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imanreads's review against another edition
4.0
WELL, FUCK. This book gave me hella Wuthering Heights feels...in all the best ways.
This was my first Jacqueline Carey book, and now I'm gonna have to go read all of her books. The way she writes is so good it makes me angry, and my heart hurt. Thank goodness I already own Kushiel's Dart.
GAH.
This was my first Jacqueline Carey book, and now I'm gonna have to go read all of her books. The way she writes is so good it makes me angry, and my heart hurt. Thank goodness I already own Kushiel's Dart.
GAH.
morawynsmom's review against another edition
5.0
Wow. This book was so beautiful, and so, so, sooooo, sad. Caliban, oh Caliban, you are an amazing character. This book is not action-packed, it is not filled with steamy sex like Kushiel's Dart. It has very few characters, and they are each unique and interesting. It is poetic and flowing and has wonderful threads of natural magic and sorcery, I wish it had been so, so much longer! The ending devastated me, I was furious at Miranda and my heart bled for Caliban, I wish it had been so much different but I know Carey was trying to stay true to the Tempest, which I have never read, but I know the synopsis. Carey does wonderful to paint the picture of the ill-fated love between two unlikely people, as well as the controlling, awful portrait of a domineering, revengeful father, this book is dedicated solely to character development, and I was perfectly fine with that. I read all of the Kushiel's Dart series, and I loved them, I did not care for her other books but this one made my heart bleed. Caliban, oh my heart, CALIBAN!!!!
annakelly's review
5.0
First can we just take a moment to appreciate the cover art?!?! So gorgeous. (Artist: Tran Nguyen, she also created the covers for Horrid by Katrina Leto and Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim)
I have never read a retelling that stays so completely true to the source material while also adding such depth and beautifully wrought characters. What is even more impressive to me is that I loved this even though I did not enjoy The Tempest.
On my imaginary list of books I need to see turned into films, this is at the top of my list. I can just picture the beautiful scenery and the tender moments between Miranda and Caliban. Ugh!
"As I healed and we grew and learned together in those months, and indeed the years that followed, it seemed almost that we were two parts of a whole, each of us reflecting each others strengths and weaknesses. We were two souls who found each other in our times of need, providing companionship and solace. So long as the distance between us persists, there is an emptiness inside me."
"I do love you and I will wait for you always. One day, you will send for me. Until then, I will think of you and remember. You in the sunlight. You on the grass. You with the yellow flowers."
I have never read a retelling that stays so completely true to the source material while also adding such depth and beautifully wrought characters. What is even more impressive to me is that I loved this even though I did not enjoy The Tempest.
On my imaginary list of books I need to see turned into films, this is at the top of my list. I can just picture the beautiful scenery and the tender moments between Miranda and Caliban. Ugh!
"As I healed and we grew and learned together in those months, and indeed the years that followed, it seemed almost that we were two parts of a whole, each of us reflecting each others strengths and weaknesses. We were two souls who found each other in our times of need, providing companionship and solace. So long as the distance between us persists, there is an emptiness inside me."
"I do love you and I will wait for you always. One day, you will send for me. Until then, I will think of you and remember. You in the sunlight. You on the grass. You with the yellow flowers."
morgandante's review against another edition
5.0
[pasted from blog]
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
Jacqueline Carey's Miranda and Caliban is a retelling of Shakespeare's final drama The Tempest. It assumes that Miranda and Caliban had romantic feelings for one another prior to and during the course of the play's narrative.
The Tempest, next to Titus Andronicus, is my favorite Shakespeare play. I enjoy the redemption and journey of forgiveness of a complex character, Prospero, though I can acknowledge he is a racist colonialist and Caliban's fate is an issue, since he essentially presumes the master-servant relationship. The racist and misogynistic parts of Prospero's character are further explored in this novel, as well as detailing his abusive nature and how he orchestrated Miranda and Prince Ferdinand's love without much consideration for her own thoughts on the matter. He has softer moments to keep him complex, but his actions are abhorrent, and he doesn't seem to quite grow past these transgressions even when given what he wants to reclaim.
