301 pages
English language
Published Jan. 5, 2016
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 brewing revenge. After 12 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?
This book is a wonderful Shakespeare adaptation. It has me laughing and crying in all the best ways. I can’t even begin to explain the genius of Atwood in this novel. Such a page turner. If you are very into Shakespeare originals you may not like the adaptation but personally I think it is exquisite.
This book is a review of a Shakespeare play gone out of control and it works well, I loved this re-imagining of The Tempest. I remember reading The Tempest at school and it was sooooooo dull! If only this book had existed then, it would have really opened my eyes and made me appreciate the fantastic play.
Felix gets forced out of his role as artistic director of a festival just as he was putting together his masterpiece, The Tempest. He goes into exile living as a hermit until he gets a job teaching theatre at a prison and that is the start of one of the best revenge plots since the Count of Monte Cristo.
The story is very slow during the first half, Felix is not a likeable character and neither are any of the characters around him, but as Felix starts working on the play with the …
This book is a review of a Shakespeare play gone out of control and it works well, I loved this re-imagining of The Tempest. I remember reading The Tempest at school and it was sooooooo dull! If only this book had existed then, it would have really opened my eyes and made me appreciate the fantastic play.
Felix gets forced out of his role as artistic director of a festival just as he was putting together his masterpiece, The Tempest. He goes into exile living as a hermit until he gets a job teaching theatre at a prison and that is the start of one of the best revenge plots since the Count of Monte Cristo.
The story is very slow during the first half, Felix is not a likeable character and neither are any of the characters around him, but as Felix starts working on the play with the convicts he starts to come out of his shell, not so shallow and you start to feel his pain. On the night of the play the plot reaches a crescendo and things work out just as I was hoping they would go.
Stick with this book, don't get thrown by the slow start and I do recommend you know the Tempest before you begin as it will really add to the experience.
Blog review > felcherman.wordpress.com/2019/04/01/hag-seed-by-margaret-atwood/
A play within a play, within a play, within... who know? An excellent story, and every bit as accessible to readers unfamiliar with The Tempest (or even Shakespeare himself) as those who know the lines by heart.
Loved everything about this book, but the ending came too quickly and (spoiler) resolved too neatly.
Hag-Seed was great - very smart. I'll have to read it again, perhaps after a review of the Tempest. It's satisfyingly woven together and modernized.
I was a bit skeptical reading the summary, but Atwood pulls it off splendidly.
