Mediamoguli

Hogarth Shakespeare

by Edward St. Aubyn, Markku Päkkilä (Translator)

Kun valta sokaisee.

Ajankohtainen tulkinta Shakespearen Kuningas Learista. Tragedia kansainvälisen mediakonsernin johtajasta, jonka valta on sokaissut ja lähipiiri pettänyt.

Mediakeisari Henry Dunbar on teljettynä Meadowmeadeen, yläluokkaiseen parantolaan Englannin maaseudulla, ainoana seuranaan dementoitunut komedianäyttelijä. Dunbar karkaa ylängölle ja pian hänen kannoillaan on koko perhe. Mutta tavoittaako Dunbarin ensimmäisenä hänen rakastettu ja rakastava kuopuksensa Florence vai tämän sisaret Abigail ja Megan, joiden ainoana päämääränä on vapauttaa Dunbar omaisuudestaan.

"Uudelleen kirjoittamisesta tulee uudelleen elämistä, ohikiitävä häivähdys Shakespearen saavuttamatonta henkeä. Kaikki muu, trillereiden tapaan, on juonta ja lavasteita." New York Times

Genres: Fiction, Shakespeare, Literary Fiction, Retellings, Contemporary, Novels, Literature

239 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 2017

About the author

Edward St Aubyn was born in London in 1960. He was educated at Westminster school and Keble college, Oxford University. He is the author of six novels, the most recent of which, ‘Mother’s Milk’, was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, won the 2007 Prix Femina Etranger and won the 2007 South Bank Show award on literature.

His first novel, ‘Never Mind’ (1992) won the Betty Trask award. This novel, along with ‘Bad News’ (1992) and ‘Some Hope’ (1994) became a trilogy, now collectively published under the title ‘Some Hope’.

His other fiction consists of ‘On the Edge’ (1998) which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and A Clue to the Exit (2000).

Reviews

[Sarah Jessica Parker]

From the Hogarth Shakespeare series. A wonderful read by Edward St. Aubyn!

[Paromjit · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read King Lear when I studied it at school, it is my favourite Shakespeare play despite its deep darkness. It is an epic tale and tragedy, a traumatic, troubling, and gruesome story of a man more sinned against than sinning. Edward St. Aubyn has a monumental task in writing a contemporary reinterpretation that can match how I feel about the original and its emotional place in my heart. The truth is he cannot do that, but he has captured distinct elements from the original and weaved a different beast, beautifully written, imbued with the darkest of humour, and which cannot fail to enthrall. It has a Canadian Media Mogul in his eighties, Henry Dunbar, a flawed man, used to being in a position of command, whose rage and temper has him disinheriting his beloved youngest daughter Florence in favour of his ambitious and greedy older daughters, Abigail and Megan, with their instinct to flatter and ability to be disingenuous. Aided by Dr Bob, Dunbar's physician, Abigail and Megan betray their father, divesting him of all power and have conspired to have him hidden and medicated in a psychiatric/care facility, Meadowmeade, in the Lake District.

St. Aubyn's most masterful creation in this novel is the raging alcoholic and depressed comedian, Peter Walker, the fool to Dunbar, a man from whom insights tumble out, and who never once plays his own authentic self in his efforts to escape from himself. He is busy being a myriad of other characters, such as John Wayne and a Nazi. Peter hatches an escape plan which they manage to put into action. Dunbar has a fragile sense of self, he wants his old life and position back. He ends up alone, he feels an aching need to be solitary, to meet himself for the first time as he is. He is metaphorically naked, frozen amidst an icy snowstorm. He becomes conscious of his misdeeds and sin, his part in shaping his eldest daughters and his shame in his corporate actions. He is undone by his catastrophic errors in the sacking of his close friend and advisor Wilson and his unbearable betrayal of Florence, the two people who really cared about him. In the meantime, Abigail and Megan call on their vast resources to locate Dunbar to ensure he is no threat to their future plans. Florence is determined to find her father first.

This is a terrific reinterpretation which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. It is dark, intelligent, comic and funny, particularly when it dwells on the twisted sexual proclivities of Megan and Abigail, and Dr Bob, their sexual plaything. It captures the heinous actions that often go into the building of the modern corporations, just how Dunbar came to be who he is, his dawning horror that he is the architect of his own desperate misfortune. I think there will be those who will not like this reinterpretation, but I don't compare it with the original, I see it as a work of art in its own right, and the author has done a great job using King Lear as the source of inspiration. Brilliant and highly recommended! Many thanks to Random House Vintage.

[Glenn Russell]

The aim of the Hogarth Shakespeare project has always been clear: commission an accomplished, well-known contemporary novelist to reimagine and recast a play by William Shakespeare for a modern audience.

What piqued my own interest in Hogarth Shakespeare was Gillian Flynn on the docket for a retelling of Hamlet. However, it appears Ms. Flynn will not be writing such a novel. This is most unfortunate as I'm confident her rendition of Hamlet would have attracted thousands of eager readers. But, for me, the good news is one of my favorite novelists did write a novel for Hogarth – Jo Nesbø's Macbeth, a terrific retelling I enjoyed reading (I also listened to the audio book narrated by Euan Morton with a Scottish accent).

I also very much enjoyed Bad News, a Patrick Melrose novel by Edward St. Aubyn. Thus I was prompted to give Dunbar a go. I'm glad I did. The British author reimagines King Lear as corporate thriller, a gripping tale that hooked me from the first pages.

Much of the fun in reading a Hogarth novel is seeing how the author handles the characters and basic plot of the Bard's play. St. Aubyn follows the story faithfully where Lear becomes Dunbar, a Rupert Murdoch-like international media mogul, Megan and Abigail are the two older daughters, Florence is the younger; Edmund transforms into scummy Dr Bob; Kent becomes Wilson the lawyer, and the fool is brilliantly recast as acclaimed TV comedian/alcoholic Peter Walker. I entirely agree with Stephanie Merritt who wrote in her Guardian review that St. Aubyn “transplanted the heart of the story into the present and made it feel remarkably authentic.”

In the first chapter Dunbar, age eighty, is currently shut away in a sanatorium in Northwest England, having been placed there by Megan and Abigail with the aid of nefarious Dr. Bob plying him with drugs to render Dunbar a sometimes raving psychotic, sometimes babbling, sedated dolt. But this time Dunbar has ditched his meds and, with Peter's help, plans their escape. The opening lines:

“We're off our med,” whispered Dunbar.
“We're off our meds/ we're off our heads,” sang Peter, “we're out of our bed/and we're off our meds! Yesterday, he continued in a conspiratorial whisper, “we were drooling into the lapels of our terry cloth dressing gowns, but now we're off our meds! We've spat them out: we've tranquilized the aspidistras! If those fresh lilies you got sent each day...”
“When I think where they come from,” growled Dunbar.
“Steady old man.”
“They stole my empire and now they send me stinking lilies.”

All of the scenes with Peter Walker are laced with such sparkling humor as Peter slides from things like impersonating John Wayne to aping a radio announcer: “Tantrums will be at a maximum tomorrow afternoon as Hurricane Henry moves through the Lake District. Viewers are advised to crawl into a basement and chain themselves to a rock.” Edward St. Aubyn told an interviewer, “I felt I would break with Shakespeare in having a fool who was actually funny whereas the fool in Lear is a torment."

The second chapter switches to the daughters. Sweet, compassionate Florence phones to ask the whereabouts of their father. Forever devious and power-hungry, Abigail says he's in a comfortable sanatorium somewhere in Switzerland but she just can't remember the name at the moment. Following the call, we read:

“God, that girl gets on my nerves,” she said, allowing her dressing gown to slip to the floor as she clambered back into bed. “I sometimes think I could kill her with my bare hands.”
“I wouldn't do that,” says Megan, who was lying on the other side of Dr. Bob, looking dangerously bored. “Get a professional.”

