Hag-Seed (Hogarth Shakespeare)

by Margaret Atwood

[inlibrisveritas]

Hag-Seed is my first Margaret Atwood novel, and I have to say this a pretty awesome introduction to her writing.

Hag-Seed is a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but you don’t need to know The Tempest or read the other Hogarth Shakespeare books to enjoy this at all. It even has a summary of the play in the back of the book. I love Shakespeare and I love seeing people delve into it and make it their own, because there is so much to work with and Atwood does just that. She creates a retelling of The Tempest within a story that includes a theater director creating his own retelling of The Tempest. I think what really made me enjoy this is that it evokes many of the same feelings and questions that the play itself evokes, especially in terms of Felix’s daughter Miranda.

The play is retold both in the story itself as well as in a play put on within the story, and I think the fact that it’s sort of two retellings in one is pretty brilliant because we get to see two visions of the play come together. I loved how the prisoners changed and adapted The Tempest to really make it into something more fun and easier for them to understand, it includes rap numbers (of which Atwood has written out) and a pretty cool change to Ariel I never thought about. The writing is pretty great and there is a lot of exploration of self going on with Felix that I appreciated, even during his more troubling moments.

Overall I rather like Hag-Seed, it’s a really fun take on Shakespeare that offers a lot of new twists to an old story, and if this is what I can expect from Atwood’s books then I definitely think I’m going to have to give her other novels a try finally.