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Ariel
Ariel is beautiful and magical, a creator of dreams and of mischief. Sprung from the mind of a dazed sailor shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle, she rules half of her enchanted isle, dreaming of the savior from the east who will help her conquer all. When Prospero, a lost mariner, appears on the beach, his young daughter, Miranda, in tow, Ariel entices him with her visions of conquest. Together, she promises, they will defeat the mysterious tribe whose drums beat beyond the island's rain forest. The homesick Prospero struggles to resist Ariel's charms, but he almost falls under her spell when Miranda falls in love with their servant, the island boy Caliban. Ariel wants to march west, Prospero wants to sail east, and daughter Miranda wants to play on the beach with her boyfriend. Their clash comes to a head when Ariel, summoning her full powers, creates a cataclysmic storm that will change their lives and the island forever. Shakespeare scholar Grace Tiffany looks at the dark side of Shakespeare's The Tempest , investing a female Ariel with tremendous strength. The Tempest takes on new meaning for new readers, as Tiffany explores the imagination's power to transform grief into dangerous dreams. A tour de force by the author of My Father Had a Daughter and Will .
240 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 2005
5 people are currently reading
259 people want to read
About the author
Grace Tiffany
13 books92 followersGrace Tiffany is an American writer who lives and teaches in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her novels include MY FATHER HAD A DAUGHTER (2003), WILL (2004), THE TURQUOISE RING (2005), ARIEL (2006), PAINT (2013), GUNPOWDER PERCY (2016), and her latest, THE OWL WAS A BAKER'S DAUGHTER (2025). She has also translated writings by the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges and the Mexican author Maria Luisa Puga.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 2, 2017
Having reread William Shakespeare’s The Tempest last week, I thought I’d have a go at Grace Tiffany’s Ariel, a little book that’s been sitting on my shelf for the past couple of years. The Tempest is fascinating and has inspired numerous retellings over the past 400 years, from W.H. Auden’s heady poem, “The Sea and the Mirror,” to the cheesy sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet to the contemporary production of the play as envisioned by magician Teller (he's the quiet one) and director Aaron Posner with acrobatics by Pilobolus and music by Tom Waits. However, I shouldn’t have wasted my time with Tiffany’s thin novel, which is poorly written and mostly a bunch of nonsense. And by time I’m done here, I will have ruined its idiotic twists and the big reveals at the end of the book, so there’s no point in you reading it either. You have been warned.
Tiffany’s re-imagining of Shakespeare’s play seems to have been written for teens, although why the author chose to do this, I can’t imagine, especially since her bio depicts her as a professor of English lit at Western Michigan University with an emphasis on the Renaissance. Because even if Shakespeare’s original has at its core a relationship between a grumpy father and his precocious fifteen-year-old daughter, a daughter who now thinks her old dad isn’t all that cool anymore and falls for the first good looking guy she meets, the play’s rich language and even richer thematic concerns put it far beyond anything that could be adequately or satisfactorily explored in a dumbed-down version packaged for teen readers by a HarperCollins YA/children’s publishing line.
Come to think of it, perhaps Miranda and Prospero’s story could be satisfactorily adapted as YA fare, if the right author and the right publisher went about it in the right way. There’s the absent mother, the attempted rape, the controlling father who learns he needs to let his growing daughter find her own way in the world. There’s the exotic setting, lots of drinking, violence, and conflicts of class and race; there’s witchcraft and sorcery…in fact, there’s just about everything that could be successfully exploited by an author seeking to bank on Shakespeare’s genius and scale down his rich tale into a YA money grab. But that’s not the book that Tiffany has written.
She forgoes all of that and instead tries to write something that maybe she thinks is a thoughtful re-examination of some of Shakespeare’s themes, but I dunno. Frankly, I don’t understand Tiffany’s motivations or intentions for writing her book. The epigraph from Auden’s “The Sea and the Mirror” lured me into Ariel expecting a novel, even if it were written for teens, that explored the rich internal world of the imagination and the creative impulse of the artist, as well as the potential for self-destruction inherent in that very impulse, ideas that Shakespeare explores in The Tempest through Prospero and Ariel, long before Samuel Taylor Coleridge or Percy Shelley, or for that matter Dylan Thomas or Charles Bukowski or Neil Gaiman, ever wrote about similar ideas. And Tiffany’s first few sentences seem to carry out the promise of the epigraph: “The first thing you should know about Ariel is that she’s a liar. Dreams lie, and she is both dream and the maker of dreams. Her work is not to tell the truth but to play: to sing, dance, and spin thrilling pictures in the air.”
