Hag-seed - Margaret Atwood

“When Felix is deposed as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival by his devious assistant and longtime enemy, his production of The Tempest is canceled and he is heartbroken. Reduced to a life of exile in rural southern Ontario—accompanied only by his fantasy daughter, Miranda, who died twelve years ago—Felix devises a plan for retribution.”

This book is about a man called Felix, and he was the artistic director of a major theatre house until his assistant betrayed him and orchestrated a coup leaving Felix stranded in isolation. Sound familiar? Felix is our Prospero and he wants some revenge. So many years after he is disgraced he gets his opportunity. He stages his own version of The Tempest, using prison inmates that he teaches, to get back at those that wronged him. He takes on the role of Prospero in the play, and he also becomes him in his real life. 

Hag-Seed is a cleverly constructed, satirical retelling of The Tempest, executed through Felix and his band of convicted con men staging their own fanciful and strange retelling of the play. This overlap in storytelling succeeds in educating readers who have never seen the play, delighting those familiar with Shakespeare's tale of castaways stranded on a remote island plotting and scheming against one another, and being an on-the-nose representation of The Tempest. 

So Atwood has recreated The Tempest here and it’s wonderful. She has crafted all the themes of the Tempest into the form of this man’s life. And, ironically, he knows he is living The Tempest. He starts to actually become like Prospero. He becomes unhinged and can only taste that singular bitter pill known as revenge; it is literally all that animates him and it almost drives him too far into the depths of obsessive despair, though he has the power to come back. We all do. Very much in the tradition of the play, Felix comes back to himself. 

"But The Tempest is a play about a man producing a play - one that's come out of his own head, his 'fancies' - so maybe the fault for which he needs to be pardoned is the play itself." 

Felix's obsession with recreating The Tempest is about more than just revenge. His intentions are personal and rooted in grief, which adds depth to his motives and enriches the narrative. Felix wishes to memorialize his deceased daughter, Miranda (whose namesake is derived from the play). 

A truely interesting book. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I loved it, it wasn’t really my taste, but it certainly intrigued me and I would definitely recommend it to others. 

I think the only thing that stopped me from loving this book was the lack of vicsearal or brutal renderings of emotion that Atwood is know for. It felt gentle, mild.Not things you really want from a retelling of a story as frought as the Tempest. 

Age Rating 14+. A lot of swearing.