Bonus: The Gap of Time

Hogarth Shakespeare

The Gap of Time
Jeanette Winterson
2015

The Summary
"The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's late plays.  It tells the story of a king whose jealousy results in the banishment of his baby daughter and the death of his beautiful wife.  His daughter is found and brought up by a shepherd on the Bohemian coast, but through a series of extraordinary events, father and daughter, and eventually mother too, are reunited.

"In The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson's cover version of The Winter's Tale, we move from London, a city reeling after the 2008 financial crisis, to a storm-ravaged American city called New Bohemia.  Her tale is one of childhood friendship, money, status, technology, and the elliptical nature of time.  Written with energy and wit, this is a story of the consuming power of jealousy on the one hand, and redemption and the enduring love of a lost child on the other."

The Good
The Gap of Time was an intriguing novel.  Part tragedy, part story of redemption, The Gap of Time does a fair job of transporting Shakespeare's play to the modern era.  It conveys all the conflict, all the tragedy and love and joy and hurt of The Winter's Tale, but it also gives his characters a little more color, a little more depth.

And, speaking of characters, I want to mention Shep.  Aside from Autolycus, who is basically a crooked car salesman with a heart of gold, Shep is probably my favorite character.  He has this gentle, genuine quality to him that I appreciated the more I got to know him (and the other characters), and he has such a wonderful narrative.

In the first chapter (if it can be called a chapter), Shep details the tragedies that have beset him and tells readers how he happened across Perdita.  Yes, I found his thoughts were rather tangled up with his past, caught up in the regrets that plague him and the memories that haven't quite settled; however, his narrative is heavy with emotion and purpose.  It has a lyrical quality to it that makes his words beautiful.

I loved the way he describes his first encounter with Perdita, how he describes his out of body experience of finding the baby and knowing, just knowing she was in his life for good:  "I realise without realising that I've got the tyre lever in my hand.  I move without moving to prise open the hatch.  It is easy.  I lift out the baby and she's as light as a star."

Or when Shep decided, in one moment the importance of this child in his life--and recognized the impact of important moments:

"The cars come and the cars go between me and my crossing the street.  The anonymous always-in-motion world.  The baby and I stand still, and it's as if she knows that a choice has to be made. 

"Or does it?  The important things happen by chance.  Only the rest gets planned. 

"I walked round the block thinking I'd think about it, but my legs were heading home, and sometimes you have to accept that your heart knows what to do."

His lines are, by far, the best found in the book.

The Bad
I didn't really understand The Gap of Time.  It just didn't strike the right note with me, so to speak, and it didn't appeal to me on an emotional level, because I didn't understand the characters--that is, I couldn't connect with them.  Much of Winterson's novel is told in this odd, almost meandering verse that is part omniscient, omnipresent narration and part stream-of-consciousness monologuing.

It actually reminded me a lot of The Sound and the Fury, in that I didn't quite understand it either.  Not only does it hopscotch through time, it utilizes a style of writing that makes it difficult to read.  It feels scattered, unhinged, especially when Leo is involved.  I couldn't stand when Leo was involved, I couldn't stand his jealous rantings or his madman-like ravings.  It made the story difficult to stomach and altogether too brutal.

Overall, I had a hard time understanding and connecting to Winterson's novel.  It made me squirm, but it didn't make me think.  It made me feel sympathy for Perdita, for Hermione (MiMi) and their shared plight, but it didn't make me feel sorry that Perdita was ripped from her home and given a parent who loved her with the unbounded, unconditional love that a parent feels for their offspring.

It made me feel revulsion, but it didn't make me feel joy, which I found very disappointing.

The Ugly
Leo never seems to understand what he did wrong.  I mean, sure he's remorseful for his actions after they destroy the lives of so many (his wife, his daughter, his best friend, his son, and his own), but, even after the nuclear fallout has settled, he doesn't quite seem to grasp that his actions--his jealousy, his vindictive attitude, his sense of superiority, his abject cruelty--is what drove everyone he loved away and resulted in so many heavy casualties.

