I Can't Go On. I'll Go On.

I’m certain I’m trivializing the last line of Samuel Beckett’s novel The Unnamable; Beckett is writing about life, I’m talking about The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. On page 235, the specter (forgive the literary pun) of Hamlet alighted. There had already been strong indications of Wroblewski’s intention to use Hamlet’s story as an inspiration for Edgar’s—Edgar’s uncle’s name is Claude, his mother is Trudy, as in Claudius and Gertrude in Hamlet—but when the plot turn paralleled the play, I considered bailing. I didn’t want Edgar to endure the horrors that poor Hamlet undergoes in five long acts. Hamlet, in my brain, is inextricably tied to the story of Hamlet. He doesn’t exist as a character separate from his father’s demand for revenge and his screwed-up relationship with Ophelia. But Edgar, thus far, has had his own story.

I’ve experienced a similar feeling when watching a really good production of Romeo and Juliet—you so want the lovers to grow old and fat together feasting on excellent Italian food, that you think the stupid friar will get the news of Juliet’s faked death to Romeo in time, despite knowing that all goes terribly wrong. Likewise, even with a review’s promise of parallels to Hamlet, I had come to hope that Edgar and Trudy could be okay despite Edgar’s father’s death. Now I have an idea of what will happen. Or not. Perhaps Wroblewski chooses to use only the initial setup of Hamlet. Regardless. I’m reading on because a) I’m hooked and b) even if the writer introduces two Jewish pals from Edgar’s school named Rosenberg and Guildenfeld, he hasn’t let me down this far, and I trust him to carry me to a possibly familiar end in an interesting and well-written way.