ospalh reviewed Thirteenth Night by Alan Gordon
Review of 'Thirteenth Night' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Alan Gordon: Ever wondered what would happen if Malvolio really took his revenge?
Alan Gordon’s agent No. Who?
AG: Yu know, the villain of Twelfth Night!
AGa: No, he wasn’t the villain.
I mean, OK, so Malvolio kills Maria and maybe Feste and Sir Toby.
Still, isn’t that a little thin gruel? »I’ll be reveng’d on the whole pack of you« wasn’t the most important line in the play.
AG: Right, so how about Feste thinks Malvolio murdered the Duke?
AGa: The Duke? But why should Malvolio murder the Duke? The Duke said »entreat him to a peace«, and he didn’t have anything to do with that letter! That makes no sense!
AG: Right. So I’ll do it. Also, Feste is part of a secret society as powerful as those vile Protocols of the Elders of Zion want us to believe the Jews are, but nobody notices the fools’ meddling. …
Alan Gordon: Ever wondered what would happen if Malvolio really took his revenge?
Alan Gordon’s agent No. Who?
AG: Yu know, the villain of Twelfth Night!
AGa: No, he wasn’t the villain.
I mean, OK, so Malvolio kills Maria and maybe Feste and Sir Toby.
Still, isn’t that a little thin gruel? »I’ll be reveng’d on the whole pack of you« wasn’t the most important line in the play.
AG: Right, so how about Feste thinks Malvolio murdered the Duke?
AGa: The Duke? But why should Malvolio murder the Duke? The Duke said »entreat him to a peace«, and he didn’t have anything to do with that letter! That makes no sense!
AG: Right. So I’ll do it. Also, Feste is part of a secret society as powerful as those vile Protocols of the Elders of Zion want us to believe the Jews are, but nobody notices the fools’ meddling.
AGa: ???
Read [b:All Men of Genius|10839204|All Men of Genius|Lev A.C. Rosen|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442126128l/10839204.SX50.jpg|15753447] instead, that is a re-telling of Twelfth Night rather than a sequel, but that book is great fun.
Anyway, on another level, this utterly fails the supposed medieval setting, on every level, from small details like »yellowed paper« being plentiful in 1201 to large scale politics, talk about the 3rd crusade without mentioning Richard the Lionhearted or Barbarossa. Or the King of Germany, or the King of Germany. But mostly it’s the skeptical, egalitarian, blasphemous mindset of basically everyone.
Oh, and the »mystery«? I didn’t give a wet slap who murderd some random prince. Re-using a Shakespeare character is cheating, but didn’t help. Half way thru, without knowing the ending, i would be surprised if it really was Malvolio, with Feste looking so hard for him, thinking everybody could be him in disguise. Oh, some twenty pages further and think it is Malvolio after all and, NN was him. Which means that the author couldn’t even come up with a standard convoluted-like-a-pretzle resolution.
Also, whichever way yu read it, after page 135 either Feste doesn’t keep kayfabe, or he doesn’t respect Claudius’ name and pronouns. I mean, how long did Claudius run around town like that? He seemed quite happy in his skin. And in the end Feste makes sure that Claudius can’t show his bearded face in town again.