But that’s about as good as it gets in Tiffany’s book. Even her next sentence rings false: “She likes bold colors; subtle hues and shades do not interest her. She paints with a broad brush…” And that’s just nonsense. That, perhaps, is what bad YA writing does, and it’s what this awful retelling of The Tempest may do, but it’s not what Shakespeare does, or what Ariel or Prospero do in his play, and it’s not what good writing or art does either.
When I read the Auden epigraph and the first few lines of Tiffany’s book, I thought, “Okay, I get it. Art and the imagination are great deceivers. They’re dangerous. Sure, I've heard that idea before…” After all, the imagination is a powerful force, and the creative impulse can be both a creator and a destroyer. Picasso tells us that art is the lie that tells the truth, or at least he said something close to that. And Shakespeare knew the same thing, centuries before Picasso. But that’s not what Tiffany is doing in her book. In fact, I can’t really tell you what Tiffany intended to do here, but her version of The Tempest and her spin on Ariel, art, and the creative force of the imagination, is just a lie. It doesn’t tell the truth at all. It doesn’t do anything except deceive, and it certainly doesn’t add any beauty to the world. Strangely, in her story of Ariel, Tiffany seems to be saying that art and the imagination are absolutely useless, a shockingly bad message from a professor of English literature writing a book for teens and pre-teens that purports itself to be a retelling of Shakespeare’s Tempest.
Critics don’t all share the same view of Ariel’s role in Shakespeare’s play, but most would agree that Ariel is an elemental “spirit” associated with the air and water of the island, in stark contrast to the “monster” that is Caliban, connected to the isle’s earth and rocks. Ariel has been subjugated by Prospero, a magician of vast power cast away on the island with his three-year-old daughter after being exiled from his position of duke of Milan. Prospero uses Ariel as an agent of his imagination to do his bidding over the 12 years that father and daughter have been on the island, especially to carry out his plan to avenge himself on those who have wronged him and restore himself to his dukedom in Milan. Ariel is a gentle spirit, a gracious one and eager to please, who is both thankful to Prospero for having freed him from the imprisonment in the tree by the witch Sycorax, but also anxious to be granted his own freedom by Prospero so he can return to the elements, a freedom that Prospero has promised him once his plans for dealing with his enemies have been achieved. This, without getting into the specific details, is Ariel’s role in the play, and most readers and critics recognize the essential nature of Ariel as a servant to the powerful Prospero who, not only being a wizard, is Shakespeare’s stand-in for the artist, even for the playwright himself.
But not Grace Tiffany.
In her preposterous spin on Shakespeare’s story, Ariel is a dangerous, hateful female spirit who has somehow been born from the dying thoughts of a Jewish sailor blown all the way across the Atlantic from the coast of Malta after a storm separated him from his master’s ship. His name was Jasper (seriously, Jasper?), and his master was the apostle Paul. Jasper (?) washes up on the shores of an island in the Bermuda Triangle. Like Athena, I guess, but a whole lot meaner, Ariel pops out of Jasper’s head and lives alone on the island for hundreds of years as Jasper’s bones bleach in the sun. She’s not Wisdom, though. And in keeping with Shakespeare, or at least in keeping with some of the interpretations of Shakespeare’s character, she seems to be the embodiment of the Imagination.
In her isolation, Ariel gives birth to three minions, Intellect, Madness, and Fantasy, and the four of them enjoy themselves on the island, although they seem to be trapped in the Triangle itself. But if that all seems strange—how, for example, does the Imagination exist absent the artist? and doesn’t Mind (“Nous” in Tiffany’s words) give rise to Imagination, not the other way around?—don’t fret yourself worrying about the particulars because as the story develops things get more and more ridiculous.
Ariel longs to leave the Triangle, not for the sake of freedom, which would fit in nicely with Shakespeare’s ideas, but because she is curious about the people who live beyond the wall of the Triangle on the other side of the island. She hears their drums and for some reason has a strong impulse to conquer the rest of this island and subdue the peoples she imagines must be making this racket. After several hundred years stuck in the Triangle, Ariel sees a young pregnant woman washed onto the shores of her island, Sycorax, a Saxon who has been kidnapped by Vikings and working on their ship. She gives birth to a dark-skinned baby (Caliban) whose father was apparently an African traveling with these Vikings. Ariel doesn’t help with the birthing process (although she gives birth to her three minions, Ariel doesn’t know nuthin' about birthin' no babies), and Sycorax somehow curses Ariel to be imprisoned in a tree. How? I dunno. Don’t worry about it. You won’t make sense of any of the book.