This exchange sets the tone for the entire novel. Both Megan and Abigail are ruthless, vicious sadists who will resort to any means to secure ownership of the Dunbar Trust worth billions. How sadistic? Megan bites Dr. Bob's nipple so ferociously, Dr. Bob has to retreat to the bathroom to sew it back on. Serves you right, you bastard, for being the sadomasochistic lover of these two deranged sisters.

Ah, a corporate thriller. What makes for a riveting page-turner is pacing and drive. St. Aubyn has it all going here: there's the all important board meeting at the end of the week and we're given the unfolding dramas of Dunbar on the run and the sisters & company in alternating chapters. And with each popping back and forth the suspense mounts and mounts again. Wow! I literally couldn't put the book down.

And such exquisitely well-written prose. I'll let Edward St. Aubyn have the last words. This when Dunbar, half frozen, is isolated out in the Lake District:

“Why go on? Why drag his suffering body into the next valley? Why endure the anguish of being alive? Because endurance was what he did, thought Dunbar. He hauled himself up and straightened his body one more time and brought both his fists against his chest, inviting that child-devouring sky-god to do his worst, to rain down information from his satellites, to stream his audiovisual hell of white noise and burning bodies straight into Dunbar's fragile brain, to try to split its hemispheres, if he could, to try to strangle him with a word-noose, if he dared.”

Dunbar. Don't miss it.


British author Edward St. Aubyn, born 1960

[Jeffrey Keeten · Rating 4 out of 5]

”In the beginning was the Thought, and the Thought was with Dunbar, and Dunbar thought car and behold there was a car, and he saw that it was good.”

Henry Dunbar has escaped.

Not an easy thing to escape from a mentally ill facility, otherwise known as the nuthouse, the funny farm, the rubber room, and the booby hatch. It isn’t exactly what Henry had in mind for his retirement. He is tired, no doubt about that, but he isn’t crazy.

Well, not too crazy, just a spell of being mad, furious really, which leads to the worst mistake of his life. He disinherits his favorite daughter, Florence, who has the least interest in his grand fortune, and gives over control of his company, his life really, to his two power hungry daughters, Abigail and Megan.

They are rather feral.

If this story seems familiar, it is because William Shakespeare wrote a play called King Lear, and Edward St. Aubyn was tasked by Hogarth to write a modern version of the brilliant play. I can’t hear the name Hogarth without thinking about the original founders of the press, Leonard and Virginia Woolf. I’ve enjoyed the Hogarth Shakespeare’s and believe the the Woolfs’ would have approved as well.

Dr. Bob is sleeping with both sisters, sometimes at the same time, and it is good that he has medical training because the romps are proving to be rather a flesh tearing affair. It isn’t fun until someone is bleeding, right? For Megan, rough sex is a way to finally feel something. It is a way to open up the emotions in her windswept soul. ”In her view pain was the gold standard in which the paper currency of love needed to be pegged. Pain could be measured, whereas love often couldn’t even be located. Why not gradually exchange something that was not much better than a rumor for something real. Why not turn a fleeting emotion, always on the verge of reversing itself, into a repeatable sensation?

The daughters are not above torturing people to get what they want. The thing is, when you associate pain with pleasure, then are they really punishing people when they give them pain? If pain=pleasures, then aren’t they simply giving people joy?

Dr. Bob, the seemingly most loyal ally of the Dunbar girls, is working a lucrative back door deal with a rival company, Unicom. He hasn’t enjoyed his bruising time as the Dunbar punching bag, and now, with the company vulnerable from a change in oversight, he sees a chance to destroy and conquer. A bold move that, as the sea changes occur, he starts to wonder if he went up the wrong gangway to an unsound boat.

Speaking of one of those sea changes, where is Duncan?

He is in the wind. ”He let his hands fall to his side, completely absorbed in watching a raindrop change color as it swelled on the tip of the leaf and flashed into the ground. He longed for its fleeting iridescent; he longed to be absorbed into the earth, or, if the earth wouldn't have him, to evaporate into the sky, to become a part of everything, with no part in anything: no role, no point, no location, no pattern, and no mind.”

If not for Florence, his jilted child, the octogenarian would probably just escape to a place in the back wilds of England and never been seen again, but he feels there is unfinished business. The question is, can he marshall the combative part of his mind that made him so ruthless in business to challenge his spawn, or will the loose threads of his thoughts continue to unravel?

I would suggest, before you read any of these Hogarth retellings of Shakespeare, that you read the play first, or if you are like me, reread the play. My enjoyment of the retellings goes up exponentially. Now, unfortunately, when I have suggested this to people, no one that I know of has actually taken my advice. Shakespeare has made the greatest contribution to English literature. He has added many words to our everyday language. You shouldn’t be afraid to read him. Yes, it does take a bit of a mental adjustment to get into the flow of his style, but you have to think of yourself as a time traveller going back to the late 16th century or the early 17th century. Adjustments will need to be made to blend, right? Read the notes as you go. They do help you make those adjustments, and after a few scenes, you start to realize that you don’t need the notes as much because what was so unfamiliar has started to make sense. You suddenly find yourself bouncing off people in the mosh pit below stage and starting to have a grand old time.

I read a lot of Shakespeare while I was in college, and now that I’m going back through his plays again with wiser eyes, I am enjoying them more because I’m building on what I learned then. We don’t read things once and are done with them, not great things like Shakespeare’s plays or Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or Baudelaire's poetry. They are to be read several times, and with each reading, new and marvelous things are discovered. Even more likely with the passage of time, a scene resonates more with you than it did when you were younger.

Anthony Bourdain was a huge fan of Edward St. Aubyn’s Melrose novels, which I must confess I haven’t read yet. I’d already planned to read the pairing of King Lear and Dunbar, so I put off the Melrose novels to read Dunbar. This book starts off absolutely terrific. I am thrilled that St. Aubyn exchanged Lear’s kingdom for a powerful corporate company of today. The kingdoms of the future, I’m afraid. The book seems to flutter away from him a bit by the end. I was all geared up for a grand finale, and it was more of a balloon popping in lieu of a fireworks display. Despite my disappointment in the conclusion, by being encouraged to reread the play and reimagining Lear in the corporate kingdom of Duncan, I am still satisfied that I have been entertained. All that is required of me is that I create the conclusion that I want where St. Aubyn left off.

We must never rely completely on the writer’s imagination. It is wonderful to feel our own imagination stirred by a writer or a filmmaker, or a poet, or an artist, but we must never be complacent in our entertainment. ”Here we are now, entertain us.” We must let our thoughts go beyond the bounds of what has inspired us. We must let go of the hand of the writer. In fact, buy him a pint in a pub, let him entertain the natives with his sordid tales, and travel on beyond him.

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[Roger Brunyate · Rating 3 out of 5]

What's the Point?

