Book review: That Way Madness Lies edited by Dahlia AdlerAs a Shakespeare nerd and fan of trans
Book review: That Way Madness Lies edited by Dahlia AdlerAs a Shakespeare nerd and fan of transformative works, I really wanted to like this anthology. That Way Madness Lies had potential and the motivation behind the anthology was a good one. In her introduction, Adler emphasises the intent to deconstruct the harmful and outdated bigotry in Shakespeare’s works and give greater agency to marginalised characters. In that aspect, this anthology was successful. However, the problem with writing a series of short stories based on the writings of one of the greatest wordsmiths to ever live is that very few of the stories are going to measure up.A huge part of what made Shakespeare so successful was his way with rhythm and pacing… which work very differently in the medium of the short story than they do on-stage. Condensing Shakespeare’s works - some of the best-loved stories of all time - into a series of ten-minute reads also ultimately means that each story in this anthology feels like a diluted, over-simplified version of the story it was inspired by. The nuanced characters, relationships and themes of Shakespeare’s works aren’t easily translated. Many of the featured authors chose to get around this by focusing on one aspect of a character, or one theme… which only made their stories feel like pale imitations of the originals. Several of the stories in this anthology just left me feeling empty, like the author didn’t really get what made the original stories so special.The stories in this anthology that were successful were the ones that didn’t attempt to retell an entire Shakespeare play in a few pages, but used Shakespeare’s works as a jumping-off point for something new. One notable story worth mentioning is Anna-Marie McLemore’s gorgeous sequel to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, told from the perspective of the now-grown-up changeling child Oberon and Titania fought over in the play. I honestly wasn’t expecting to like McLemore’s story so much, because A Midsummer Night’s Dream has always been my least favourite Shakespeare play, but their spin on the fairy court was an unexpected delight.Overall, this collection was a bit of a disappointment, though a few of the stories were worth reading.Many thanks to Flatiron Books for providing a copy of That Way Madness Lies. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.Publisher: Flatiron BooksRating: 2 stars | ★★✰✰✰Review cross-posted to GoodreadsBuy on Amazon: US | UK -- source link
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#ya lit#genre anthology#genre retelling#book review#2 stars