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""So: now I come to speak. At last. I will tell you all I know." Ophelia's story is told in her own words in Let Me Tell You and Let Me Go On, two starkly evocative novels by writer and music critic Paul Griffiths. Not only is Ophelia brought out of the wings of Hamlet to reclaim her narrative, but her vocabulary is also literally made up of the words-a scant 481 in total-assigned to her by Shakespeare. Melodic and incantatory, Ophelia's voice attains remarkable directness and passion under show more such Oulipan constraint. Set before the events of the play, Let Me Tell You follows Ophelia as she contemplates her love for her father Polonius, her anger towards her absent mother, her perplexity at the prince, and her growing desperation to escape the fate that awaits her. Let Me Go On, on the other hand, is set after the play: Ophelia finds herself wandering the afterlife, where she encounters a phantasmagorical cast of Shakespearean players, all in search of their author, from her brother Laertes to Juliet's nurseto Mistress Quickly. At once an audaciously empathetic reimagination and an ambitious formal experiment, Let Me Tell You and Let Me Go On are sure to create haunting new resonances for readers of Shakespeare old and new alike"-- show lessTags
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alanteder Read the original to find the 481 words used by Ophelia in the play (from all Quartos and First Folio editions) from which Paul Griffiths has crafted his novella let me tell you.
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38+ Works 956 Members
Paul Griffiths is an acclaimed writer whose books include: A Concise History of Western Music and The Penguin Companion to Classical Music. He wrote the libretto for Elliott Carter's What Next? and has published three novels. In 2002 Griffiths was honoured by the French government as a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2008
- People/Characters
- Ophelia
- Dedication
- for Anne
- First words
- I do not know, now, how all this will end.
- Blurbers
- Matthews, Harry
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- Members
- 33
- Popularity
- 858,908
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 2