Ariel hates Sycorax and her handsome boy Caliban (I know…) who suffers a twisted leg from Ariel not helping with the birth. And then from her tree prison, Ariel somehow convinces Caliban to poison his mother, and several years later an old man and his three-year-old daughter wash up on the island and the storyline of The Tempest follows.
Or not…because here are just a few of the details in Tiffany’s story:
•Prospero is a farmer, not a Duke, and he’s a bad farmer, as well as a bad poet.
•Prospero wasn’t exiled. Apparently he did something dumb, like take his daughter and a bunch of books and get in a boat to go to some Greek poetry conference and then got blown all the way across the Atlantic.
•Upon arrival on the island, Ariel makes Prospero believe himself to be a duke wronged by his brother. His terrible desire for vengeance is all the creation of Ariel, for Prospero doesn’t really want vengeance; he has nothing to take vengeance against. His brother Antonio is well-intentioned and loves him. Sure, he’s better with money than Prospero, who always has his head in a book, but Antonio has kept Prospero’s farm going for him in his 12-year absence, and taken care of Prospero’s grieving wife, Althea.
•Alonso is Antonio’s partner in their farming concern. He doesn’t hate Prospero, either. It’s all so very nice, and would have been if not for that scheming menace, Ariel.
Not only does Ariel fill Prospero’s head with delusions and a desire to harm the people who love him, but she also desires to harm the noble Caliban and poisons Prospero’s mind against him. Ultimately, her great plan after Prospero avenges himself against Antonio and Alonso and does away with Caliban is to get Prospero to take her beyond the wall so that she can dominate the rest of the island and conquer whoever is playing those goshdarn drums. In Grace’s retelling, Ariel is a sadistic maniac seeking to spread misery and destruction, and Prospero is a rather foolish incompetent. All he can really do is read books, which is really a big waste of time, although his brother does concede near the end of the story, “Work is good, but stories have their place.” Gee thanks, Miss Tiffany!
At the end, several centuries after Prospero has abandoned Ariel on the island, someone does show up who is perfect for the seed of evil that Ariel wants to spread. And look who it is: My, my, it’s Christopher Columbus, arriving on the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria!
Let’s see, a dying Jewish sailor/Christian missionary gives rise to an idea that is embraced by a Genoese explorer and his expanding civilization that leads to the genocide of the New World’s indigenous peoples, as well as the institution of slavery in the Americas…ha! If Grace Tiffany had anything going on in this book that even remotely made sense, I’d say that’s almost genius. Except it’s not. It's just poorly written tomfoolery masquerading as a bad YA book. And it's got nothing to do with The Tempest.
Here’s the one bit of the story that really works for me: Remember Claribel, Alonso’s daughter that he marries to the King of Tunis? Well, in Tiffany’s book she’s Claribel the cow, who took top honors at the Lisbon fair and they sold off to some African buyer…now that’s funny stuff!
As for the rest of it? I say we follow Prospero’s lead here and, “deeper than did any plummet sound,” we drown Grace Tiffany’s book.
Here's a slightly better YA book trying to rework The Tempest:
Dennis Covington's Lizard
And here's a much better treatment of The Tempest by a much better author, Margaret Atwood's Hag-Seed, written for the Hogarth Shakespeare series:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Tiffany’s re-imagining of Shakespeare’s play seems to have been written for teens, although why the author chose to do this, I can’t imagine, especially since her bio depicts her as a professor of English lit at Western Michigan University with an emphasis on the Renaissance. Because even if Shakespeare’s original has at its core a relationship between a grumpy father and his precocious fifteen-year-old daughter, a daughter who now thinks her old dad isn’t all that cool anymore and falls for the first good looking guy she meets, the play’s rich language and even richer thematic concerns put it far beyond anything that could be adequately or satisfactorily explored in a dumbed-down version packaged for teen readers by a HarperCollins YA/children’s publishing line.
