The Red Queen
£2.49
The Red Queen - It is some years since I last read a Margaret Drabble novel, so I am pleased to discover she is still writing novels of a high literary standard.It is important to read the prologue to enable one to understand the author s inspiration for this novel.A story written in two parts, based on historial memoirs narrated first by a Korean Princess in Ancient Times, then in Modern Times through British Academic Dr Babs Halliwell.A very cleverly constructed narrative as the dead Princess tries to ensure her story is not forgotten through Babs Halliwell s eventual affinity with the Princess.An intriguing read.
The Red Queen - This was a terrible read. Although the subject of the book, the memoirs of a Korean crown princess who lived around 200 years ago, is truly fascinating, Drabble s writing feels precious, obnoxious and desperate to appear intellectual. In particular her fictitious character of Dr Babs Halliwell in the second part of the book leaves you cold and, if anything, irritated with her. Drabble seeks to draw parallels between the crown princess and Babs Halliwell, but beyond some very superficial and obvious parallels, it s hard to imagine how the two lives are at all comparable. Quite apart from that, there seems no real point to the comparison - it simply leads nowhere. The premise of the book feels obvious, unsubtle and the writing clumsy. For me, the book was a slog to get through, but it did leave me wanting to find out more about the Korean crown princess since her story is incredible and engaging.
Fear and violence, boredom and elegant inertia. - Intending to write a transcultural tragicomedy, Margaret Drabble announces that this novel will ask questions about the nature of survival, and about the possibility of the existence of universal transcultural human characteristics. Using the real memoirs of 18th century Korean Crown Princess Hyegyong as the inspiration for her novel, Drabble creates her own version of these memoirs, placing them within the context of world history by relating them to what was happening in western civilization at the same time. Chosen to be the bride of the Crown Prince when both are ten years old, the Princess abandons her family and marries the prince that year. We hear her adult voice relating the sad changes her husband undergoes after their marriage, as he becomes increasingly fearful and eventually insane, committing atrocities, including murder. I failed my husband, she says, unable to stop his rampages. Describing her training to be queen, the birth of her children and their fates, and her experience in the claustrophobic court, she breathes life into her descriptions of her unusual existence. Though her observations are honest and fair, her language, not surprisingly, is elegant and formal. She keeps her distance, not really sharing her innermost thoughts and feelings. In Part II, Babs Halliwell, a contemporary scholar in Oxford, leaves for Korea to deliver a paper at a conference on globalization. Drabble creates obvious parallels between the life of the Princess and that of Halliwell from the outset of Part II. As Halliwell boards the plane, she brings with her a copy of the Princess s memoirs, sent to her anonymously, packaged in cardboard, through Amazon.com, which she reads in flight. No reader will miss the parallels between the life of Halliwell and that of the Princess, who has entered her, like an alien creature in a science-fiction movie. Halliwell s background, her tragedies, her own difficult marriage to a mentally ill husband, and her uncertainties about the future are clearly created to show parallels to the Princess s life. Drabble draws additional parallels between recent news events from around the world and events in the life of the Princess, in an effort to continue the connections across cultures and time. Those who have studied other cultures may find Drabble s themes obvious and her deliberate parallels lacking in subtlety. She explains these parallels, rather than allowing the reader to discover them. The construction feels artificial, and Drabble s tone is sometimes arch. The diary of the Princess, however, is especially interesting for the light it casts on a way of life almost unknown to contemporary westerners, and for this the novel is both important and fascinating. (3.5 stars) Mary Whipple