By what criteria are we to judge the novels in the Hogarth Shakespeare Series? This is the sixth to be published, and the question only gets more puzzling with each one. Famous authors are asked to write fiction based on a Shakespeare play. It would not be fair to call them straight retellings, as almost all the writers have felt free to go off in their own directions. Think of them rather as riffs on a theme. But for what purpose: to parallel the Shakespeare original, or to be strong novels in their own right? On those criteria, I would say that all of them fail; there is not a single one that comes close, even as a translation of Shakespeare, and all would surely be considered relatively minor works in their authors' oeuvre.*

So the best one can hope, I think, is for some kind of compromise: that the modern writer illuminates the Shakespeare in some way, or that the Shakespeare parallel brings out the special qualities of the chosen author. Only one of the six, I believe, says anything valuable about Shakespeare, and that is Margaret Atwood's Hag-Seed, her riff on The Tempest. This works, I think, because Atwood centers her novel around a production of the play itself, and the metafiction rhymes surprisingly well with Shakespeare's farewell fantasy. My enjoyment of many of the others has mostly had to do with what the subject reveals about the author. While Howard Jacobson makes a mess of retelling The Merchant of Venice in Shylock is My Name, his focus on the Shylock character to explore Judaism in a Gentile world is as strong as anything else in his work. Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl is an ingenious light-hearted take on a comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, but it is nice to see the author letting her hair down. Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time takes on a problem play, The Winter's Tale; narratively, it too is a mess, but the author reveals personal connections with the subject that nonetheless give it authenticity of feeling. Only Tracy Chevalier's New Boy is a total failure, saying nothing significant about its model, Othello, and having little redeeming value of its own; it only confirms my growing suspicion that Chevalier is not the author that Girl With a Pearl Earring might have led us to expect.

But the two comedies and even the two late plays are the easier ones. With Othello, Tracy Chevalier was faced with one of the four great central tragedies. Two of the others are scheduled as the next ones up: Jo Nesbø on Macbeth in 2018 and Gillian Flynn on Hamlet in 2021. It is interesting that both these are mystery authors (and very good ones) rather than writers of literary fiction; it may be that the gross mismatch between genres actually produces something rather exciting. Meanwhile, here is Edward St. Aubyn, who surely would consider himself a literary novelist, faced with what I would consider the greatest Shakespeare tragedy of the lot, King Lear.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

All right, by quoting one of Shakespeare's greatest speeches, I am setting the bar impossibly high. St. Aubyn's Dunbar, the Canadian media mogul, has just declared himself "non-executive chairman" of the mighty Dunbar Trust and handed over control to his daughters. Who have promptly put him into a psychiatric facility in the English Lake District. And it is there that we first meet him, telling his story to an alcoholic fellow-inmate, a professional comedian called Peter Walker. Peter is a splendid creation, absolutely in the mould of Lear's Fool; hearing his stream of one-liners in many voices made me hope that St. Aubyn might have found a close kinship with the original. Peter helps Dunbar to escape, but soon leaves him, leaving the old man to trudge alone over a mountain pass in a winter storm:

He hauled himself up and straightened his body one more time and brought back both his fists against his chest, inviting that child-devouring sky-god to do his worst, to rain down information from his satellites, to stream his audiovisual hell of white noise and burning bodies into Dunbar's fragile brain, to try to split its hemispheres, if he could, to try to strangle him with a word-noose, if he dared.

'Come on,' whispered Dunbar hoarsely. 'Come on, you bastard.'

If you know the original, you may find some amusement in the echoes. But you will also recognize the fatal flaw, that the quality that surely gives King Lear its supreme status—its moral scale—is entirely absent. There is a quality of excess everywhere in Lear: the King's capriciousness, the madness that consumes him, the wildness of the setting, the violence and cruelty, and the Gothic malevolence of his two daughters, Goneril and Regan. Though St. Aubyn may fall short of the more existential qualities, he goes to town on the evil sisters; dysfunctional families, after all, are what he does. His Melrose novels may contain more than their share of familial horror, but here he uses Shakespeare as permission to go over the top. But without a balancing scale in all aspects of the drama, the wanton violence and sexual perversity becomes merely nauseating.

All right, forget Shakespeare's original, does Dunbar work as a novel in its own right? Not for me. For one thing, St. Aubyn's delight in satiric cleverness (and he is clever) gives the book a comic tone that ill-suits its subject, unless he were to have gone all the way and given it a similarly satiric ending. For another, it is simply confusing; there are too many characters, with all too forgettable names: Abby, Megan, Mark, Chris, Peter, Jim, Simon, Wilson, Kevin, and the despicable Dr. Bob. And most of all, because the novel is set in the world of high finance, with hostile takeovers, voting blocks, side deals, and insider trading. Perhaps someone more familiar with it—even St. Aubyn's core fans—might fare better, but for me it made one side of the plot virtually incomprehensible. Even the faithful youngest daughter, Florence, has been raised in this world, and must use its mechanisms to achieve justice for her father. While I saw St. Aubyn at least trying for some of the radiant simplicity that makes Shakespeare's Cordelia so heartbreaking at the end, his Florence never really won my sympathy, except in comparison to her terrible half-sisters.

So a novel that has nothing to say about its original and does not hold together in its own right: two stars, or two and a half? Only St. Aubyn's ingenuity and fount of wicked wit persuades me to raise it to three.

======

*A fellow reader has pointed out in a comment that Ian McEwan's Nutshell may be the best of the lot. Although not part of the Hogarth series, it so fits its concept and scope that it is hard to believe there is no connection. And with the daring to go way outside the box, by having it narrated by Hamlet as a fetus in utero, McEwan both gives himself permission a comic masterpiece at least the equal of his previous comedy Solar, and casts some quite interesting light on Shakespeare's original by shining it at such an unusual angle.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the Hogarth Press series of Shakespeare modern adaptations and, in this novel, we have Edward St Aubyn (best known for the Patrick Melrose novels) re-imagining “King Lear.” Now, I must admit that St Aubyn is one of my favourite authors and so I am probably more inclined to enjoy this than those readers who are looking at it from the point of view of the original and how it has been portrayed. St Aubyn has to be in my top ten favourite authors and I never open a new novel by him without feeling a shiver of anticipation.

Here, we have Lear as Henry Dunbar, a Canadian media mogul, who has been sent for a ‘lovely long rest,’ at Meadowmeade, a care home in the wilds of the English countryside, where he is befriended by the alcoholic comedian, Peter Walker. Walker brings humour to this tragedy, as he encourages the befuddled Dunbar to escape. Having disinherited his beloved younger daughter, Florence, Dunbar has given the reins of power to his sadistic, vicious and spoilt daughters, Abigail and Megan. They are planning a coup to take total control, but their plans are thrown into disarray by Dunbar’s sudden disappearance. Along with Dunar's personal physician, ‘Dr Bob,’ they set off in pursuit, while Florence is intent on reaching him first and spiriting him to safety.

St Aubyn uses all his dark wit in this novel, with an interesting cast of characters. Dunbar has a sense of betrayal, compounded by his own guilt and grief. Meanwhile, those he betrayed - Florence and Dunbar’s long serving friend, and business ally, Wilson, who was summarily sacked by him, along with Wilson’s son, Chris, are the only ones who really care what happens. Even if you read this as a novel, without knowing about the Shakespeare connection, it works really well. It is truly modern; full of hostile takeovers, with everyone trying to stab everyone in the back, out for themselves, and with a real sense of family betrayal. I personally think St Aubyn does a good job of getting a sense of the original story and moving it to the present, but obviously this depends upon your own view of how well this is realised.

This is the first of the Hogarth Press Shakespeare novels that I have read, but I am now interested to read more in this series. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

An underwhelming King Lear adaptation. Didn’t Jane Smiley already give us a less caustic version of this daughters-fighting-over-the-family-business scenario (A Thousand Acres)? St. Aubyn’s Lear stand-in is Henry Dunbar, an 80-year-old who peddled hate as a North American media mogul and whose two dastardly daughters have committed him to a sanatorium in the north of England. Here Dunbar communes with Peter Walker, the alcoholic comedian in the next room (the Fool figure) and spits out all his pills; he may have had a moment of madness out on Hampstead Heath, but he still has it all together and is determined to keep Abigail and Megan (Goneril and Regan) from privatizing the Dunbar Trust to their own profit. After he and Peter escape as far as the pub, Dunbar keeps going: out onto the snowy wastes of the Lake District, where he has a possibly hallucinatory meeting with a disgraced vicar (Chapter 11, the highlight of the book) and sleeps under a rock ledge.

