Play Book Tag discussion

4.5 stars (review cross posted in baseball game)
The Gap of Time is the first novel in Hogarth's new series of modern day retellings of Shakespeare plays. A wide range of contemporary authors were asked to choose any Shakespeare play of their choosing and adapt it into a novel. Aside from Winterson, a few other authors who have signed up include Gillian Flynn, Jo Nesbo, Edward St. Aubyn, Margaret Atwood, Howard Jacobson, Anne Tyler, and Tracy Chevalier.

Winterson chose to adapt A Winter's tale and thus her novel, A Gap of Time was born. Winterson's choice was no surprise to me. I love Winterson as an author because of her quirkiness and A Winter's Tale is one of the more unusual of Shakespeare's plays -- one that blends tragedy and humor. A Winter's Tale is a play about jealousies, love, and ultimately about forgiveness.

Winterson's version of A Winter's Tale is remarkably faithful to the original and the ways in which she modernizes the themes are quite clever. King Leontes is reworked as "Leo," a paranoid hedge fund manager. King Polixenes becomes "Xeno," a video game designer.

Readers don't have to be too familiar with A Winter's Tale to enjoy the book since Winterson includes a plot summary at the beginning of her book. You will get more out of it if you have read the play because there are many references within the novel to the play.

The novel started out as a 3-star read but I also struggled with the beginning of the Shakespeare play. There is a lot of ugliness at the beginning but then jealousy and paranoia are not pleasant emotional experiences. The more I read, the more I enjoyed it. Winterson has a talent for capturing emotional experiences and this book was not exception. The writing was pretty flawless as per usual and there's just the perfect mix of humor and gentle emotion. And as an added benefit, she ends the book with a personal note about why this particular play was important to her. This last note bumped up my rating from a 4 star to a 4.5 star read.

If you are a fan of William Shakespeare and have enjoyed Winterson's other works, you will also like this book. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the Hogarth series.

Quotes:
The talked about life as flow. About nothingness. About illusion. About love as a theory marred by practice. About love as practice marred by theory. They talked about the impossibility of sex. Was sex different for men? With men? What did it it feel like to fall in love? To fall out of love?

People were killing each other in the name of God. What kind of a God wanted his followers to act like they were gun-slung avatars jihading it through “World of Warcraft”?

I've added this to my list. Thanks!