The prose is beautiful and fits the surreal, magical environment beautifully. Carey, as usual, excels at lyrical descriptions. However, the book's greatest trick is how it treats Caliban's POV. I was not aware this was a dual POV book, but it is, and it goes with Miranda being the one to teach Caliban language, as it was in the play. Caliban's sentences start off as fragmented and binary, but as he learns language, his thoughts are conveyed with more winding imagery and contemplations. I found this narrative technique to be extremely clever and an important aspect of the Miranda and Caliban's relationship.
In the play, Miranda was indeed his kind teacher, and Caliban attempted to rape her and threatened to, essentially, use her as a broodmare, which very much ties into the "aggressive, hypersexual black man attacking white woman" trope that Shakespeare portrayed and, in Titus Andronicus and Othello, explored. Miranda and Caliban sidesteps the attempted rape and Caliban's threat by making everything gentle and consensual, though Caliban does consider murder because if he is treated as a monster no matter what because of his skin color, he may as well be one and find freedom. (On that note, I'm glad to see an adaptation that acknowledges the imperialist overtones of Prospero's actions and Caliban being a man of color, since his mother was from Algiers, and her being blue-eyed is an Elizabethan reference to pregnancy, not her actual eye color.) However, the actual The Tempest section of the novel is brief and Caliban remains devoted and kind to Miranda. The halfway part of the story perhaps has one of the most explosive revelations (and additions) to the novel, but I wish the climax as Caliban plots against Prospero was more detailed.
Also, while I appreciate that the relationship was a bittersweet slow burn, it seemed like it just begun before the conclusion occurred. I think perhaps it is meant to be a mostly-chaste courtship, but I did wish for more payoff and risks. I do think the characters, especially Miranda, weren't quite pushed enough. While, yes, if you follow the trajectory of the play, the ending is inevitable, I did want her to fight her papa more. I can sympathize with her reticence till the last few pages because of the extensive emotional manipulation she endured under her father's control, and I understand her defiance is subtly done, but I hoped for more of a push against the characters' boundaries.
I do like how Carey brought the characters to life, and so Miranda is more complicated than the good maiden she is in the original play. Ariel, too, goes from a character I didn't pay much attention to to an especially vile, mischievous character who incites much of the midway conflict. Kudos to Carey, and I mean this, for making me go from being indifferent to a character to loathing them. That belies a strong reader reaction.
Overall, if you love beautiful, dreamy prose, I'd recommend Miranda and Caliban. However, if you can't stomach fictional depictions of abuse or ritualistic animal death, this may be a difficult read.
The art above, which is part of the book cover, can be found here.
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
Jacqueline Carey's Miranda and Caliban is a retelling of Shakespeare's final drama The Tempest. It assumes that Miranda and Caliban had romantic feelings for one another prior to and during the course of the play's narrative.
The Tempest, next to Titus Andronicus, is my favorite Shakespeare play. I enjoy the redemption and journey of forgiveness of a complex character, Prospero, though I can acknowledge he is a racist colonialist and Caliban's fate is an issue, since he essentially presumes the master-servant relationship. The racist and misogynistic parts of Prospero's character are further explored in this novel, as well as detailing his abusive nature and how he orchestrated Miranda and Prince Ferdinand's love without much consideration for her own thoughts on the matter. He has softer moments to keep him complex, but his actions are abhorrent, and he doesn't seem to quite grow past these transgressions even when given what he wants to reclaim.
The prose is beautiful and fits the surreal, magical environment beautifully. Carey, as usual, excels at lyrical descriptions. However, the book's greatest trick is how it treats Caliban's POV. I was not aware this was a dual POV book, but it is, and it goes with Miranda being the one to teach Caliban language, as it was in the play. Caliban's sentences start off as fragmented and binary, but as he learns language, his thoughts are conveyed with more winding imagery and contemplations. I found this narrative technique to be extremely clever and an important aspect of the Miranda and Caliban's relationship.
In the play, Miranda was indeed his kind teacher, and Caliban attempted to rape her and threatened to, essentially, use her as a broodmare, which very much ties into the "aggressive, hypersexual black man attacking white woman" trope that Shakespeare portrayed and, in Titus Andronicus and Othello, explored. Miranda and Caliban sidesteps the attempted rape and Caliban's threat by making everything gentle and consensual, though Caliban does consider murder because if he is treated as a monster no matter what because of his skin color, he may as well be one and find freedom. (On that note, I'm glad to see an adaptation that acknowledges the imperialist overtones of Prospero's actions and Caliban being a man of color, since his mother was from Algiers, and her being blue-eyed is an Elizabethan reference to pregnancy, not her actual eye color.) However, the actual The Tempest section of the novel is brief and Caliban remains devoted and kind to Miranda. The halfway part of the story perhaps has one of the most explosive revelations (and additions) to the novel, but I wish the climax as Caliban plots against Prospero was more detailed.