At the end, he's not the lion of a man he was at one time; however, he doesn't seem to have learned much of anything either.  Maybe, I don't understand his humor (his racist/anti-semitic playfulness that Pauline merely ignores or his complicated almost cruel relationship with Xeno); maybe, I don't understand him, period.  Either way, I feel like Leo just didn't develop as a character and he didn't learn from his mistakes.

He was too stubborn to accept Perdita as his daughter, too jealous to accept that his wife wasn't sleeping with his best friend, and simply too cruel.  I mean, he doesn't even bother to contact his wife--the woman he supposedly loves beyond comprehension--after their world is torn asunder and he doesn't bother to seek out his daughter, if he ever even accepts that she's his.

I hated Leo.

Yes, hated.

I much preferred Shep.  Like Leo, Shep is grieving and hurt by the "anonymous always-in-motion world," but he doesn't let it hollow him out, turn him into a raving madman or a violent, vindictive father.  He lets Perdita into his life, unlike Leo, and he lets love back into his life.  He doesn't cast it aside, he doesn't try to ruin lives because he's hurt.  He makes an effort to change his life, he makes an effort to be kind.

So, yes, I much prefer Shep and I can't help thinking that Perdita got a much better deal when she wound up in his care.  Just saying.

Vinegar Girl

Hogarth Press

Vinegar Girl
Anne Tyler
2016

The Summary
"Kate Battista feels stuck.  How did she end up running house and home for her eccentric scientist father and uppity, pretty younger sister, Bunny?  Plus, she's always in trouble at work--her preschool charges adore her, but their parents don't always appreciate her unusual opinions and forthright manner.

"Dr. Battista has his own problems.  After years in the academic wilderness, he is on the verge of a breakthrough.  His research could help millions.  There's only one problem:  his brilliant young lab assistant, Pyotr, is about to be deported.  And without Pyotr, all would be lost.

"When Dr. Battista cooks up an outrageous plan that will enable Pyotr to stay in the country, he's relying--as usual--on Kate to help him.  Kate is furious:  this time he's really asking too much.  But will she be able to resist the two men's touchingly ludicrous campaign to bring her around?"

The Good
Vinegar Girl was interesting, to say the least.  A little odd, yes, but it was strangely compelling.  I couldn't help getting wound up in Kate Battista's life, couldn't help wondering what would happen as she struggled to deal with her wild child sister and tried to corral her father's mismanagement and fend off Pyotr's obvious affection.  I was somehow hooked by her story, and I found I couldn't put it down.

I've never read anything by Anne Tyler and, oddly enough, I've never read (but I have seen) The Taming of the Shrew.  Despite my lack of exposure to writer and inspiration, I thoroughly enjoyed Vinegar Girl.  First off, I should state that Tyler is a wonderful writer.  There's something about the story that drew me, a cadence to the narration that made the story appealing on a visceral level for me, and a way the characters were made that kept me coming back for more.

And she's descriptive!

I hate when authors don't set the stage, when they don't offer descriptions of the characters or give weak descriptions about the scene.  Tyler, luckily, does a wonderful job of bringing life to her characters, showing off the little details that make them unique and intriguing, and unfolding an entire world on the pages.  She helps me sink into the story, helps me feel like I'm really there with Kate as she weeds her garden or as she walks the next few blocks to her father's lab because he forgot his lunch (again) or fights with Bunny over the boy she wasn't supposed to bring into the house.

Plus, I found Kate to be singularly enjoyable.  She's headstrong, she's fiery, she's brutally honest and blunt even when speaking to children, and she's incredibly intelligent.  Tyler crafts a compelling and sympathetic character in Kate, creating a complex female character who is pulled in many different directions by her loyalty to her family, her interest in her own career, and her dreams for herself.

And, as an aside, I want to note that I actually appreciated Pyotr's accent.  I mean, after reading What's a Ghoul to Do?, which also features a character with a heavy accent, I realized Anne Tyler does a fantastic job of conveying accents, of individual speech patterns.  Like Dr. Sable in Victoria Laurie's first Ghost Hunter novel, Pyotr does not have a complete grasp of English.

