Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he's staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds.
Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And also brewing revenge.
After twelve years, revenge finally arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison. Here, Felix and his inmate actors will put on his Tempest and snare the traitors who destroyed him. It's magic! But will it remake Felix as his enemies fall?
Margaret Atwood's novel take on Shakespeare's play of enchantment, retribution, and second chances leads us on an interactive, illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own.
Comment: I had my eye on Margaret Atwood's work for a while, especially her best known book, which has been adapted to a successful TV series too. I want to read that book but I'm waiting to see if a specific's edition price drops. I saw this book, one of her most recent, at my local library and I thought it would be a good way to see if I liked her writing in general and I'm happy to say it was as engaging as I hoped it would.
In this book we have a recreation of Shakespeare's play The Tempest set in contemporary times and in a very particular setting which is a prison and the main players are the prisoners who perform a videotaped play to others, as part of a program to encourage participation and improvement so they can have better chances of proving they want to repent. The director of the play is Felix, an older man who was dismissed from his lifelong job due to politics and betrayal. He had dedicated all his life to theater, he was bold and innovative in how he adapted traditional plays but all was put aside in the blink of an eye. On the way to this situation he also lost his wife and his small daughter which left him with an even stronger need for revenge against those who did him harm.
Working in the prison was at first just one step but all his desires finally seem likely to come to life one day, if only he doesn't get distracted...
I must confess I thought this book to be very easy to read. I expected the writing to be more lyrical, a
little more polished and considering the inspiration was Shakespeare, a little bit more complicated. I must say it was very interesting to see if I could follow the original play's main themes or if the adaptation was too far off.
Perhaps it's something to do with the series demands, but I thought all main steps were very easy to grasp and the fictional aspects not that weird.
Apparently, the original series is called Hogarth Shakespeare and is based on the premise of adapting the plays to contemporary settings, each play by a different author. Since the authors come from all genres, the fun part seems to be how each author decides to adapt it and how similar or not it can be to the original one.
Back to Atwood's work, she picked the main theme of the original play, which can be revenge, and used it to put Felix in charge of doing it in a very public and interesting way. I liked the prison approach and I liked even more the fact the writing was easy and solid even with details like Felix's feelings of loss and the setting in which everyone was at. I specifically liked how the emphasis wasn't much on the prisoners or how bad/good they were. They were playing a part and it was a constant joy for me to keep switching from the original play notions and the expectations the contemporary actors had to deal with. I really liked how the author planned this story.
Personally, an interesting detail was how we are supposed to see the parallel between the original play and what is happening with Felix and the other characters in their "real lives". There are some ideas we are just supposed to accept, some stops that happen way too easily for them to be credible but I still think it's a very good exercise in thinking because there are several concepts (one could say the usual grief, despair, sadness, need to accomplish something, etc.)the author explores through Felix's experiences. Felix isn't always an easy person to like but I focused a lot on his own need to do something right, even if only in his head. It was both good and bitter he never got to overcome his feelings of unfairness and guilt over the death of daughter Miranda. But, well I guess that's the realistic part of all this.
All in all, this was a fascinating book, I had a great time reading bout these characters, I liked how easy it was to follow the story and make the connection to the original. I know there would be a lot of more philosophical and hidden meanings to decipher but from the perspective of a reader who isn't fixated on Shakespeare, this worked out very well for me. In both counts: enjoying the adaptation and understanding the original anyway.
Grade: 8/10
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