Also, while I appreciate that the relationship was a bittersweet slow burn, it seemed like it just begun before the conclusion occurred. I think perhaps it is meant to be a mostly-chaste courtship, but I did wish for more payoff and risks. I do think the characters, especially Miranda, weren't quite pushed enough. While, yes, if you follow the trajectory of the play, the ending is inevitable, I did want her to fight her papa more. I can sympathize with her reticence till the last few pages because of the extensive emotional manipulation she endured under her father's control, and I understand her defiance is subtly done, but I hoped for more of a push against the characters' boundaries.
I do like how Carey brought the characters to life, and so Miranda is more complicated than the good maiden she is in the original play. Ariel, too, goes from a character I didn't pay much attention to to an especially vile, mischievous character who incites much of the midway conflict. Kudos to Carey, and I mean this, for making me go from being indifferent to a character to loathing them. That belies a strong reader reaction.
Overall, if you love beautiful, dreamy prose, I'd recommend Miranda and Caliban. However, if you can't stomach fictional depictions of abuse or ritualistic animal death, this may be a difficult read.
The art above, which is part of the book cover, can be found here.
shogins's review
3.0
This took a long time for me to get into, but once I got into it I really enjoyed it.
wanderlustlover's review
4.0
Fall 2018:
I really, really, REALLY so very deeply love everything that Carey puts her hands on. This was a superb retelling, from the inside, about the story of The Temptest. Without changing the plot points, this is a story told in the changing viewpoints between Miranda and Caliban, and it's poignant as it is heartbreaking. The language is gorgeous, as is the differentiation of these two characters entirely, and how the story is woven through them. Bravi, bravi, bravissimi.
I really, really, REALLY so very deeply love everything that Carey puts her hands on. This was a superb retelling, from the inside, about the story of The Temptest. Without changing the plot points, this is a story told in the changing viewpoints between Miranda and Caliban, and it's poignant as it is heartbreaking. The language is gorgeous, as is the differentiation of these two characters entirely, and how the story is woven through them. Bravi, bravi, bravissimi.
nuevecuervos's review against another edition
2.0
I have a local favorite indie bookstore (Mysterious Galaxy FTW!) that hosts signings and regularly has signed copies of things and I adore it, for real. I can't afford to buy everything I read from them, but I support them as much as I can, so when I was in there picking up my signing ticket for Feist, I inadvertently started a conversation about The Tempest with an employee. I'd seen Miranda and Caliban on the new arrivals shelf and mused aloud about how the cover just made it seem like pandering to the forbidden love aspect of a black man and a virginal white girl. Having just finished reading Hag Seed, and being a fan of the Tempest, I made a bleech face, while doing so, and the employee said something along the lines of Oh! no, it's more about how they grow up together and leads up to the events of the Tempest and it's fantastic. So I bought it. Which is the only reason I finished it, because the last fourth of the book was just a grudgeread.
Reader, it was not. Rather, the language was lovely, and well chosen for a Shakespeare redux, but it was honestly just flowery, patriarchy-flavored, star-crossed tragedy porn. Both Miranda and Caliban are pawns in Prospero's revenge plans, Miranda the sweet, soft, obedient girl, kept obedient by her abusive father, so dumb as to not be able to be taught math and astronomy --the calculations are too complicated, don't you know-- but she has a gift for painting! of course! :\ fuck off with that. Maybe in a world where we can honestly say that we treat girls the same as boys, you will one day be able to write about a girl who is bad at math and we FEMALE MATHEMATICIANS will say, 'Oh, ok, fair." Today is not that goddamn day. So, that was a strike. She's literally just a tool to her father's plans, a situation she comes to term with late in the book, and it leaves her seething with resentment... but fruitless resentment at that, since the slightest hint of disobedience leads her to horrifying punishment.