However, unlike Laurie, Tyler manages to make her character's struggle with his second language seem natural, rather than forced.  He trips up on the rules and language quirks that even native speakers may struggle to grasp and he may have difficulty with verbs, articles, and the like, but his lingual missteps seem more like natural mistakes than forced attempts to make him seem cute or bumbling.

The Bad
No complaints, really.  I mean, some part of me did wish for more for Kate, did wish she wasn't so constricted and confined by her family--but isn't that often the way with family and love and marriage?  Sometimes the burdens fall in different patterns, meaning responsibilities (and thus challenges) do not always fall evenly.

But, I suppose, if she's happy with how things turned out, how can I complain?

The Ugly
Family dynamics can get messy.

Let's just leave it at that, okay?

Goldberg Variations

Scribner

Goldberg Variation
Susan Isaacs
2012

The Summary
"Imagine King Lear as a comedy...

"Elegant, amusing, and profoundly nasty tycoon Gloria Garrison, née Goldberg, has a kingdom to bequeath to one of the grandchildren she barely knows.  They're all twentsomethings who foolishly believe money isn't everything.  Just shy of eighty, Gloria doesn't wish to watch the minutes tick by while the three dither over the issues of their generation--love, meaning, identity.  She has summoned them all from New York for a weekend at her palatial home in Santa Fe.  she has a single question to ask them:  'Which one of you most deserves to inherit my business?'  Gloria never anticipates the answer will be 'not interested' three times.  She created a brilliant, booming beauty business, Glory Inc., that not only does well, but does good.  And they say 'no'?  What's so grand about their lives that they would reject such a kingdom?

"Daisy Goldberg is not only mad for movies, she's part of the film industry:  East Coast story editor for one of the biggest studios.  Her brother, Matt, the über-sports buff, has a great job in public relations with major League Baseball.  And their cousin Raquel Goldberg, half-Latina, all Catholic, is a Legal Aid lawyer.  They may like their work, but do they really like their lives?  Would they be so foolish as to hold against their grandmother the pain she inflicted on every member of the family?  As far as Gloria is concerned, this isn't about tender feelings.  It's about millions of dollars; it's about living a life the ninety-nine percent dream of and the one percent know.

"The weekend is full of surprises, not only for Daisy, Matt, and Raquel but also for Gloria.  Memories have a way of intruding at the most inopportune times.  And is Gloria's tough hide as impenetrable as she always believed?  Susan Isaacs is at her formidable best in Goldberg Variations, a novel that is both wickedly witty and a deeply moving tale of family and reconciliation."

The Good
Goldberg Variations is a pretty enjoyable novel.  I liked that it was based on Shakespeare's King Lear; in fact, that's what actually attracted me to it in the first place.  However, what kept me involved was Gloria and her caustic personality.  She's rather horrible--abrupt, unsentimental, tough, rather cold-hearted when it boils down to it--but she's an unexpectedly great narrator.  I was hooked pretty quickly.

Plus, I couldn't wait to see how (or if) Gloria and her three grandchildren--Daisy, Matt, and Raquel--would manage to reconcile.  It's rather interesting to see how they all interact, surprising to see the little connections between them that make them family.  I also found it fascinating to see how the characters grow.

Susan Isaacs uses multiple narrators in her novel, which, in this case, works rather well.  Daisy, Matt, Raquel, and Gloria are all enjoyable and engaging.  They are candid, introspective, and interesting, certainly enough to keep me invested as the story continued.  I was pleasantly surprised by the final chapter, because I really didn't expect things to turn out the way they did.

I really like that the author kept me on my toes.

The Bad
Although I mostly enjoyed Goldberg Variations, I found it took a very long time to build up the plot.  The character and plot development is very slow; in fact, the whole weekend seems to take ages.  The last chapter wraps it all up in a nice little bow--and it made me wonder, "What took so long?"