Come to think of it, perhaps Miranda and Prospero’s story could be satisfactorily adapted as YA fare, if the right author and the right publisher went about it in the right way. There’s the absent mother, the attempted rape, the controlling father who learns he needs to let his growing daughter find her own way in the world. There’s the exotic setting, lots of drinking, violence, and conflicts of class and race; there’s witchcraft and sorcery…in fact, there’s just about everything that could be successfully exploited by an author seeking to bank on Shakespeare’s genius and scale down his rich tale into a YA money grab. But that’s not the book that Tiffany has written.
She forgoes all of that and instead tries to write something that maybe she thinks is a thoughtful re-examination of some of Shakespeare’s themes, but I dunno. Frankly, I don’t understand Tiffany’s motivations or intentions for writing her book. The epigraph from Auden’s “The Sea and the Mirror” lured me into Ariel expecting a novel, even if it were written for teens, that explored the rich internal world of the imagination and the creative impulse of the artist, as well as the potential for self-destruction inherent in that very impulse, ideas that Shakespeare explores in The Tempest through Prospero and Ariel, long before Samuel Taylor Coleridge or Percy Shelley, or for that matter Dylan Thomas or Charles Bukowski or Neil Gaiman, ever wrote about similar ideas. And Tiffany’s first few sentences seem to carry out the promise of the epigraph: “The first thing you should know about Ariel is that she’s a liar. Dreams lie, and she is both dream and the maker of dreams. Her work is not to tell the truth but to play: to sing, dance, and spin thrilling pictures in the air.”
But that’s about as good as it gets in Tiffany’s book. Even her next sentence rings false: “She likes bold colors; subtle hues and shades do not interest her. She paints with a broad brush…” And that’s just nonsense. That, perhaps, is what bad YA writing does, and it’s what this awful retelling of The Tempest may do, but it’s not what Shakespeare does, or what Ariel or Prospero do in his play, and it’s not what good writing or art does either.
When I read the Auden epigraph and the first few lines of Tiffany’s book, I thought, “Okay, I get it. Art and the imagination are great deceivers. They’re dangerous. Sure, I've heard that idea before…” After all, the imagination is a powerful force, and the creative impulse can be both a creator and a destroyer. Picasso tells us that art is the lie that tells the truth, or at least he said something close to that. And Shakespeare knew the same thing, centuries before Picasso. But that’s not what Tiffany is doing in her book. In fact, I can’t really tell you what Tiffany intended to do here, but her version of The Tempest and her spin on Ariel, art, and the creative force of the imagination, is just a lie. It doesn’t tell the truth at all. It doesn’t do anything except deceive, and it certainly doesn’t add any beauty to the world. Strangely, in her story of Ariel, Tiffany seems to be saying that art and the imagination are absolutely useless, a shockingly bad message from a professor of English literature writing a book for teens and pre-teens that purports itself to be a retelling of Shakespeare’s Tempest.
Critics don’t all share the same view of Ariel’s role in Shakespeare’s play, but most would agree that Ariel is an elemental “spirit” associated with the air and water of the island, in stark contrast to the “monster” that is Caliban, connected to the isle’s earth and rocks. Ariel has been subjugated by Prospero, a magician of vast power cast away on the island with his three-year-old daughter after being exiled from his position of duke of Milan. Prospero uses Ariel as an agent of his imagination to do his bidding over the 12 years that father and daughter have been on the island, especially to carry out his plan to avenge himself on those who have wronged him and restore himself to his dukedom in Milan. Ariel is a gentle spirit, a gracious one and eager to please, who is both thankful to Prospero for having freed him from the imprisonment in the tree by the witch Sycorax, but also anxious to be granted his own freedom by Prospero so he can return to the elements, a freedom that Prospero has promised him once his plans for dealing with his enemies have been achieved. This, without getting into the specific details, is Ariel’s role in the play, and most readers and critics recognize the essential nature of Ariel as a servant to the powerful Prospero who, not only being a wizard, is Shakespeare’s stand-in for the artist, even for the playwright himself.
But not Grace Tiffany.
In her preposterous spin on Shakespeare’s story, Ariel is a dangerous, hateful female spirit who has somehow been born from the dying thoughts of a Jewish sailor blown all the way across the Atlantic from the coast of Malta after a storm separated him from his master’s ship. His name was Jasper (seriously, Jasper?), and his master was the apostle Paul. Jasper (?) washes up on the shores of an island in the Bermuda Triangle. Like Athena, I guess, but a whole lot meaner, Ariel pops out of Jasper’s head and lives alone on the island for hundreds of years as Jasper’s bones bleach in the sun. She’s not Wisdom, though. And in keeping with Shakespeare, or at least in keeping with some of the interpretations of Shakespeare’s character, she seems to be the embodiment of the Imagination.