It is Dunbar and his emotional awakening and reconciliation with Florence (Cordelia) that power the book. The other two sadistic, nymphomaniac daughters (they “require ever-escalating doses of perversion to stimulate their jaded appetites”) and their henchmen are too thinly drawn and purposelessly evil to be believed. Florence is given a tiny bit of backstory via the son of her father’s right-hand man to make her more interesting than just the goody-goody scapegoat. The Gloucester/Edmund/Edgar subplot is avoided entirely, although Wilson is a bit like Gloucester and Dr. Bob a bit like Edmund.

St. Aubyn uses some direct literary quotations (“sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care” – Macbeth; “not born to sue but to command” – Richard II; “thou shouldst be living at this hour” – Wordsworth) and at least one very closely adapted one from King Lear itself (“who can tell me who I am, who I really am?”) to good effect. Beyond that, though, there are only very occasional interesting lines (“That’s all a sunset was: an exultation of dirt and dust”; “Being alive is falling, once you know that, it never stops”), with far too much business-speak and too many porn-lite sex scenes thanks to Abigail and Megan. A couple of extended metaphors felt excruciating: “Bloated on her father’s love, she was like a grazing cow that wanders onto the railway tracks just as a high-speed train is coming round the bend” and “Like a swimmer blowing the water from his flooded snorkel before returning to the reassuring, amplified rhythm of his breathing, Dunbar threw off the weight of his dream.”

I’ve felt this way with a few of the Hogarth Shakespeares now: what’s the point when I could just go back and read the original? (Whereas Tyler, Chevalier and Atwood have written what are actually enjoyable novels in their own right.) I think I might just do that, actually, given that I only read Lear once, 14 years ago.

2.75-ish stars

[Phrynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the sixth book in the Hogarth Shakespeare series that I have read. It is a retelling of King Lear.

It is many years since I read King Lear and it never was one of my favourites out of Shakespeare's plays. However Edward St Aubyn does a good job of making it into a very readable book. Really he takes the bare bones of the original and builds his own story but there are enough similarities in the action and in the characters to see where his ideas came from.

One unexpected delight was the humour. Dunbar's fellow inmate, Peter, is very funny as is their rackety escape from the institution they find themselves in. It is also quite a short book which seemed to finish almost as soon as it had begun. However having just finished a row of lengthy tomes, one of which bored my socks off, I was very happy with something short, sharp and snappy.

If you enjoy this kind of retelling of classics then try this series. It is excellent.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel of righteous indignation, cruel betrayal and twisted family dynamics all rendered with clever, precise writing.

This is the first of the Hogarth series I’ve read (if you discount Nutshell which was not ‘official’) and I thought it was splendidly done. Despite having studied many of Shakespeare’s plays, King Lear was never on the curriculum so I went into this telling with a fresh perspective knowing only the basics and was impressed with St. Aubyn’s adaptation--it felt very modern and original--and even more awed by his writing.

These Dunbar girls were arrogant, imperious, and tough, but toughness was not strength, imperiousness not authority, and their arrogance was an unearned pride born of an unearned income.

With an economy of words, yet prose that felt dense and portentous, he is able to conjure moments of brilliance that left this reader dazed. This is what landed this in four-star category because the story, if you’re familiar, is utterly depressing and I can now see why for hundreds of years the ending was altered. St. Aubyn does not give us that break opting instead to remain faithful to the original in its conclusion, if not its telling.

If you’re a fan of Julian Barnes' and Ian McEwan’s writing, then I think you’ll appreciate this author’s talent.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hogarth Shakespeare series of novels (6 now published and 2 more pending) are re-imaginings, re-positionings, rewrites, adaptations, inspired by, based on, the plays of William Shakespeare – call them what you will, are merely the latest addition to a centuries old tradition of translating, editing, changing, adapting and producing versions (in the loosest sense) of Shakespeare’s works. In some cases these have been laudable, inspired and in others – merely futile savagings, maulings and hack butcherings – be they theatrical, cinematic, operatic, ballet, animation, puppetry, graphic novels, comics and as many other formats as you can possibly imagine – you name it, it has been done.

So, what Hogarth is doing is nothing new and I think approaching any adaptations of William Shakespeare’s plays, including this one – ‘Dunbar’ by Edward St Aubyn, has to be from the fundamental standpoint, understanding and acceptance that however great such a novel might be, it can never display the genius of the original play upon which it is based. Once that basic premise has been acknowledged, then the novel can be read and appreciated in its own right. Hence any charges that Hogarth novels, such as this one by St Aubyn, as being superficial by comparison to the genius of William Shakespeare – are of course correct, but importantly have really missed the point.

What the Hogarth Shakespeare novels do with varying degrees of success is:
a. Enhance our appreciation of the brilliance of the source material
b. Encourage us to reconsider and revisit the original plays from perhaps a new or altered angle

What many reviewers of ‘Dunbar’ have referred to is ‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley (another novel which uses ‘King Lear’ as its framework) – however as I haven’t as yet read Smiley’s book, I am unfortunately unable to add to this particular part of the debate.

What St Aubyn has done with ‘King Lear’ is to relocate and transpose the narrative into the world of a super-rich media mogul, the business empire, ostensibly the battle for the company, the legacy, for profit and share of the market – as opposed to the multi-layered battles delineated so brilliantly in ‘King Lear’. ‘Dunbar’ does follow the story of ‘King Lear’ quite closely (although clearly in a somewhat more simplified form). A drawback here therefore, is that those of us familiar with the story of Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ can therefore watch events unfold on St Aubyn’s ‘Dunbar’ with a certain amount of predictability. Although it is fascinating to see how St Aubyn does this – and does it well.

The Hogarth Shakespeare series is a great (if not new) concept and has produced some fine works. The paradox and challenge is that yes, such novels will always and inevitably suffer by comparison to the original plays – but if we look beyond that, if we look at how the Hogarth novels shed a different light on the genius, the brilliance that was and always will be William Shakespeare.

What St Aubyn has here therefore is the particularly hard and unenviable task of writing something ‘based on / inspired by’ etc William Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ – arguably the greatest play by the greatest playwright in the English (or possibly any other) language ever – it’s a tall order to say the least. For the most part St Aubyn is successful, he has produced a gripping, thought provoking thriller which has an undeniable power of its own – an impressive novel. If what St Aubyn has managed to do is to even hint or convey something of the genius, the profound and elemental power of Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ – then he has been successful. ‘Dunbar’ is a welcome and impressive addition to the series, which continues to show us the everlasting brilliance of William Shakespeare.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book worked better for me when I stopped comparing it to King Lear.
The author has taken certain aspects of the original play and brought them to the modern day but left a lot behind.

I thought the characters were interesting although not deeply explored and the story took a bit of a backseat to the thoughts and feelings swarming the pages - mostly of regret and anger. The main setting in the Lake District in England made for an excellent bleak and austere atmosphere that really brought the feeling of being lost to life.

This book is highly emotional and being a quick read it's a bit like a blast in the face with a hairdryer that abruptly cuts off leaving your hair a bit damp and left to dry on it's own.

I enjoyed it as a summary of (some of) the characters from King Lear and as an emotional snapshot of an epiphany that leads to regret, anger, love and hate in the extreme.
This is not a re-telling or a re-imagining of King Lear but a story that has risen from it's heart; a story of shame and the desire for forgiveness amongst the devastating consequences of a power crazed life.

[Dannii Elle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the most recent of the Hogarth Shakespeare series instalments, which rework one of the bard's infamous plays.

