Glass Rebel
Member
I think this is the fourth in the Hogarth Shakespeare line where they commission writers to put a spin on classic Shakespeare plays.
It was alright. I have to admit that a lot of my enjoyment stemmed from the fact that I was part of a Tempest production last year, where I played Caliban myself. So seeing someone set up a Tempest that was radically different from ours but with similar difficulties along the way was a delight. Especially if you add the twist in the end. These passages end up being the strongest, I feel.
My biggest problem with the book, however, was how it felt rather inorganic. If you're familiar with the play itself, you probably know that its meta elements are one of the more interesting aspects of it. A play about a sorcerer staging a play on an island. Atwood's take on it adds another meta-layer to that, which is exciting in theory. The problem is, it's such a straightforward mirroring of the events in the play and arranged in such a way that it feels fabricated and (I hate using this word for fiction) too convenient. The book ends up feeling more like a writing assignment (which I guess it is) rather than a story she actually wanted to tell. All in all an interesting experiment that falls a bit short in its execution.
