Hag-Seed (Hogarth Shakespeare) Online
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Um14n [FREE] Hag-Seed (Hogarth Shakespeare) Online [Um14n.ebook] Hag-Seed (Hogarth Shakespeare) Pdf Free Margaret Atwood *Download PDF | ePub | DOC | audiobook | ebooks Download Now Free Download Here Download eBook #169360 in Books Atwood Margaret 2016-10-11 2016-10-11Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.26 x 1.04 x 5.32l, 1.25 #File Name: 0804141290320 pagesHag Seed | File size: 39.Mb Margaret Atwood : Hag-Seed (Hogarth Shakespeare) before purchasing it in order to gage whether or not it would be worth my time, and all praised Hag-Seed (Hogarth Shakespeare): 44 of 45 people found the following review helpful. Shakespeare in PrisonBy Roger BrunyateThe outer gate swings open, propelled by invisible hands. Mythanks, ye demi-puppets, Felix addresses them silently, yeelves of barbed wire, tasers, and strong walls, weak mastersthough ye be. As he drives away downhill the gate closes behindhim, locking itself with a metallic thud, Already the air isdarkening; behind him, the searchlights blare into life.Felix Phillips, renowned theater director fallen on hard times, drives home to his two-room shack after a day rehearsing his production of The Tempest at Fletcher County Correctional Institute. That's right, he is staging Shakespeare in a prison. After being ousted from his post as artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Festival (think Stratford, Ontario) through the machinations of his once-loyal right-hand man Tony, Felix goes to ground and contemplates revenge. Under a pseudonym, he takes a part-time job as instructor in the Literacy Through Literature program at the prison, where he produces an annual Shakespeare play. This time, his choice is THE TEMPEST, and he intends to use it to turn the tables on those who once deposed him.By now, I am a confirmed fan of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, which commissions famous novelists to write their own takes on Shakespeare plays. The series started well with Jeanette Winterson's THE GAP OF TIME (THE WINTER'S TALE), then just got better and better with Howard Jacobson's SHYLOCK IS MY NAME (THE MERCHANT OF VENICE), Anne Tyler's VINEGAR GIRL (THE TAMING OF THE SHREW), and now Margaret Atwood's HAG-SEED, the best of the lot. THE TEMPEST, she says, is a play about a man (Prospero) staging a play in order to exact revenge on his adversaries. What more natural (and more Shakespearean) than to add a further layer, and make this adaptation about a wronged director staging this play that itself contains a play within the play? Well, to be honest, there were a few chapters early on when I feared that the approach might be too cute for words. But I forgot such thoughts as soon as Felix entered that prison. For what we get theremdash;and this is the larger part of the bookmdash;is a brilliant example not only of Shakespeare interpretation but also of superb teaching. As Felix breaks the play down and works with the prisoners to analyze the characters and themes, Imdash;who have taught Shakespeare for thirty years, directed the show twice, and written my own operatic adaptation of THE TEMPESTmdash;was drop-jawed with amazement. Perhaps Atwood occasionally allows herself to play the professor rather than the novelist, but there is a lot of fun too. For example, Felix's rule that the only swear words allowed in the class are those taken from the play itself. Hence delightful (but insightful) dialogues like the following:"Caliban should be First Nations," says Red Coyote. "It's obvious.Got his land stole.""No way," says PPod. "He's African. Where's Algiers anyway? NorthAfrica, right? That's where his mother came from. Look on the map, pox brain.""So, he's a Muslim? I don't whoreson think so." VaMoose, anotherCaliban aspirant."No way that he's smelly-fish white trash, anyways," says Shiv,glaring at Leggs. "Even part white.""I score," says Leggs. "You heard the man, fen head, it's final.So suck it.""Points off, you swore," says PPod."Suck it's not a swear word," says Leggs. "It's only a diss. Everyoneknows that, and the devil take your fingers!"Anne-Marie laughs.Because the authorities will not risk bringing the prisoners together to watch a staged performance, Felix builds up his shows on video, which allows for much more flexibility in concept than you would get in a straight play. It also allows him to hijack the showing for the visiting VIPs to his own ends; Tony and his enablers have now become politicians. But while it is fascinating to put together the clues about what Felix intends to do, the actual performancemdash;the springing of Felix's