Dunbar is the reborn story of King Lear. The central character is, as in the original, also the title of the piece. Henry Dunbar resides in a nursing home with only the jovial yet nonsensical Peter for companionship. His enterprise and fortunes have made their way to his two greedy daughter's outstretched hands and he is seemingly unable to stop it, in his current predicament. He plans to escape and a mad dash ensues, in which it remains unclear who shall reach him first - the greed-driven and self-serving duo, or the one remaining daughter with love remaining for the father she thought lost?

I found this too true to the original story to make any suspenseful reading. This was, of course, the story's aim but others in this series, that I have read, have also imbibed some sense of their own personality. I found this to appear a more regulation retelling, in comparison. The modern-day scenario was a little too predictable but this still remained an entertaining read, if removed from the association with its basis.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, Celeste Ng, and the publisher, Little Brown Book Group, for this opportunity.

[Doug H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Purely my initial reaction:

Loved/hated it. Mostly admired it from a cool distance. Best of the new fall releases I've yet read, at any rate. Smart as hell, possibly too smart. Definitely much smarter than me. Currently googling "Dunbar Numbers" and wondering if I'm insane. My only consolation is the thought that the actually insane never wonder if they're insane...

More rational review to follow at a later date. (So he says to himself.)

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was this the triumph of self-knowledge: to suffer more lucidly?

Apart from a misstep with Othello, the Hogarth Shakespeare series of modern re-engagements with the plays has been excellent to date, and this is no different. It's both faithful and yet iconoclastic, and while purists may hate it, St Aubyn has made some bold and audacious moves to re-imagine a modern Lear as a Canadian media mogul, incarcerated in a care home by his wicked daughters and making a bid for freedom with Peter Walker, an old comedian who speaks in many voices but rarely his own.

One of the things that this re-telling achieves is to bring out the latent comedy that always hovers beneath the surface of Lear but which modern performances tend to erase given its canonical status. This is Lear by way of Beckett - a bit Godot, perhaps more Endgame, a tragicomedy for sure, and one which made me laugh out loud at points (Megan, the Regan character, and her outrageous antics with Dr Bob, Kevin and J!). The laughter co-exists with the suffering, and stark moments ('Peter hanged himself in the shower early this morning'; Dunbar's acknowledgment of need and love: 'I think I can walk if you help me') take us straight back to the original.

A daring enterprise on St Aubyn's part, and one which has paid off very well. Purists may well hate this iconoclastic reinterpretation that is Lear via Beckett - I liked it very much.

Many thanks to Random House/Hogarth for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The waste of love…”

DUNBAR is the fifth book I have read in the Hogarth series. The Hogarth project sees “Shakespeare’s works retold by bestselling novelists of today.” This text has Edward St. Aubyn take on KING LEAR.

To recreate the power that Lear abdicates in the play, in this text St. Aubyn gives us Henry Dunbar, the head of a very powerful worldwide media conglomerate. It works. In fact, I give kudos to the author for doing a decent job of approximating certain characters and situations from the original play in this book. An example are Dunbar’s eldest daughters, (in this novel named Abby and Megan) who are appropriately vindictive and evil and they are good substitutes for Shakespeare’s detestable Goneril and Regan.

One issue I had with the text is that the parts where Dunbar escapes from the hospital his daughters had consigned him to feels very repetitive. Every time the author tries to convey Dunbar’s tenuous grasp on sanity it felt like more of the same. I also found the writing to be a bit showy during these sections. The author trying to impress. It didn’t work for me.
Another issue is that what seems appropriate and developed in Shakespeare seems rushed, clichéd, and underdeveloped here. I won’t go down that rabbit hole any further.

Quotes:
• “There was nowhere, however lovely, that he couldn’t contaminate with his morbid thoughts and his perpetual fear.”
• “You can’t give something away and keep it at the same time.”
• “I try to kick the habit, but the habit kicks harder.”
• “Sentimentality offered her a holiday from the harshness of the rest of her personality.”
• “All the people he every hurt-a veritable crowd, it turned out-were turning their wounds into weapons.”
• “Love was all theater of course.”
• “It was so unsophisticated to be shocked by things.”
• “Was this the triumph of self-knowledge: to suffer more lucidly?”

St. Aubyn does a nice job of approximating the spirit of the final lines of KING LEAR. This is something I have not seen done successfully yet in this series.
I did not love DUNBAR, but it did not annoy like most of the texts that I have read in the Hogarth Shakespeare. Will I continue to pick up others…very doubtful. But I’m not irritated I read this one.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the fifth of the Hogarth Shakespeare series that I have read. They have been a really mixed bag and I am not sure that I understand what the publishers are seeking to achieve with these re-tellings.

For completeness, the other four I have read are, in order of me reading them:

1. Howard Jacobson’s Shylock Is My Name (The Merchant of Venice) - set where I grew up and very funny. I enjoyed this one.
2. Anne Tyler’s Vinegar Girl (The Taming of the Shrew) - I found this dull with the only redeeming feature being the re-imagining of the final speech.
3. Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap of Time (The Winter’s Tale) - for me this was also uninspiring with the only interesting bit being the author’s afterword that explained her relationship with the original and contained some fascinating insights. But then, the original is one weird play!
4. Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed (The Tempest) - the best of the bunch and the only one that does what I envisaged the series being for i.e. re-work the story but give fresh insight into the original.

And now, Dunbar. Again, I find myself asking what is the purpose of this series of novels? You can’t really say that they are re-tellings as most of the authors have used the original as a starting point rather than as a template. But then, are they supposed to tell us something new about the original or are they supposed to be standalone books? With the exception of Hag Seed, none of the five I have read seem to give fresh insights. But then, I don’t think any of the authors would claim that their contribution is one of their best novels. It all seems rather confused.

And, if I am honest, I almost didn’t get beyond Chapter 3 of Dunbar. It all seemed so silly. Recently, I re-read Preti Taneja’s take on this play (We That Are Young) and I also re-read the original. One of the things that I really liked about Taneja’s version was that she blurs the distinction between good and bad: characters you would label "bad" in the original have their good points and vice versa and this allows Taneja to explore those grey areas. This was why I then went back to re-read the original: Taneja’s take opens up the play. But St Aubyn takes the opposite approach. His baddies are EVIL and his goodies (there aren’t may goodies in King Lear) are saintly. So, where Taneja had grey areas to explore and make her story interesting, St Aubyn just seems to pit two despicable daughters against their father and angelic (half-)sister.

The first three chapters were a problem for me as they seemed to set the book up as "King Lear - The Comedy". I’m sure re-writing Lear as a comedy might be a stroke of genius, but it didn’t feel like that as I read those three chapters. As I say, it just felt silly and I wanted to give up. Dunbar is a billionaire media-mogul who wants to step down and hand control of his empire to his daughters. They immediately get a doctor to medically induce a breakdown and ship him off to a care home in the Lake District in England (this plays the part of the Heath where a lot of the action in the original is set) so that they can privatise the company and rake in billions of dollars. In the facility, Dunbar meets Peter Walker a down-and-out, alcoholic comedian and they effect an escape. Cue a race between the two evil sisters and the one good sister to get to Dunbar first. It’s a shame Peter Walker gets written out of the story so quickly as he was my favourite character and I would have liked him to stay around for longer.

The good news is that Chapter 4 onwards is a lot better.

The bad news is that is it still not great. For me, it seems the whole story is dominated by the "evil sisters" at the expense of all the other things that make King Lear an enduring classic. The only other St Aubyn I have read is Lost For Words, which I really liked, so I am not in a position to comment on his writing, but it did feel here that a tragedy was being told as a comedy and it didn’t really gel.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ve missed the point. But read Taneja’s We That Are Young and not this if you want to read a novel based on King Lear.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an extraordinarily written book.

