Margaret Atwood and Howard Jacobson

     I have mentioned before the list of books that the Hogarth Press has commissioned  to retell some of Shakespeare's plays. I have already written about "Vinegar Girl," by Anne Tyler, which was an agreeable little novel that hewed quite closely to "The Taming of the Shrew."

    One that I also enjoyed a lot was Margaret Atwood's retelling of the "The Tempest," in which the modern day Prospero runs a theatre but is 'exiled' by a couple of conspirators before he can produce his version of the 'Tempest.' In his exile, he works in a prison to produce plays, and eventually stages "The Tempest" at a time when his enemies, who have attained some political importance, visit the prison--and, like the shipwrecked crowd on Prospero's island, are led around and tormented by the prison actors. Sounds weird, I know, but it works well. A very likable tale--entitled "Hag Seed."

    To plagiarise one critic:

"this is written with such gusto and mischief that it feels so much like something Atwood would have written anyway. The joy and hilarity of it just sing off the page. It’s a magical eulogy to Shakespeare, leading the reader through a fantastical reworking of the original but infusing it with ironic nods to contemporary culture."  

    Another in this series I read recently and did not warm to in the slightest was Howard Jacobson's supposed retelling of "The Merchant of Venice," entitled "Shylock is My Name."
Having recently read "The Finkler Question," which is all about what it does or does not mean to be a Jew, I felt that "Shylock" was just running over that same old ground. Yes, a lot of it was funny, and--yes--he is a brilliant writer, but I found the novel, well, tedious--and, frankly, apart from bringing a post-Venice Shylock into the society of the greater Manchester conurbation, the parallel with "The Merchant' was lost on me.