Forget everything you thought you knew about Shakespeare's Hamlet. Allow Updike to take you to the true heart of the play - and it isn't the languid prince. Having exchanged contemporary US middle-class life for the medieval Danish court, this most productive and deceptively ambitious storyteller has created an erotic psychological opera in three long chapters or acts. His linguistically opulent narrative of smells, tastes, political power, sexual frustration and emotional need centres on Gertrude. At 17, she is married off to a warrior she describes as "unsubtle". She evolves from ripe maid to virgin bride, to newly pregnant wife, to sexually expectant matron. Updike remains sympathetic to the imaginative queen whose common sense and good nature ensure her desires appear justified. Meanwhile, her cold, clever little son grows up into Prince Hamlet, a resentful outsider observing his father the duped king, his mother and her lover, the king's brother. Shrewd, even logical, unexpectedly profound and beautifully written, this is Updike at his richest.