In her isolation, Ariel gives birth to three minions, Intellect, Madness, and Fantasy, and the four of them enjoy themselves on the island, although they seem to be trapped in the Triangle itself. But if that all seems strange—how, for example, does the Imagination exist absent the artist? and doesn’t Mind (“Nous” in Tiffany’s words) give rise to Imagination, not the other way around?—don’t fret yourself worrying about the particulars because as the story develops things get more and more ridiculous.
Ariel longs to leave the Triangle, not for the sake of freedom, which would fit in nicely with Shakespeare’s ideas, but because she is curious about the people who live beyond the wall of the Triangle on the other side of the island. She hears their drums and for some reason has a strong impulse to conquer the rest of this island and subdue the peoples she imagines must be making this racket. After several hundred years stuck in the Triangle, Ariel sees a young pregnant woman washed onto the shores of her island, Sycorax, a Saxon who has been kidnapped by Vikings and working on their ship. She gives birth to a dark-skinned baby (Caliban) whose father was apparently an African traveling with these Vikings. Ariel doesn’t help with the birthing process (although she gives birth to her three minions, Ariel doesn’t know nuthin' about birthin' no babies), and Sycorax somehow curses Ariel to be imprisoned in a tree. How? I dunno. Don’t worry about it. You won’t make sense of any of the book.
Ariel hates Sycorax and her handsome boy Caliban (I know…) who suffers a twisted leg from Ariel not helping with the birth. And then from her tree prison, Ariel somehow convinces Caliban to poison his mother, and several years later an old man and his three-year-old daughter wash up on the island and the storyline of The Tempest follows.
Or not…because here are just a few of the details in Tiffany’s story:
•Prospero is a farmer, not a Duke, and he’s a bad farmer, as well as a bad poet.
•Prospero wasn’t exiled. Apparently he did something dumb, like take his daughter and a bunch of books and get in a boat to go to some Greek poetry conference and then got blown all the way across the Atlantic.
•Upon arrival on the island, Ariel makes Prospero believe himself to be a duke wronged by his brother. His terrible desire for vengeance is all the creation of Ariel, for Prospero doesn’t really want vengeance; he has nothing to take vengeance against. His brother Antonio is well-intentioned and loves him. Sure, he’s better with money than Prospero, who always has his head in a book, but Antonio has kept Prospero’s farm going for him in his 12-year absence, and taken care of Prospero’s grieving wife, Althea.
•Alonso is Antonio’s partner in their farming concern. He doesn’t hate Prospero, either. It’s all so very nice, and would have been if not for that scheming menace, Ariel.
Not only does Ariel fill Prospero’s head with delusions and a desire to harm the people who love him, but she also desires to harm the noble Caliban and poisons Prospero’s mind against him. Ultimately, her great plan after Prospero avenges himself against Antonio and Alonso and does away with Caliban is to get Prospero to take her beyond the wall so that she can dominate the rest of the island and conquer whoever is playing those goshdarn drums. In Grace’s retelling, Ariel is a sadistic maniac seeking to spread misery and destruction, and Prospero is a rather foolish incompetent. All he can really do is read books, which is really a big waste of time, although his brother does concede near the end of the story, “Work is good, but stories have their place.” Gee thanks, Miss Tiffany!
At the end, several centuries after Prospero has abandoned Ariel on the island, someone does show up who is perfect for the seed of evil that Ariel wants to spread. And look who it is: My, my, it’s Christopher Columbus, arriving on the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria!
Let’s see, a dying Jewish sailor/Christian missionary gives rise to an idea that is embraced by a Genoese explorer and his expanding civilization that leads to the genocide of the New World’s indigenous peoples, as well as the institution of slavery in the Americas…ha! If Grace Tiffany had anything going on in this book that even remotely made sense, I’d say that’s almost genius. Except it’s not. It's just poorly written tomfoolery masquerading as a bad YA book. And it's got nothing to do with The Tempest.
Here’s the one bit of the story that really works for me: Remember Claribel, Alonso’s daughter that he marries to the King of Tunis? Well, in Tiffany’s book she’s Claribel the cow, who took top honors at the Lisbon fair and they sold off to some African buyer…now that’s funny stuff!
