Hag-Seed

PSA: If you’re a huge fan of Hag-Seed, please prepare yourself for the following.

As per usual, here’s an intro:

“Hag-Seed is a novel by Margaret Atwood published in October 2016. A modern retelling of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the novel centres on a theatre director named Felix who is exiled to teaching in a prison after losing his job with Makeshiweg Theatre, and begins to plot his revenge against those who wronged him.”

I’m currently studying The Tempest at school and my English teacher suggested that we should read this novel to further our understanding of the play. Honestly, I enjoyed the play and Julie Taymor’s 2010 movie adaptation, so, naturally, I thought that this would be a walk in the park.

I was so, so wrong.

HIT:

• personally, the only thing I took away from this book is the ‘prisoner, prison, jailer’ exercise that the inmates did with the play – we’d already done this in class, but it was interesting to read about different thought processes for the same conclusions

MISSES:

• I really couldn’t stand Atwood’s writing style in this – it felt relatively childish (contradicting some of the content), which didn’t appeal to me in the slightest as it felt almost condescending to read
• the manner in which Margaret Atwood attempted to ‘retell’ The Tempest felt so crude and inadequate (e.g. when the main character, Felix Phillips, changes his surname to Duke to conceal his identity in the prison) – I mean, to me, it just seems like such a pathetic effort to incorporate details from the play
• Atwood’s overall characterisation of a large majority of the characters in this novel is unskilled and immature, in that I don’t feel she really tried using her artistic licence to challenge perceptions of the play – the ‘modern twists’ of the novel were somewhat predictable to me, which is something that instantly bores me
• the glorified way in which Margaret Atwood treats the far from the idealistic environment of prison seems so farfetched and unrealistic that it annoys me so much – if a novel is centralised around real life, then I think it only makes sense for there to be as much realism as possible throughout!

Overall, this was a cheesy and excruciating read – to the point where I was forced to do the ultimate thing I refuse to submit to: skip skim-read a large part of the novel and just get to the end.

Yes, I understand that my severe dislike for this novel could be due to the fact that I already know the story and I may have just been bored.

But, to be honest, if Atwood really retold The Tempest ‘with such gusto and mischief’ as The Guardian thinks she did, then would I have been half-asleep, dragging myself through the pages, constantly yearning for the end?

I think not.

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OVERALL RATING: ★

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Phew, am I glad that’s over – I hope that this was interesting or helpful to you in some way!

Have you read Hag-Seed? Did you dislike it as much as I did, or did you love Margaret Atwood’s retelling?

Be sure to check out my latest review of The Color Purple!

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