The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [540]
“Yes,” I agreed somewhat diffidently, and walked off to find Hamlet. He was outside, sitting on the bench in the rose garden, deep in thought.
“You okay?” I asked, sitting down next to him.
“Tell me truthfully, Miss Next. Do I dither?”
“Well—not really.”
“Truthfully now!”
“Perhaps . . . a bit.”
Hamlet gave a groan and buried his face in his hands.
“Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I! A slave to this play with contradictions so legion that scholars write volumes attempting to explain me. One moment I love Ophelia, the next I treat her cruelly. I am by turns a petulant adolescent and a mature man, a melancholy loner and a wit telling actors their trade. I cannot decide whether I’m a philosopher or a moping teenager, a poet or a murderer, a procrastinator or a man of action. I might be truly mad or sane pretending to be mad or even mad pretending to be sane. By all accounts my father was a war-hungry monster—was Claudius’s act of assassination so bad after all? Did I really see a ghost of my father or was it Fortinbras in disguise, trying to sow discord within Denmark? How long did I spend in England? How old am I? I’ve watched sixteen different film adaptations of Hamlet and two plays, read three comic books and listened to a wireless adaptation. Everything from Olivier to Gibson to Barrymore to William Shatner in Conscience of the King.”
“And?”
“Every single one of them is different.”
He looked around in quiet desperation for his skull, found it, and then stared at it meditatively for a few moments before continuing. “Do you have any idea the pressure I’m under being the world’s leading dramatic enigma?”
“It must be intolerable.”
“It is. I’d feel worse if anyone else had figured me out—but they haven’t. Do you know how many books there are about me?”
“Hundreds?”
“Thousands. And the slanders they write! The Oedipal thing is by far the most insulting. The good-night kiss with Mum has got longer and longer. That Freud fellow will have a bloody nose if ever I meet him. My play is a complete and utter mess—four acts of talking and one of action. Why does anyone trouble to watch it?”
His shoulders sagged and he appeared to sob quietly to himself. I rested a hand on his shoulder.
“It is your complexity and philosophical soul-searching that we pay money to see—you are the quintessential tragic figure, questioning everything, dissecting all life’s shames and betrayals. If all we wanted was action, we’d watch nothing but Chuck Norris movies. It is your journey to resolving your demons that makes the play the prevaricating tour de force that it is.”
“All four and a half hours of it?”
“Yes,” I said, wary of his feelings, “all four and a half hours of it.”
He shook his head sadly.
“I wish I could agree with you but I need more answers, Horatio.”
“Thursday.”
“Yes, her, too. More answers and a new facet to my character. Less talk, more action. So I have secured the services . . . of a conflict-resolution consultant.”
This didn’t sound good at all.
“Conflict resolution? Are you sure that’s wise?”
“It might help me resolve matters with my uncle—and that twit Laertes.”
I thought for a moment. An all-action Hamlet might not be such a good idea, but since he had no play to return to, it at least gave me a few days’ breathing space. I decided not to intervene for the time being.
“When are you talking to him?”
He shrugged. “Tomorrow. Or perhaps the day after. Conflict-resolution advisers are pretty busy, you know.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. True to form, Hamlet was still dithering. But he had brightened up, having come to a decision of sorts, and continued in a more cheery tone. “But that’s enough about me. How goes it with you?”
I gave him a brief outline, beginning with Landen’s reeradication and ending with the importance of finding five good players to help Swindon win the SuperHoop.
“Hmm,” he replied as soon as I had finished. “I’ve got a plan for you. Want to hear it?”
“As long as it’s not about where Biffo should play.”