As for the rest of it? I say we follow Prospero’s lead here and, “deeper than did any plummet sound,” we drown Grace Tiffany’s book.
Here's a slightly better YA book trying to rework The Tempest:
Dennis Covington's Lizard
And here's a much better treatment of The Tempest by a much better author, Margaret Atwood's Hag-Seed, written for the Hogarth Shakespeare series:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
August 19, 2013
I liked this. The author did a lovely job of creating Ariel and making her accessible to humans, while at the same time never letting us forget that Ariel is not human. There are moments when the division is a little weak, but mostly it is strong and consistent. Tiffany also does a nice job of showing how much of what the various humans see or think of feel is a direct result of Ariel's manipulations.
January 30, 2019
"Ariel" was a very outstanding novel to read, but it's one of the first times when reading that I have ever disliked a main character. Ariel's mischievous and fun loving spirit often cannot coexist peacefully with a human's more serious ideas. This added something more to a book, which I have never seen before. Grace Tiffany, did an amazing job at adding description throughout the story. The book is full of adventure, and made me want to continue reading. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy and adventure novels.
July 26, 2014
In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Ariel is a magical spirit that lives on Prospero’s island, serving the magician and desiring only freedom. In Grace Tiffany’s Ariel, Ariel is a conniving liar who cares only for tricks and conquest, a manipulator of everything and everything she comes across. What this means for the unfortunate souls who wash up on the shores of her island is uncertain at best.
Style and Plot:
To say Ariel is an adaptation of The Tempest isn’t quite accurate. Author Grace Tiffany uses the same characters and setting as the famous play, but many things are changed—Ariel is now female, motivations are switched around, origins are developed or expounded on— making the final product something very different from Shakespeare’s work.
Tiffany adds much to The Tempest, developing the geographical context and giving the events a timeline (Ariel was created in the 58th year), which gives the story some striking implications as it progresses. She also gives several characters more dimension, fleshing out their personalities and making what they do much more understandable and accessible than Shakespeare’s original text might allow.
However, the book reads as though the events are being described by a distant observer—apart from the occasional instance where the reader might be drawn in by a powerful emotion, it all feels a bit detached and is mildly interesting at best. Tiffany mixes historical events with Shakespeare’s fiction, which adds relevance to the plot, but it often comes off as clunky. Most of all, while the writing is technically good, it lacks energy. It’s hard to be pulled into the story when it feels like it’s just being passively told, with no real investment.
Characterization:
The titular character is the embodiment of flight and fancy, having been born of the imagination of a dying sailor. She doesn’t understand anything on a human level, is selfish, conniving, and power-hungry (what need has a spirit for conquest?). Nothing that she does can be expected to follow any semblance of logic, rationale, or sympathy. While this effectively gives her a two-dimensional personality, with no care for anything but herself, she’s still a curious character. As humans with a natural sense of empathy, we still find something intriguing about a person that just doesn’t care. Tiffany did a good job of pulling Ariel’s mindset off and letting it affect every little thing she does over the course of the novel.
Tiffany took as many liberties with the rest of the characters as she did with the storyline itself. Though we run into every named character that appears in The Tempest, most of them are changed, some to drastic proportions. Sycorax is Nordic, Prospero isn’t nearly as mystical, Miranda and Caliban have their own thing going on, and the party from Milan is not all it seems to be.
Because of these changes in who the characters fundamentally are, the results of the story are not what the reader might expect. If the ending is held to the standard of Shakespeare (a reasonable standard, considering that Ariel was written by a scholar of Shakespeare), it is far too neat and unsatisfying— but if the book is judged on its own merit, with the understanding that it should be seen as a work separate from The Tempest, then the ending can be read in a better light. It’s hardly dazzling either way, but most Shakespeare enthusiasts will be, at the least, interested in hearing Tiffany’s ideas.
Ariel expounds on the characters and setting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but needs more vitality to make it worth remembering. 3 out of 5 stars.
Style and Plot:
To say Ariel is an adaptation of The Tempest isn’t quite accurate. Author Grace Tiffany uses the same characters and setting as the famous play, but many things are changed—Ariel is now female, motivations are switched around, origins are developed or expounded on— making the final product something very different from Shakespeare’s work.