Next, we've got Caliban, who is just as naive as Miranda, but for his appearance is considered savage, untrustworthy, less than human to all but Miranda, who loves him fiercely as her first and only friend. Only, Carey does him the same disservice as Prospero in that we catch him in his first ever wank over thoughts of Miranda, because he (being male I guess?), at their age is the only one to work out that his love for Miranda is more than filial; that he wants a piece of her sweet ass, only he's conditioned to see himself as a monster, and it makes his carnal want for her a source of horror and self-loathing, and leads to his avoidance of her in order to keep from offending or sullying her.
Miranda on the other hand, finally catches him one day and kisses on him and is suddenly like OH YES. I'MMA GET ME SOME OF THIS RIGHT NOW DESPITE HAVING NO GODDAMN CLUE WHAT THIS MEANS. Guys, what? I hate to break this to you, but little girls figure out early where the fun bits are on their own bodies. But it'd be weird to talk about it on her end? I guess. siiiigh
And Prospero, fuck that guy. He's definitely an elitist, rascist, sexist,controlling piece of shit on a power trip. He's the villain here, make no mistake; but this is a book in which the villain wins, so unless you're down with that, don't bother.
On an entirely different note, to be filed under "understandable story choices that make sense but are fuckin crazymaking", we've got Prospero and Miranda dropping God everywhere. Lord (lol), everything is God this and God that, and I get that it's a parallel on the colonizers bringing "civilization" to the "savages", but omg, it sets my teeth on edge.
IDK. I didn't want this in my life and I'm mad. Go read Hag Seed instead.
Reader, it was not. Rather, the language was lovely, and well chosen for a Shakespeare redux, but it was honestly just flowery, patriarchy-flavored, star-crossed tragedy porn. Both Miranda and Caliban are pawns in Prospero's revenge plans, Miranda the sweet, soft, obedient girl, kept obedient by her abusive father, so dumb as to not be able to be taught math and astronomy --the calculations are too complicated, don't you know-- but she has a gift for painting! of course! :\ fuck off with that. Maybe in a world where we can honestly say that we treat girls the same as boys, you will one day be able to write about a girl who is bad at math and we FEMALE MATHEMATICIANS will say, 'Oh, ok, fair." Today is not that goddamn day. So, that was a strike. She's literally just a tool to her father's plans, a situation she comes to term with late in the book, and it leaves her seething with resentment... but fruitless resentment at that, since the slightest hint of disobedience leads her to horrifying punishment.
Next, we've got Caliban, who is just as naive as Miranda, but for his appearance is considered savage, untrustworthy, less than human to all but Miranda, who loves him fiercely as her first and only friend. Only, Carey does him the same disservice as Prospero in that we catch him in his first ever wank over thoughts of Miranda, because he (being male I guess?), at their age is the only one to work out that his love for Miranda is more than filial; that he wants a piece of her sweet ass, only he's conditioned to see himself as a monster, and it makes his carnal want for her a source of horror and self-loathing, and leads to his avoidance of her in order to keep from offending or sullying her.
Miranda on the other hand, finally catches him one day and kisses on him and is suddenly like OH YES. I'MMA GET ME SOME OF THIS RIGHT NOW DESPITE HAVING NO GODDAMN CLUE WHAT THIS MEANS. Guys, what? I hate to break this to you, but little girls figure out early where the fun bits are on their own bodies. But it'd be weird to talk about it on her end? I guess. siiiigh
And Prospero, fuck that guy. He's definitely an elitist, rascist, sexist,controlling piece of shit on a power trip. He's the villain here, make no mistake; but this is a book in which the villain wins, so unless you're down with that, don't bother.
On an entirely different note, to be filed under "understandable story choices that make sense but are fuckin crazymaking", we've got Prospero and Miranda dropping God everywhere. Lord (lol), everything is God this and God that, and I get that it's a parallel on the colonizers bringing "civilization" to the "savages", but omg, it sets my teeth on edge.
IDK. I didn't want this in my life and I'm mad. Go read Hag Seed instead.
howlsmovinglibrary's review against another edition
3.0
Miranda is a lonely child. For as long as she can remember, she and her father have lived in isolation in the abandoned Moorish palace. The wild boy Caliban is a lonely child, too; an orphan left to fend for himself at an early age, all language lost to him. When Caliban is summoned and bound into captivity by Miranda’s father as part of a grand experiment, he rages against his confinement; and yet he hungers for kindness and love.
