Vinegar Girl: William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew Retold: A Novel (Hogarth Shakespeare)

by Anne Tyler

Pulitzer Prize winner and American master Anne Tyler brings us an inspired, witty and irresistible contemporary take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies.
 
Kate Battista feels stuck. How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister Bunny? Plus, she’s always in trouble at work – her pre-school charges adore her, but their parents don’t always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner. 

Dr. Battista has other problems. After years out in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough. His research could help millions. There’s only one problem: his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported. And without Pyotr, all would be lost.

When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he’s relying – as usual – on Kate to help him. Kate is furious: this time he’s really asking too much. But will she be able to resist the two men’s touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?

• ISBN10: 0804141282
• ISBN13: 9780804141284
• Publish Date: 28 March 2017 (first published 16 June 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Hogarth Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 256
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780804141284

Reviews

[brokentune]

Vinegar Girl is Anne Tyler's contribution to the Hogarth Shakespeare series, which attempts to put a modern spin on a re-telling of The Taming of the Shrew.

I had issues with the original play and I was very keen to find out whether Tyler would interpret the play differently. Would she stick to the literal description of the relationship between Kate and Petruccio or would she re-interpret it? How would the story be able to stand up in a modern setting?

What I found was that Vinegar Girl seemed to be rather confused by its own parameters. One one hand we have a modern setting with a headstrong woman as main character, on the other we're supposed to believe that can be persuaded to not only be chief cook and bottle washer for her scientist father and airhead sister while also having a career of her own, and on top that she's not objecting to having a green card marriage arranged against her will. I just found it hard to believe this. It was a setting that was difficult in the original play, but at least it was plausible because of the time it was set in.
In 2013, this makes no sense.

I was also confused by the sheer number of tropes the book employed - the eccentric scientist father, the airhead sister, the militant animal rights activist, the vegetarian who doesn't understand basic food facts, the rude generic Eastern European/Russian lab assistant - I was looking for more depth, but got none.

To be fair, at least with respect to Pyotr, Tyler created something quite fun: originally we get to meet him as the awkward and rude lab assistant. I'm not sure whether it is ever stated which country he is from, so for most of the book he is the "generic" Eastern European/Russian (why did Tyler not bother with more details? Did she not trust her readers to be able differentiate between countries?).

In the course of the book, we get to see more and more sides of Pyotr and find out that he isn't the unsophisticated, rude, misogynist idiot that he appears to be at the beginning of the book. I guess Tyler tried to make the reader follow Kate's footsteps in warming to Pyotr by the end of the book.

This was really well done.

Alas, this was not enough to make me like the book. For a large part I was bored and wishing I had just re-watched Ten Things I Hate About You.

[jamiereadthis]

I love a retelling. I really wanted this one to work.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

If I’m being completely honest, Vinegar Girl was a bit of a bust for me. I blame most of it on the source material – writing a modern version of The Taming of the Shrew is no small feat. Our climate called for a twist – we want Kate to be a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man to escape and make her happy, and well, let’s just say I didn’t expect the ending? And I know I should have liked it on some level, but I felt a bit let down.

Anne Tyler focused a lot of getting Kate’s personality across as sour and unpleasant. She’s naive to her rudeness, she’s intentionally brusque, and he self-worth is nothing. Her sister, called “Bunny”, is such a stereotypically “dumb blonde” type – blonde, fifteen, sneaking in boys and calling them her tutors because she’s failing her classes. The narrator made sure every line ended with a question. In one of Bunny’s opportunities to shine, she instead chose to make the stupidest, most selfish argument. I was so frustrated. So many of these characters are purposeful stereotypes. I know I shouldn’t hate on characters for not being the type of characters I like – because they really were consistent, at least! – but I just… I was so disappointed in all of them. Consistently.

This is a really short book – even the audiobook was just over five hours – so I feel like there wasn’t a lot of time to get into substance. Whole aspects were introduced into the story – like Kate’s gardening and her father’s project. I constantly felt like there were underlying things that could have made this story a lot richer, but in the interest of keeping the book concise, this stuff was dropped to try to give the characters a smidge more of personality. And it didn’t work.

Like I said, I think The Taming of the Shrew is a tricky retelling. The fundamental base of the story is that unattractive, unkind sister Katherine must be married off because a couple of guys want to marry her younger sister Bianca, but Bianca can’t be married until Kate is. Petruchio tricks Kate into thinking he’s a good match and takes her home to train her to be a good, obedient wife. Kate is “tamed” by the end. There are other storylines within the play, but the theme of women as possessions has always bothered me in the play, and I don’t feel like Anne Tyler resolved that issue in Vinegar Girl. Neither of these girls seemed to think for themselves. Even Kate, who ultimately made her own decision, seemed more to accept and make the best of it rather than embrace it. There are issues measured out against her choice about halfway through the book, and they are not addressed.

Additionally, Vinegar Girl had one of those “lets skip forward ten years and resolve everything” endings and those have to be used right, or they just feel like cheap endings. A lot of Vinegar Girl felt like a rushed story. The Hogarth Shakespeare books are contracted out, with authors sought to create modern retellings. I haven’t read any of Anne Tyler’s other work, but I very much get the impression that this was a quick write the meet a deadline. Not memorable in the least, and barely intriguing.