Tiffany adds much to The Tempest, developing the geographical context and giving the events a timeline (Ariel was created in the 58th year), which gives the story some striking implications as it progresses. She also gives several characters more dimension, fleshing out their personalities and making what they do much more understandable and accessible than Shakespeare’s original text might allow.
However, the book reads as though the events are being described by a distant observer—apart from the occasional instance where the reader might be drawn in by a powerful emotion, it all feels a bit detached and is mildly interesting at best. Tiffany mixes historical events with Shakespeare’s fiction, which adds relevance to the plot, but it often comes off as clunky. Most of all, while the writing is technically good, it lacks energy. It’s hard to be pulled into the story when it feels like it’s just being passively told, with no real investment.
Characterization:
The titular character is the embodiment of flight and fancy, having been born of the imagination of a dying sailor. She doesn’t understand anything on a human level, is selfish, conniving, and power-hungry (what need has a spirit for conquest?). Nothing that she does can be expected to follow any semblance of logic, rationale, or sympathy. While this effectively gives her a two-dimensional personality, with no care for anything but herself, she’s still a curious character. As humans with a natural sense of empathy, we still find something intriguing about a person that just doesn’t care. Tiffany did a good job of pulling Ariel’s mindset off and letting it affect every little thing she does over the course of the novel.
Tiffany took as many liberties with the rest of the characters as she did with the storyline itself. Though we run into every named character that appears in The Tempest, most of them are changed, some to drastic proportions. Sycorax is Nordic, Prospero isn’t nearly as mystical, Miranda and Caliban have their own thing going on, and the party from Milan is not all it seems to be.
Because of these changes in who the characters fundamentally are, the results of the story are not what the reader might expect. If the ending is held to the standard of Shakespeare (a reasonable standard, considering that Ariel was written by a scholar of Shakespeare), it is far too neat and unsatisfying— but if the book is judged on its own merit, with the understanding that it should be seen as a work separate from The Tempest, then the ending can be read in a better light. It’s hardly dazzling either way, but most Shakespeare enthusiasts will be, at the least, interested in hearing Tiffany’s ideas.
Ariel expounds on the characters and setting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but needs more vitality to make it worth remembering. 3 out of 5 stars.
February 5, 2017
Fantastic in all senses of the word! I just picked this book up as a fan of Shakespeare and creative retellings, but finished it with a new respect for the author - this work is beautiful, drawing on postcolonial interpretations of The Tempest while humanizing many of the characters who were just outlines or devices in Shakespeare's work. Not to denigrate Shakespeare in any way at all, his side/marginal characters work well as he uses them, but in this? They're fully drawn,detailed and complex, and fascinating to watch. The author took an intriguing turn away from Shakespeare in making Ariel completely amoral - instead of serving as somewhat of a colonizer's conscience as he does in the play, counseling forgiveness, this one has no qualms about manipulation as art/theatre/fantasy is the essence of her self-propagating existence, driven always on to avoid boredom. She has little conception of ethical issues as humans see them - but she's not unsympathetic. She's a muse, a fae, a manipulator, at once a dark force and a blithe/naive alien, driven throughout by curiosity and creativity. I love the author's choice to humanize/bring down to earth each of the characters with whom Ariel interacts, most notably Prospero and Caliban. On the whole, a gorgeous adaptation, taking license with the characters, but only to bring some greater depth and create, as Ariel herself does, a fascinating (if not always true-to-the-source) tale.
February 12, 2021
This one more or less called out to me at my visit to the library yesterday. I haven't read anything Shakespeare for years, so I had nothing really to compare it to, which might not have been a bad thing; it's always fun going in with a fresh perpective.
I did enjoy the read, overall. Regarding whether I liked the titular character or not is....complicated. I did like that she is a free-spirited, flighty thing that likes to keep herself entertained and won't have anything dull near her (and will even include details to Bible stories if she finds them too boring!). But at the same time she is much like a child who hears stories of grand adventure and battles and wants to have all of these things around her without really understanding what it means. It becomes clear for example that she loves the thought of battles and conquering, but has little to no concept of the death and destruction that would happen as a result; as long as it's not boring to her and people are acknowledging her with reverence somewhere. She yearns for someone human whom she can make her champion,
All things considered, it was an entertaining read, and I recommend it if you happen upon it in a library or bookstore.
