordelia, Ophelia, and Juliet share their sides of the stories for which they are famed, while also showing that they are more than what one man put on the page.

Final thoughts: This is a sometimes glorious and sometimes draining read, but the worst of it is the inaccuracy. This is meant to change the course of the lives of the women that Shakespeare created, and I get that. What I don't get is changing the ages of characters. For a fan of The Bard, getting Hamlet's age so terribly wrong is practically a sin. In the play, Hamlet was approximately 30 when his father died, but he is referred to a boy in this book and written like a teen who couldn't become king because of his age (and totally forgetting that Denmark has an ELECTED monarchy, regardless of age). Ophelia is also portrayed as a teen and both of these ages are not only inaccurate, but those errors affect the story McCullough is trying to tell. Let's also add in that McCullough states Ophelia would never have been able to marry Hamlet even though, in the play, Gertrude specifically mentioned that she had hoped Hamlet would marry her. Confusing Rosaline and forgetting that she is a cousin of the Capulets makes the very ending a little incestuous. This might be an interesting addition to the reading list for an Advanced Placement Literature course, but it relies heavily on knowing the original plays and may not be accessible to those who are unfamiliar with Shakespeare's tragedies.

Rating: 2/5