Overall, eh. I don’t think I can really recommend this book? I don’t not recommend it, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t a straight out bad book, but there’s nothing special going for it. If you’re a huge fan of The Taming of the Shrew, it’s an interesting exercise. However, if you have the opportunity, I strongly suggest catching a performance of Kiss Me, Kate instead for a more modern retelling of this play.

[Leigha]

A woman learns about life and love in this retelling of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

The title really sets the tone for the novel - Vinegar Girl. The main character, Kate, is truly a sourpuss unhappy with her life. Trust me, you will learn EVERY. SINGLE. THING. she dislikes about her current circumstances. While I don't necessarily mind characters unhappy with their lot, I found a lot to dislike about Kate. She bemoans having a full-time job. She grumbles at her sister and aunt for showing their love and concern. She blames everyone for her current position, and never takes the time to put the blame where it belongs - on herself.

Her father decides to marry her to his young lab assistant, Pyotr, when the assistant's green card expires. While Kate is rightfully angry and hurt when she discovers his plan, she ultimately goes along due to her unhappiness. I didn't necessarily mind Kate and Pytor as a couple, although this book only explores there growing friendship with light touches of romance. My biggest problem is their characterization. Kate never truly grows as a character. Kate needed to recognize her own culpability in her circumstances instead of the incessant blame game toward her family. Pytor is poorly characterized too. At best, he is a caricature of a stranger in a strange land; at worst, he is a chauvinistic asshole (particularly toward the end of the novel).

Finally, I listened to the audio-book version of this novel. Perhaps some of my dislike comes from listening instead of reading the book. The narrator made Kate sound exactly like Daria. She did a decent reading of the other characters, particularly Pytor. But listening to a thirty-year-old Daria-like character complain in Daria-like fashion for six hours just left a bad taste in my mouth.

tl;dr A retelling of a classic that falls flat for me. Skip this poor excuse for a novel and watch 10 Things I Hate About You instead.

[Liz (Bent Bookworm)]

This is a retelling of the famous “The Taming of the Shrew,” and I really very strongly feel that without a prior knowledge or reading of the play, you won’t enjoy the book very much. It’s quite short, only 237 pages, and to me felt like a novella read. Which is fine! I finished it in about 2 hours during a very slow afternoon at work (getting paid to read, but my boss doesn’t know that, hehe).

I really appreciate that Tyler was able to keep the humor aspect of the original – I laughed out loud at several points. Kate and Pyotr are quirky separately and amusing together. Kate’s tone is barbed but witty, and she comes across as not truly intending to hurt with her words but simply not seeing any point in the niceties of social interactions. The whole arranged marriage set-up is handled as a scam to get Kate’s father’s scientific assistant – Pyotr – a green card. Kate is understandably insulted and hurt by the scheme, but through a series of discussion and events – and a grudging sympathy for Pyotr – she is convinced.

Next, Kate and Pyotr on the living-room couch, a foot of space between them, Pyotr grinning broadly and doing his arm-along-the-seat-back thing while Kate, stony-faced, poked her left hand toward the photographer to display her diamond ring.

Bunny – Bianca – is translated into a selfish, spoiled teenager, which seems fitting but limited her role somewhat more than in the original. There are a few other plot points of the original that are left out as well, but all things considered the story is definitely recognizable and it works. The interspersed text messages are a nice touch.

The one big issue I had was the iconic speech Kate makes at the end of the original play. That, to me, was the crowning jewel of the play. In this book, there is a speech, of sorts, but it feels rushed and flat. The epilogue kind of made up for it, but still. All in all though, the book is 4/5 stars. The writing is beautiful, succinct, and a real pleasure to read.

Hi Kate! We went to get marriage license!

Who’s we?

Your father and I.

Well I hope you’ll be very happy together.

Many thanks to Blogging for Books for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my rating or thoughts on the book! :)

[gmcgregor]

Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, re-writings/modernizations of Shakespeare's principal plays by prominent authors. Tyler tells us the story of Kate Battista, a blunt and off-putting young woman who cares for her flaky little sister Bunny and maintains the household for her father, a researcher of autoimmune diseases. She's plenty smart, but has dropped out of college after a confrontation with a professor and works as a teacher's assistant at a day care. Her father's research has taken a turn for the promising when he's about to lose his gifted young assistant, Pyotr, to an expired visa...so Dr. Battista asks Kate to marry the fellow so he can stick around.

As much as I'm excited about some of the upcoming Hogarth Shakespeare entries (Gillian Flynn taking on Hamlet is going to be awesome), I'll be honest: I didn't like this one. Perhaps it was the 250 page length, but it didn't feel developed enough. I never bought the family dynamics, or really understood Kate as a character: to me, she seemed almost written as though she's on the spectrum: she's very literal and disinclined to seek out social connection. But I don't know that I think it was Tyler's intention to invite that interpretation. I didn't get her relationship with her father or sister, neither of which seemed very warm or rich. A deep bond with them might explain why an intelligent 29 year old would have been content to work a dead-end job for years on end to take care of them, but that wasn't ever even really hinted at, much less shown. Speaking of unearned feelings that are never actually drawn and apparently just supposed to be inferred, Kate and Pyotr's growing affection for each other after she has agreed to the immigration fraud plan never rings true either. They have a handful of awkward encounters that Kate professes to find discomfiting...and then we're supposed to be on board when she apparently really wants to marry him after all. Skip this and watch 10 Things I Hate About You and swoon over a baby Heath Ledger singing Stevie Wonder instead.