Each of the main characters carries the component for exhibiting one (or more) of the Seven Deadly Sins

Pride
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony
Wrath
Sloth

Henry Dunbar, one of the worlds most powerful, influential leaders of a highly successful global media company finds himself mentally slipping away and doing oddball things that bears question to his capability to continue to run his company.
A fall, while at Davos, landed Henry in the hospital for several weeks and since then he has not been his regular self.

His two evil daughters look at this as their opportunity to take over and profit heavily from his inabilities. He has disinherited his daughter, Florence and turned over the reins to these two, who decide, with the help of Henry’s lifelong doctor, Dr. Bob, to incarcerate him into a sanatorium in Manchester for a rest. The doctor, no longer a professional, but a crook, a drug abuser and dealer, does not have Henry’s best health or interests at heart, prescribes mind boggling drugs that render Henry more confused, distant and forgetful. Dr. Bob is another who stands to get a lot of money out of all this.

High stakes in the form of a multi-million trust, an aggressive competitor who will pay for inside secrets, and payoffs to the very unethical Dr. Bob, company board members, 2 of the 3 daughters, and others who are or who will get involved along the way in this twisted play for profit plot.

The two daughters are evil minded and want to overthrow their father based on his increasing lack of mental capacities. Dr.Bob, is no angel and always has a handy supply of hard core prescription medications to pass out. He’s also sexually and monetarily wrapped up with the two insatiable, narcisstic, sadistic nymphet daughters.

Henry makes friends with Peter, an alcoholic comedian at the sanatorium and the two plot to stop taking their meds and escape. Henry notices that he’s got a clearer head not taking the meds but still occasionally falls into lapsed states. What a pair they make as they escape, with Peter doing the planning, drinking, doing impersonations, and leading the way out.
I really liked Peter; he brought comedy to the story.

An incident occurs along their escape route where Peter and Henry part ways; Henry continues onward on his own. In the harsh beauty and ruggedness of nature, memories of his personal and business life flit across his mind, and he ponders over them as he continues to makes his escape over the hills. He has a few close calls of being seen/captured by those trying to find him. His wit, his clarity, persistence, determination and perseverance and his will to live becomes even more stronger.

His daughter, Florence, never was interested in the trust/financial gain; she’s so very unlike her other 2 conning, scheming sisters. Florence and her father had parted ways but when she hears her father has been taken to an unknown sanatorium because of his illness, the two sisters will not divulge his location to her or anyone else, so now she tries to work with some other folks to locate her father. When he has been deemed missing from the sanatorium/home, there is chaos and confusion; everyone is concerned - albeit for different reasons, depending on what their personal (or professional) stake in the game is.

Eliminate the eliminator.

Betray the one who betrayed the betrayed.

Really...how much money is enough?

Florence finds the home her father was placed into, learns of his escape, then hires a pilot and helicopter and they search the cold, wet, snowy hills for her father and he is rescued but not returned to the home.

Henry is now with Florence and recuperating under the professional care of a different doctor (no more bad docs or bad meds) and both Florence and her Father reunite. They forgive each other and try to make sense of the others scheming.

With the help of Henry’s former legal officer and friend, Wilson, they figure out a legal plan to thwart the 2 sisters, protect the Dunbar Trust/company and show the Board and others that Henry is of sound mind and body to override the changes and scheming plans of the 2 sisters and all of the others involved. It’s Henry’s last hurrah to make things right and preserve his legacy. The momentum builds... And then...it comes sadly and horribly crashing down.

******************************************
“Why has everything been destroyed just as I’ve started to understand it for the first time?” Henry Dunbar
*******************************************

[João Reis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Um remake moderadamente interessante de «O Rei Lear». Perde bastante ao ser lido em português.

[Briar's Reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Shakespeare - anyone who knows me well can tell you that - so when I saw this book I knew I had to read it. But, sadly, it was under whelming and quite the disappointment. Perhaps I put to much pressure on this book before reading it?

I haven't read King Lear yet, but I have been meaning to. I made sure to read over the synopsis and read some of the more "famous" pieces from the story online to get a better feel for it before I picked up this book. I wanted to understand the source material and see what Edward St. Aubyn would do with it. While he got the base of the story and plot correct, it just wasn't as great as it could have been.

Henry Dunbar (our King Lear) the media mogul is our lead, who has three daughters (two of whom seem out of their right mind 99% of the time, I feel like they should have been in the psych ward, personally), is currently in what appears to be a psych ward with a not-so-funny comedian. He plans to escape and prevent the two psychotic daughters from running his company/getting his trust money.

The two psychotic daughters appear to be too evil - like it's obvious, but their reasoning for getting the trust money doesn't seem like a good enough reason to be crazy. I would have liked to see the craziness pulled back a bit to make it more realistic, or interesting. I just found them to pull away from the great story of Henry and Florence. While Florence does seem to be a little too goody-goody, their scenes are really beautiful and seem to be the best part of this entire story.

St. Aubyn uses a lot of Shakespeare quotes - which I loved! They were used in the correct context too. My issue within this, is sometimes it seemed like he was trying to write in iambic pentameter or using language from that era when it just didn't fit in. The first chapter when Henry and his comedian friend are telling stories seem to be edging towards that era, but it just wasn't funny. If anything, it made me more confused and bored. I had to keep re-reading what they were saying just to try to understand what they are doing (and I was an ace at Shakespeare in English, so how could I not understand normal English?...Geez).

My overall review - just read the original. There are some FANTASTIC adaptions out there that can wow your socks off and rival the original, and this one isn't it. It's a great story, and if it entered a contest it could potentially win, but it's not the best I've seen. I gave up a few chapters in just to force myself through the book.

Edward is a great author, and while this might not be his strongest novel I'm sure he is great in other areas. I definitely want to give him another shot in the future with a book that's an original story because I'm sure he could shine there.

Two out of five stars.

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dunbar is the sixth novel in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, but it was actually my first. (No, I haven't read Hag-Seed.) So it wasn't a desire to keep up with the Hogarth series that drove me to click 'request' on this title - I was drawn to it because for whatever reason I just really, really like King Lear.

The main question on my mind as I was reading was: what exactly is the purpose of a retelling? I don't think there's ever going to be a definitive consensus on this subject, as I'm sure some of us prefer our retellings on the more literal side, while others prefer them to be more abstract. But in general, I'd say that for a retelling to be a success, that the book should pay homage to the original while still adding something new to the story - maybe exploring certain themes present in the original in greater depth.

So with that in mind, how did Dunbar fare? I can't quite make up my mind. Dunbar is a contemporary spin on the tale in which the titular figure is a Canadian media mogul, whose company is currently being usurped by his two vindictive daughters, Abby and Megan. The story begins in medias res, with Henry Dunbar in a care home somewhere outside Manchester, telling the story of how he was betrayed by his two power-hungry daughters, and how he regrets betraying his other, loyal daughter, Florence, by cutting her out of the trust.

While it doesn't follow King Lear to a T, it really only ever deviates by omission. (The subplot with Edgar and Edmund isn't really present at all.) But where it zeroes in on the relationship between Lear and his daughters, Dunbar is an extremely literal retelling. I mean, Regan is actually called Megan. On the one hand, it was done very well, and on the other, there wasn't a whole lot left to the imagination.

Interestingly, one facet of Lear that I thought went unexplored in Dunbar is actually one of its most salient themes: the fraught balance between fate and chaos - how much of our human nature is free will and how much is predetermined by planetary influence? The passages in which Henry Dunbar grapples with his 'madness' I thought were some of the weakest, and they really missed the opportunity to delve into this theme. Instead, this is a very stripped down King Lear, which ostensibly focuses on the reconciliation between Dunbar (Lear) and Florence (Cordelia). It was well done in its own right, but I couldn't help wanting more out of this story.

