![]() ![]() But by that time, the story of O has reached such a disturbing pitch that you can’t do anything but stand stock still in the sand and watch this poor boy’s life crash. Her realistic prose and naturalistic characters eventually clash with the melodrama that overtakes the plot. Shakespeare’s highly stylized language accommodates equally artificial actions on the stage, while that harmony is thrown out of whack in Chevalier’s novel. Of course, Othello works better, but that’s inevitable. ![]() How Chevalier renders Iago’s scheme into the terms of a modern-day playground provides some wicked delight. In Chevalier’s handling, the insidious manipulations of Othello translate smoothly to the dynamics of a sixth-grade playground, with all its skinned-knee passions and hopscotch rules. At first, that setting might sound infantile for the adult machinations of Shakespeare’s play, but give it a moment, and the anachronisms of this mash-up start to feel oddly appropriate. ![]()
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