trapmdash;falls curiously flat. The events that are the equivalent of Shakespeare's play, rather than the preparations for it, take only a few chapters, and achieve very little catharsis. It is this more than anything that keeps me from giving this otherwise extraordinary book five stars.The performance ends some fifty pages before the end of the novel, leaving only the summing up. The two greatest speeches of Shakespeare's Prosperomdash;"Our revels now are ended" and "Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves"mdash;come in this section. It is the moral heart of the play and Shakespeare's legacy as a human being, where revenge gives way to forgiveness, the theatrical magus abjures his magic, and we reenter the real world, leaving the enchanted isle behind. In the fifty pages she has left, can Atwood do anything similar? Not quite. She has some marvelous chapters in which the teams behind each of the characters submit their final reports on what might become of their people after the play ends; there is some brilliant imagination here, but this is Atwood the professor, rather than the novelist. The one thing that I did find very touching comes from what may be Atwood's most original touch of all: that while Prospero was accompanied into exile by his infant daughter Miranda, Felix's own daughter Miranda has died long ago in childhood, leaving him alone. I won't say how Atwood uses this to end her novel, but it was a touch of true humanity in what was otherwise a tongue-in-cheek book. But what a tongue! What cheek!27 of 27 people found the following review helpful. Wonderful ConceitBy SemajThe Hogarth Shakespeare Project [...] charges distinguished novelists to retell a Shakespeare play as a modern novel. So far, I have read two: Anne Tyler's "Vinegar Girl" (from Taming of the Shrew) and this, Margaret Atwood's "Hag Seed" (from The Tempest.) The first, a genuinely fun read, presents a single problem to the novelist: create a tale wherein a distracted father needs and wants to marry off an unwilling elder daughter into an improbable marriage that happens to work. Tyler solves her challenge and renders the tale with her usual skill.Now consider The Tempest: Magic, monsters, powerful spirits, villains, revenge, royalty, young love, an isolated mystical island, loneliness, suffering and atonement. How could these be blended into a modern novel? You will have to read the novel to see how, but let me assure you, Atwood gets it all in in as clever a conceit as ever I've read. Poet, novelist, and master and lover of the power of English, Atwood's plot and dialogue surprise and delight throughout the novel. To reap the most from this most excellent tale, the reader must be recently familiar with The Tempest. If not, I can heartily recommend downloading or streaming Helen Mirren's "The Tempest."2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. catnip for theater nerdsBy HawaiianAtwood's brilliant exploration of the story of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" is inventive and engaging. By creating a modern day Prospero who is cast out of his kingdom as artistic director of a Shakespearean theater company in an imaginary city in Canada, she places the story in a contemporary setting. Now in a partly self imposed exile from the world, her hero Felix Phillips eventually takes a job in a literacy program in a local prison. By creating interpretive Shakespearean productions with the inmates, Felix regains his powers as a theatrical enchanter and begins to plot an ingenious revenge against those who stole his kingdom. Anyone interested in theater, Shakespeare or stories of second chances and redemption will find much to enjoy in "Hag-Seed." William Shakespeare's The Tempest retold as Hag-Seed 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 also brewing revenge. After twelve 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? Margaret Atwoodrsquo;s novel take on Shakespearersquo;s play of enchantment, retribution, and second chances leads us on an interactive, illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own. "A marvel of gorgeous yet economical prose, in the service of a story that's utterly heartbreaking yet pierced by humor, with a plot that retains considerable subtlety even as the original's back story falls neatly into place."mdash;New York Times Book ldquo;What makes the book thrilling, and hugely pleasurable, is how closely Atwood hews to Shakespeare even as she casts her own potent charms, rap-composition includedhellip; Part Shakespeare, part Atwood, ldquo;Hag-Seedrdquo; is a most delicate monster mdash; and thatrsquo;s ldquo;delicaterdquo; in the 17th-century sense.