Dunbar was also my first encounter with Edward St. Aubyn, who admittedly I hadn't even heard of before now, but I have to say that for the most part I was impressed. His writing is lively and clever; I was awed by his intelligence on more than one occasion. I'll readily admit that as someone with essentially zero knowledge of the stock market, a lot of the details of this book went right over my head - but St. Aubyn still kept me engaged, with stakes that consistently felt high even when some of the details escaped me.

Bottom line (insofar as I am able to give a bottom line when I'm as conflicted as I clearly am about this book): as a novel in its own right, Dunbar was strangely riveting and stimulating. As a King Lear retelling, it left a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, I did really enjoy reading this, and was fully prepared to give it 4 stars until its overly hasty conclusion, which unfortunately left me dissatisfied. 3.5 stars, rounded down.

Thank you Netgalley, Hogarth, and Edward St. Aubyn for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable Lear for the 20th century. Dunbar is not a king but a Canadian media mogul whose daughters, Megan and Abigail, are manoeuvring themselves into position to take over his empire. They have had him committed to a care home in the Lake District where he is losing his mind due to the cocktail of drugs he is being drip fed. St Aubyn does a tremendous job of depicting Dunbar's descent into madness as he becomes lost in the wilderness of the fells.

All the things he had ever felt ashamed of seemed to have been distilled into the elixir of his own cruelty. An eye for an eye: that was the law. They were holding him down to clamp his head in a vice and slice his eyelids off. No, please, not that. As he climbed higher his vision grew more blurred, feeding his fear of being blinded by the venom of his accumulated crimes. He clutched his head between his powerful hands, to show how tightly trapped it was, but also in the hope of somehow finding the strength to wrench it aside, to avoid letting the corrosive liquid fall, drop by blistering drop, on to his precious, defenceless eyes. No, please, please, please. His heart was bursting with anguish. He scrambled up the last few yards on all fours and collapsed on the brow of the hill.........He would have to linger on, cattle-prodded through a labyrinthine slaughterhouse of hunger, exposure, infection and insanity or, worse, be rescued, to be paraded at his daughters' triumph, like a conquered king in chains, pelted with filth and rotten food by the jeering populace.

Dunbar's estranged daughter, Florence, is trying to find him before her sisters do and it's not difficult to imagine Dunbar staggering around the fells with two helicopters in hot pursuit. It's not necessary to have an intimate knowledge of the play. It may be enjoyed on a different level if you are at least familiar with Shakespeare's characters but I'm sure it can be enjoyed as a bittersweet black comedy with no previous knowledge whatsoever.

5 stars because there are very few books that I want to re-read and even fewer that I want to re-read almost immediately.

With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK for a review copy.

[Steffi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ich kann kaum glauben, dass es einige wirklich gute Kritiken zu diesem Roman gab. Das ist alles einfach unglaublich platt. Die Charaktere sind gar keine, es handelt sich um holzschnittartige Typen. Wie kann man so etwas aus einem jahrhundertealten Stück machen, das einem viel weiter entfernt erscheinen mag und dabei doch viel lebendiger ist als dieser Roman? Wie kann man denn derart daran scheitern, eine Geschichte über ein Familien-Imperium, das an den Konflikten zwischen den Generationen und Geschwistern zugrunde geht – wie diese Familie selbst auch – zu schaffen?

Als wolle er sich an dem Vorbild King Lear anlehnen, besteht der Roman zu großen Teilen aus Dialogen. Die sind aber einfach nur platt. Niemand redet so. Oft werden nur Selbstverständlichkeiten ausgetauscht oder es wird so maßlos übertrieben, dass es einen beim Lesen schmerzt. Und statt dann die Dialoge zu nutzen, um die einzelnen Personen zu charakterisieren, werden entsprechende Informationen plump und in übertriebener Manier angeklebt, z.B. Sie hatten immer wieder miteinander über die Geschäfte ihres Vaters gestritten, seit sie in ihrer Jugend zur leidenschaftlichen Verfechterin von Arbeitnehmerrechten, Umweltfragen und hohen Ansprüchen an journalistische Ethik geworden war.

Eine kleine Ausnahme bietet Kapitel 7. Da irrt der alte Dunbar (als King Lear im Vorbild) allein durch die Wildnis und die Betrachtung der Natur führt zu Reflexionen über sein Leben, seine Entscheidungen, sein Gefühl der Verwirrung und des Verlorenseins. Das ist wirklich ganz gut und es handelt sich um die einzige Stelle im Roman, die mir gefiel.

Vielleicht tue ich St. Aubyn gnadenlos Unrecht, denn ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, dass ihm diese holzschnittartigen Typen einfach passiert sind. Er muss etwas damit wollen. Aber was nur?

[Eleanor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dunbar, like most of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, fails for several reasons. Most particularly, it fails because it entirely lacks a moral component, and—relatedly—any sense of universality. Shakespeare's Lear is a King, of course, so hardly an Everyman, but the actors who play him have the opportunity to invest him with the most human of fears: "O, let me not be mad". Dunbar says this too, but St Aubyn doesn't give him the chance to be an Everyman; instead he's an aggressive and deeply unpleasant media mogul who's suffered a drug-induced psychotic break. Where is the tragedy in this? Where is the audience's self-identification with the fallen man, the terror and the catharsis? Glimpses of Dunbar's childhood—a cold and distant mother, a stint in provincial Winnipeg—might have made this possible, but St Aubyn never does more than glance at them. (The mother, clearly, is meant to explain some of the Lear story's misogyny). I'm left wondering, as always, whether this is an inherent problem of form; whether these stories are so plainly play-shaped that making them into novels is doomed; or whether there is something about consciously attempting to adapt Shakespeare that makes even revered writers choke; or whether (shall we whisper it?) these writers have been ill-chosen, whether they have been selected on the basis of name recognition or other dubious merits, and whether the Hogarth committee ought to have looked further afield for their project. It is clearly not impossible to write an excellent novel that brings the concerns of King Lear into the present day: Preti Taneja has just done so, in We That Are Young . But maybe we ought to stop expecting such a thing from established literary names. There have been too many disappointments already.

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought Dunbar was excellent. I approached it with a little trepidation because a modern re-imagining of the King Lear story could have been worthy or turgid or forbidding or just plain terrible. In fact I found it gripping, witty, touching and very readable.

Henry Dunbar, the Lear character, is a billionaire media mogul and the machinations of the characters are in the business and financial worlds which, given the events of the last couple of decades, works extremely well. In the characters of Abigail and Megan (Goneril and Regan), St. Aubyn catches the lazily indignant sense of entitlement and the unthinking, self-absorbed cruelty of the over-privileged sisters. Dunbar escapes from an institution in the Lake District to which these two have secretly committed him, and we get a brilliant picture of a disintegrating mind as he wanders the fells…and so on.

The plot is recognisable without being slavish to the original, and St Aubyn uses it for some very well-aimed barbs at modern finance, the behaviour of the super-rich and other aspects of contemporary life. He writes beautifully, in prose that is elegant but simply carries you along without drawing self-regarding attention to itself. I marked lots of neat passages and phrases, like an institution which "could not keep up with the modern demand for a place in which to neglect the mad, the old and the dying," or the rich, powerful man who "knew what it was to be surrounded by a halo of hollow praise," which seemed especially apt in 2017. The humanity and pity of the play are all there, too, and in the context I found, "Florence, is that you? I've been looking for you everywhere," every bit as moving as,
" Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia"
which for me is really saying something.