As a side note, I also want to point out that I don't care very much for books which feature multiple narrators from the first-person point-of-view.  While I think Isaacs did a pretty good job of incorporating multiple narrators, I'm still not a fan.  I prefer a single narrator, rather than several at once.  It makes the book simpler and easier to read, and it seems to make it easier to connect to the characters.

But that's just my personal preference, rather than a problem with the book.

The Ugly
Family drama.

Gloria really is quite a terrible grandmother.  Not that everyone else in the family is always very understanding or particularly nice.  The rift between them all is rather painful with one generation after another escalating and transmuting the damage.

The Tempest

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www.barnesandnoble.com

The Tempest
William Shakespeare
1610-1611

The Summary
For Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, life has not always been kind; however, when his brother (Antonio) and the King of Naples (Alonso), the very men who chased him from his dukedom, arrive on the shores his island, Prospero has been given a great opportunity to seek his revenge.

Filled with grand adventure, a generous helping of magic, and a bit of romance, The Tempest tells the story of one man's rise and fall from power as he struggles to contend with his past, his own feelings of bitterness, and his hope for the future.

The Good
Simultaneously amusing and complex, The Tempest is one of those Shakespearean plays that's sure to hold your attention for the sheer ridiculousness and magic and botched political intrigue it holds.  Between the fairy mischief on Ariel's part and, of course, jokes about sexuality courtesy of Trinculo and Stephano, Shakespeare's play presents a rousing good time.

More to the point, Shakespeare's characters are something to behold.  Not only are the characters fully fleshed out - and some being the epitome of a stereotype - they are enjoyable to watch and understand as they grow and mature, or, in some cases, meet whatever end they happen to find.

In short, it's a brief but fun play that's sure to entertain.

The Bad
As always, Shakespeare's plays are a little difficult to read given the barrier between languages - or, more accurately, time periods.  Filled with jokes and references to his generation, and riddled with older, archaic versions of English words, Shakespeare can be a bit challenging.

That's no excuse for not reading his work, of course; however, it's sometimes better to see his work in person - that is, on the stage - than just reading it.  Simply put, actors can make Shakespeare's work come of alive, even when the imagination can't.

The Ugly
Well, it can't all be fun and games.

Between brothers bent on fratricide and fairy mischief and wizards intent on revenge, there will inevitably be a little bit of violence and a suitable amount of language.  It's to be expected in the cold, calculating, politically charged society of Shakespeare's play.

Richard III

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www.barnesandnoble.com

Richard III
William Shakespeare
1591

The Summary

Put simply, The Tragedy of King Richard III tells the story of one ambitious man's rise to power - and reveals his willingness to stoop to any means necessary to ascend to the throne.

The Good

William Shakespeare's play is absolutely thrilling.  Beautifully complex, full of political intrigue and suspense - and, yes, even daring escapes and brutal murders - Richard III is a captivating play about power and deceit, and what one man will do to seize the crown for himself.

Moreover, the character and plot developments seen throughout the play are absolutely perfect.  Well, perhaps perfection is too far, but, regardless, Richard III manages to create some of the most fascinating, endearing, grotesque, and terrifying characters.

Take Richard, Duke of Gloucester (and, later, King Richard III), for instance.  His description as a deformed human being - his depth as a character, the influence of self-fulfilling prophecy in his life - and his continuous acts of cruelty, his downward spiral into murder and treachery, make him a perfect villain.

Richard III is a character you will love to hate.

The Bad

As most people have read Shakespeare's plays at one time or another, it's easy to recognize some of the perils of Shakespeare's work, including Richard III.  Antiquated vocabularly, complex speech patterns, and distinct (sometimes, difficult) language quirks, all make Shakespeare's play more than a little challenging for many readers.

But it's worth reading, nonetheless, because this work, if you can manage the language barrier, is absolutely riveting.

The Ugly

Richard III is not a gentle tale by any means.

I mean, after all, Richard of Gloucester is a man intent on securing the crown for himself by any means necessary, including - and certainly not limited to - murder, war, genocide, and other forms of violent (very violent, and very brutal) forms of teachery and political intrigue.