A Review of Lyndsay Faye’s “The King of Infinite Space”
A Modern-Day Hamlet
Lyndsay Faye has been one busy woman this year. This fall, she has an epistolary collection of stories being published set in the world of Sherlock Holmes. Before that, though, she is publishing the novel The King of Infinite Space, which is a modern-day retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet with other elements woven in. (For instance, the witches of Macbeth make an appearance in an entirely different form.) So, yes, Faye is terribly active as an author and I was happy to come along for this first part of the ride at least, as I’ve read two out of the three novels in the Timothy Wilde trilogy (The Gods of Gotham, et cetera). Faye is a strong writer, as the Wilde books prove, so it’s with unfortunate sadness that I must say that The King of Infinite Space is a sub-par novel for many reasons. It does have its strengths, though, and I suspect that this is the sort of thing that women might gobble up because the book plumbs deep into feelings. So I suspect the book will have its fans and might be worth checking out for some. For me, it just didn’t grab my attention, and my mind would occasionally wander off into infinite space, bored with the proceedings. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I feel that Shakespeare is a touch overrated.
Mirroring the plot of Hamlet, The King of Infinite Space is told from the vantage point of three young people living in New York City (or are visiting). There’s Benjamin Dane, who is the son of a wealthy theatre owner who has just recently died. Ben is out of sorts because his uncle has just married his mother. His best friend of descent from India, Horatio, travels from London to console him, as Horatio is (perhaps not so) secretly in love with Ben. The third major character is Lia, who used to be Ben’s fiancé but something terrible has happened to separate the two; she now works for a trio of mysterious Black women who deal in lotions and potions, and Lia has vivid dreams of Ben as a young boy. In any event, Ben receives video footage of his father on a digital camera who suspects in his taped message that someone was out to kill him. Ben (and, to a degree, Horatio) vows to catch the killer and avenge his father’s death.
So, yeah, it’s Hamlet set in the 21st century.
I did say that there were charitable things to mention about this work. The main one is that it is good to see a novel that treats people living with mental illness or addiction issues, people who are queer, and persons of colour with a measure of dignity and respect. This is a multicultural novel of sorts, and I’m glad that Faye chose to populate her work with people who might otherwise be somehow marginalized. So that’s a plus. Faye also demonstrates that she has a fine taste in music as she peppers the novel with all sorts of references to rock bands and musicians, classic or not. That’s another plus. And I suspect that some will be drawn to the conversational style of the novel, which gets experimental at points and inserts interjections into the text throughout. That might be another thing that draws readers in. Thus, there are things that Faye does well, making the novel a read for the curious.
However, I was jokingly thinking that maybe Faye could have called the book Omelet, because, for me, this read was one big, cracked egg of an update. Where do I begin? Well, one of the problems is that the dialogue is kind of philosophical, and I doubt that no twenty-something New Yorker speaks the way that these characters do. There is talk about quantum physics, religion, and art, and it doesn’t add anything to the story. Secondly, the tone of the book is all wrong. The King of Infinite Space is presented as a comedy — at least until things turn dramatic at the end — and, as such, probably would have Shakespeare rolling in his grave at the irreverence. Thirdly, the character of Benjamin Dane is unbelievable. Even though his father was wealthy, he preferred to let his theatre virtually run into the ground rather than use his funds to save it. So when Benjamin goes to a tip-top tailor to get an expensive suit for the climactic banquet, it doesn’t seem right. Where is he getting the money from? After all, he has an expensive 1950s guitar that he plucks at. Faye simply doesn’t explain the relationship between Ben’s wealth and how he acquired it from a stingy dad, unless, of course, I wasn’t paying attention. So there’s a few problems right off the bat.
I suppose that if you’re a fan of Shakespeare or were forced to read him in high school as I did, the novel offers its pleasures in spotting characters who resemble players in the Bard’s work. And the book also doesn’t follow Hamlet to a T, deviating from the play’s plot at points (not to spoil things, but there is no gravedigger character). So the book isn’t entirely predictable — after all, there are those three Black witches. However, I just found The King of Infinite Space to be a tad silly and hard to take seriously. It also plods at times. It certainly could have been a much shorter book than its roughly 400 pages. Still, if you like drama (and I’m not referring to a specific genre here), you may enjoy this novel.
Again, I think this book — with its somewhat romanticized nature — would best appeal to a female audience, so maybe I just wasn’t the right reader for this volume. In any event, Shakespeare buffs wondering what it might be like if his most famous play (perhaps the most famous piece of literature in the whole history of art) was given a contemporary spin may find some appeal here. Me? I guess I’ll be waiting on that book of Sherlock Holmes stories because Faye, to me, is best suited to be a writer of historical mystery fiction (if the Timothy Wilde books are any indication) and she does that well. The more modern stuff might be best left to other writers, in the end. Too bad. There are hints of a great book here between the lines, but that work is probably already written. You might have heard of it. It’s called Hamlet.
Lyndsay Faye’s The King of Infinite Space will be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons on August 10, 2021.
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You may also be interested in the following review: Lyndsay Faye’s Seven for a Secret.
Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