In short, I found Dunbar readable, gripping, witty, moving and insightful and I can recommend it very warmly.

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having, ultimately, been blown away by the Melrose novels I was keen to read more books by Edward St. Aubyn and so picked up Dunbar (2017) which is a reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear. I'm not very familiar with King Lear so that aspect was wasted on me. Despite this, I was very impressed. Edward St. Aubyn is a wonderful writer and this tale of an ageing and declining patriarch is marvellous.

Edward St. Aubyn's Lear is Henry Dunbar, the head of a global media empire, and who appears to be closely modelled on Rupert Murdoch. Dunbar goes on a painful journey of self discovery whilst his two appalling daughters attempt to wrest control of his empire from him through all manner of dirty dealings. Meanwhile a more sympathetic third daughter, from whom he is estranged, seeks to help her increasingly unsettled father.

All the characters, right down to the most minor, are well drawn and there is plenty of dark comedy to leaven the tragedy. Despite the centuries old source material, the book feels very modern with scheming and betrayals front and centre. I'm now keen to see the original play to compare and contrast.

4/5


Dunbar (2017) by Edward St. Aubyn

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hogarth could not have made a better choice than Edward St. Aubyn to update King Lear for their Shakespeare today series. In his five-volume expose of his own wildly dysfunctional family, he has proven he can skewer those nearest and dearest, and so he does so with this, probably the most definitive example of people who shouldn't even know each other let alone constitute a family.

In this version, Dunbar is a Ruppert Murdoch-like kingpin of media, (but since he is meant to be a sympathetic character, maybe Murdoch is a wrong choice). His two oldest daughters are even more venal and evil than their prototypes, and the third, result of a second marriage and obviously his favorite since she so resembles her late mother, is maybe too good to be true. But how this translates to modern day is seamless, and of course familiarity with the original material is helpful in getting most of the references.

[Alex Cantone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edward St. Aubyn turns his elegant acerbic wit to Shakespeare, re-imaging “King Lear” in the form of Canadian-born mogul Henry Dunbar, who in a fit of pique left his elder two daughters, Abigail and Megan, to run his global media empire, retaining the nominal role of non-executive chairman, firing his faithful legal counsel, Wilson. His youngest daughter Florence (by his second wife), one-time lover of Wilson’s son Chris, had a distaste for acquisitions and hostile takeovers, and was disinherited of her shares in favour of the elder two. With the assistance of a bent doctor, the sisters had Dunbar declared unsound and quietly tucked away in a sanatorium in the Lake District. Now the sisters plan to take back the family company at a meeting and move the old man to a secure facility in Austria.

The sisters plans come undone first by Florence seeking out her father for a reconciliation and by Dunbar himself when, with fellow patient comedian Peter Walker, the two men devise a plan to dispose of their medications and make a run for it. When Peter becomes too drunk to continue Dunbar sets out alone, sleeping rough for two nights while the sisters and Florence try to find him.

‘Jesus, it’s cold, I wish we did have a car and a reliable driver, but we are going to have to walk. Cumbria in December - people flock here just for the hailstorms. It’s standing room only on Scafell Pike.’

This being the Bard reinterpreted for a new generation of readers, there is low level coarse language and the cardinal themes of family treachery, murder, mayhem and tragedy. Dunbar, fighting madness and fatigue, is rescued by Florence only to be undone by Abigail’s husband, Mark, a handsome man from an old money family, desperate to hold on to some vestiges of wealth and power.

The family’s fortune peaked in the late nineteenth century, but was large enough to withstand several generations of elegant mismanagement and, when they became all the rage, expensive divorces.

As with King Lear, the potential for a happy outcome is eroded and then lost through fateful decision-making. I admit to being lost in the machinations of boardroom takeovers but liked the sudden ending. I enjoyed this retelling of an old tale and look forward to others in the Hogarth series, as well as other works by Edward St. Aubyn.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

My sincere thanks to both Goodreads Giveaways and the Hogarth Press for the ARC of the book in exchange for this honest review.

A bit of a quandary with this, only the second of the current Hogarth Shakespeare adaptations I've now read (the other being Winterson's take on The Winter's Tale, which although similarly muddled, I rather enjoyed). I adore St. Aubyn and have read his entire canon, but this seems neither one of his better efforts, nor does it really succeed as a retelling of Lear (which I reread immediately preceding this to make sure I had it sufficiently down pat). Had I not KNOWN this was based on Lear, I actually might have totally missed the connection entirely, as Dunbar goes so far afield from the source material that one wishes the author had not been under the constraint imposed by the assignment. Basically, I think it was a mismatch to begin with; St. Aubyn, with his acerbic wit, would have been better suited adapting one of the comedies, despite his penchant for dysfunctional families.

Be that as it may, St. Aubyn is incapable of writing something that isn't, at the bare minimum, interesting, witty and with some exceptional prose - so am settling on 3 stars.

[merixien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dunbar ile Shakespeare uyarlaması okuma serüvenimi noktalıyorum. Edward St. Aubyn kötü bir yazar değil kesinlikle. Aksine bu hikayeyi belli kalıplar içinde kalmadan kendi hareket alanı içinde yazsa muazzam bir kitap çıkacağına eminim. Bu haliyle dahi okuduğum pek çok uyarlamadan iyiydi. Ancak Shakespeare uyarlaması konusunda en iyi işin çıktığı kitap Kumdan Yürek. Bunun olma sebebi ise, Gurnah’ın kendi hikayesini yaratıp yalnızca şablon takibi yapmamasıydı. Hogarth Shakespeare Project ise daha çok sınırlar dahilinde hareket edilmesi beklenen ve ısmarlama bir şekilde oluşturulan bir proje olduğundan eğreti duruyor. Hikaye mecburen sokulduğu günümüz dünyası şartlarıyla çok absürt ve grotesk bir trajediye dönüşüyor. Retelling konusu zaten çok bıçak sırtı ve tartışmalı bir tür. Üzerine bunu bu şekilde sınırları belirli ve sipariş halinde serileştirmek biraz hatalı bir seçim sanırım. Elimde bu seriden 1-2 kitap daha var ama sanırım devam edemeyeceğim.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

For his contribution to the Hogwarth Shakespeare series, St. Aubyn has retold the story of 'King Lear', setting it in a high-stakes corporate world. At its start, magnate Lear has been undone by the two hellbent daughters who detest him and is languishing in a sanatorium. It is up to the compassionate daughter who loves him to find him and save him.

Even though there's a fair amount of tragedy in this tale, St. Aubyn has taken to his task with a sort of glee and a seemingly effortless ease. Unlike another example of the series - Nesbo's 'Macbeth', which I started and abandoned, due to what felt leaden and too slavish to the Bard - St. Aubyn understands that we already know the source material all too well. His job was to bring a freshness to the story. 'Dunbar' feels very much of our time and it feels electric.

Like the author's 'Lost for Words', there is a certain freewheeling element here that I can only describe as caprice. Perhaps that's something St. Aubyn allows himself when dealing with material that's less personal. (At the same time, there are subtle reminders peppered throughout that let us know that the main story may be impersonal but a significant number of details are close to the bone.)

It's a relief that a few of the novel's characters have a conscience and a sense of loyalty - because the bulk of the them are duplicitous. St. Aubyn understands duplicity (and certainly greed) frighteningly well and he lays it out for us with knowledgeable (and fierce) precision.

But all is not bleak in what St. Aubyn has reworked. Much of the book - as one has come to expect from the 'Patrick Melrose' author - is savagely funny. With its mix of the hilarious and the horrific, 'Dunbar' barrels its way to its 'perfect storm' conclusion.