I received a free ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Miranda and Caliban is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Tempest, which is a) a really good play, and b) a colonialist fantasy told from the perspective of a powerful white man. The play’s protagonist is Prospero, a magician who can control all of nature and bend it to his will, which he uses to ‘civilise’ the Moorish (read African) island on which he is shipwrecked, and its inhabitants, in order to enact his revenge on his evil usurping brother. He has a daughter, Miranda, and a slave called Caliban, who is the son of a demon worshipping witch. Prospero explains in one scene that he tried to ‘civilise’ Caliban, but was unable to due to Caliban’s inherently evil blood, which led Caliban to attempt the rape of Miranda, the crime which is now used to justify his slavery.
Miranda and Caliban¸ as the name obviously suggests, takes this play and rewrites it without the colonialist ideology of Prospero – Miranda is now the narrator, and we see the world through her eyes, rather than her father’s. Some chapters are also written from Caliban’s point of view, and that means we get to see Prospero specifically as a slave master and coloniser. I really enjoyed this choice of focalisation, as it takes a critical stance on Prospero: he is made into the antagonist of the narrative, stubborn, racist and set in his ideals of Western civilisation, which he uses to dictate both Miranda and Caliban’s behaviour against there will. When Miranda, rather than her father, is allowed to tell her story, what happens is a romance: one that Prospero cannot understand because he has placed his daughter, the only figure of feminine gentility on the island, on a pedestal, and it is unthinkable that she would have feelings for a ‘monster’ like Caliban. It attempts to take a postcolonial stance on the play, criticising 16th Century ideas of femininity and of race.
Things I liked about it:
· The writing style is really beautiful. The dialogue is written in a semi-Shakespearean tone but still makes sense, which lent it authenticity.
· The book draws on a lot of postcolonial/feminist theory surrounding the play, which as a lit graduate made me very happy. But specifically, ideas of womanhood – like Miranda having to be a gentle and feminine noblewoman despite living on a freaking island with no one but her father to judge her – are interrogated, and giving Caliban a voice means that he’s no longer just the evil black demon worshipping slave. Making Prospero the antagonist was awesome, as it is portrayed all the damaging influences of patriarchy and embodied them in one character.
· Miranda has a lot of agency. She’s a magician in her own right, and strong willed. This is nice, because in the play she’s a little bit of a wet blanket, and not one of Shakespeare’s best written heroines. Similarly, some of the twists in the Carey’s plot explain away the problems with her character, specifically, the instalove between Ferdinand and Miranda.
Things I didn’t like about it:
Generally, I just I don’t think it goes far enough as postcolonial retelling. The first half of the book is amazing and merciless in picking apart Prospero’s version of events, but then things start to go downhill….
· A lot of this book deconstructs the racist image of Caliban as an animalistic, uncivilised slave. However, some stereotypes endure: for instance, he is more overtly and crudely sexual than Miranda. Oversexualisation is obviously a huge issue and I feel like Carey should’ve avoided it, particularly if you look at Othello, where Othello’s overt sexuality and sexual desire are portrayed as part of his inherent violence as a black man. And then the murder plot of The Tempest is kept in the book, which is basically just perpetuating this stereotype of violence.
· Further in this vein, the second half of the book is pretty much just a straight forward rehash of The Tempest, but from Miranda’s POV. The first half of the book is really interesting, as it offers something additional to the Tempest plot, looking at Miranda and Caliban’s childhood and the friendship they develop – stuff that Prospero only talks about, but we never see, in the play. But after that it just reverts to the Shakespeare story: it just felt a bit dull and boring to simply go through the play scene by scene. If I wanted that, I could reread the play.
· The ending. This book just kind of…finished. It’s not just that not much from the original plot was changed, or scrutinised in any way. It isn’t even the position the characters are in at the end, which is definitely not happy. It’s just that….nothing new happened. The book pretty much finishes where the play finishes, in a way that places Caliban at a serious disadvantage. It kind of undid all the work the first half of the book: Miranda is given more agency, but Caliban is left a powerless slave, and I just don’t get why no one saw how super problematic that is.
I received a free ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Miranda and Caliban is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Tempest, which is a) a really good play, and b) a colonialist fantasy told from the perspective of a powerful white man. The play’s protagonist is Prospero, a magician who can control all of nature and bend it to his will, which he uses to ‘civilise’ the Moorish (read African) island on which he is shipwrecked, and its inhabitants, in order to enact his revenge on his evil usurping brother. He has a daughter, Miranda, and a slave called Caliban, who is the son of a demon worshipping witch. Prospero explains in one scene that he tried to ‘civilise’ Caliban, but was unable to due to Caliban’s inherently evil blood, which led Caliban to attempt the rape of Miranda, the crime which is now used to justify his slavery.
Miranda and Caliban¸ as the name obviously suggests, takes this play and rewrites it without the colonialist ideology of Prospero – Miranda is now the narrator, and we see the world through her eyes, rather than her father’s. Some chapters are also written from Caliban’s point of view, and that means we get to see Prospero specifically as a slave master and coloniser. I really enjoyed this choice of focalisation, as it takes a critical stance on Prospero: he is made into the antagonist of the narrative, stubborn, racist and set in his ideals of Western civilisation, which he uses to dictate both Miranda and Caliban’s behaviour against there will. When Miranda, rather than her father, is allowed to tell her story, what happens is a romance: one that Prospero cannot understand because he has placed his daughter, the only figure of feminine gentility on the island, on a pedestal, and it is unthinkable that she would have feelings for a ‘monster’ like Caliban. It attempts to take a postcolonial stance on the play, criticising 16th Century ideas of femininity and of race.
Things I liked about it:
· The writing style is really beautiful. The dialogue is written in a semi-Shakespearean tone but still makes sense, which lent it authenticity.
· The book draws on a lot of postcolonial/feminist theory surrounding the play, which as a lit graduate made me very happy. But specifically, ideas of womanhood – like Miranda having to be a gentle and feminine noblewoman despite living on a freaking island with no one but her father to judge her – are interrogated, and giving Caliban a voice means that he’s no longer just the evil black demon worshipping slave. Making Prospero the antagonist was awesome, as it is portrayed all the damaging influences of patriarchy and embodied them in one character.
· Miranda has a lot of agency. She’s a magician in her own right, and strong willed. This is nice, because in the play she’s a little bit of a wet blanket, and not one of Shakespeare’s best written heroines. Similarly, some of the twists in the Carey’s plot explain away the problems with her character, specifically, the instalove between Ferdinand and Miranda.
Things I didn’t like about it:
Generally, I just I don’t think it goes far enough as postcolonial retelling. The first half of the book is amazing and merciless in picking apart Prospero’s version of events, but then things start to go downhill….
· A lot of this book deconstructs the racist image of Caliban as an animalistic, uncivilised slave. However, some stereotypes endure: for instance, he is more overtly and crudely sexual than Miranda. Oversexualisation is obviously a huge issue and I feel like Carey should’ve avoided it, particularly if you look at Othello, where Othello’s overt sexuality and sexual desire are portrayed as part of his inherent violence as a black man. And then the murder plot of The Tempest is kept in the book, which is basically just perpetuating this stereotype of violence.
· Further in this vein, the second half of the book is pretty much just a straight forward rehash of The Tempest, but from Miranda’s POV. The first half of the book is really interesting, as it offers something additional to the Tempest plot, looking at Miranda and Caliban’s childhood and the friendship they develop – stuff that Prospero only talks about, but we never see, in the play. But after that it just reverts to the Shakespeare story: it just felt a bit dull and boring to simply go through the play scene by scene. If I wanted that, I could reread the play.
· The ending. This book just kind of…finished. It’s not just that not much from the original plot was changed, or scrutinised in any way. It isn’t even the position the characters are in at the end, which is definitely not happy. It’s just that….nothing new happened. The book pretty much finishes where the play finishes, in a way that places Caliban at a serious disadvantage. It kind of undid all the work the first half of the book: Miranda is given more agency, but Caliban is left a powerless slave, and I just don’t get why no one saw how super problematic that is.
ljcostel's review against another edition
3.0
Beautifully written. The story poured off the page and I could hardly stop reading. But if you've read The Tempest, you can guess how it won't end...