I did enjoy the read, overall. Regarding whether I liked the titular character or not is....complicated. I did like that she is a free-spirited, flighty thing that likes to keep herself entertained and won't have anything dull near her (and will even include details to Bible stories if she finds them too boring!). But at the same time she is much like a child who hears stories of grand adventure and battles and wants to have all of these things around her without really understanding what it means. It becomes clear for example that she loves the thought of battles and conquering, but has little to no concept of the death and destruction that would happen as a result; as long as it's not boring to her and people are acknowledging her with reverence somewhere. She yearns for someone human whom she can make her champion,
All things considered, it was an entertaining read, and I recommend it if you happen upon it in a library or bookstore.
October 26, 2008
Um, wow. This was not at all what I expected it to be when I picked it up at the library. Honestly, I thought the cover looked cool. Doesn't it, though? But in terms of the book itself... I liked the idea of redoing Shakespeare (because it's so hard for me to get into his style), but I thought the writing itself was childish (not suitable for a senior in high school, but maybe for freshman and middle schoolers).
The plot was interesting and I loved how manipulative Ariel was throughout the story. Certain places where people would talk of killing or love, she would say, "What is death?" or, "What is love?" and I almost died because those lines are amazing. Ariel's inability to understand fundamental human emotion is... well, sad. But it fuels the novel, so...
Having said everything, I did enjoy it. Just not to the degree where I would want to read it again any time soon. It was just a nice little Sunday distraction. Who needs to write a paper about Othello?
The plot was interesting and I loved how manipulative Ariel was throughout the story. Certain places where people would talk of killing or love, she would say, "What is death?" or, "What is love?" and I almost died because those lines are amazing. Ariel's inability to understand fundamental human emotion is... well, sad. But it fuels the novel, so...
Having said everything, I did enjoy it. Just not to the degree where I would want to read it again any time soon. It was just a nice little Sunday distraction. Who needs to write a paper about Othello?
February 4, 2015
This was a cool little book. I've had it on my shelf for a while and hadn't gotten around to reading it. I'm always a sucker for a Shakespeare-related book, and The Tempest is a great play. I really liked the way the author re-worked the relationship between Ariel and Prospero, and between Miranda and Caliban. Having Ariel act more like a fae spirit was very interesting - she's far more self-centered and narcissistic in this version of the story, which lends an interesting twist to the plot. We get to meet Sycorax too - her tie-in to Vikings intrigued me. It was nice to have a happy ending for everyone, including Caliban, even if it was extremely tidy the way things turned out. But what else would you expect from a youth-level book? Ariel's final conquest at the end was also a cool twist - no spoilers though :)
March 10, 2014
I loved this book.
I also really love main character conflics, where you're not sure what to feel towards them.
i love fantasy books like this one
i love small... magic books
But over all, the plot line confused me a bit. but once i got into it, it was pretty understandable. and it's a bit weird to follow along to, but it's also a bit action packed (Well in my opinion anyways)
but i love books like this and i clung to this book from the start
i recommend it.
I also really love main character conflics, where you're not sure what to feel towards them.
i love fantasy books like this one
i love small... magic books
But over all, the plot line confused me a bit. but once i got into it, it was pretty understandable. and it's a bit weird to follow along to, but it's also a bit action packed (Well in my opinion anyways)
but i love books like this and i clung to this book from the start
i recommend it.
August 21, 2023
I struggled to rate this book. For the first half, I struggled to get through, to care about the plight of the characters, particularly before Prospero entered. Ariel is so one-dimensional (though I do believe that's authorial choice) but so are many of the other characters.
That said, I really enjoyed the second half of the book. It twisted the source play in a unexpected and playful way, and allowed Prospero his humanity and his redemption in a way that felt true to the characters.
That said, I really enjoyed the second half of the book. It twisted the source play in a unexpected and playful way, and allowed Prospero his humanity and his redemption in a way that felt true to the characters.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 12, 2009
I was not expecting much from this YA book that a friend lent me. However, it was pretty good. The use of the characters and scenes from Shakespeare's "Tempest" lends itself to the imagination of another story that could take place on the mysterious island where the survivors of the shipwreck find themselves.
Interesting developments kept me reading on to the end.
Interesting developments kept me reading on to the end.
December 17, 2017
I quite enjoyed this! I went in not realizing it was a retelling of the tempest, so I read that while reading this and it was a decent adaptation in my opinion. Ariel is a bit creepy but I feel misunderstood as well, she doesn't understand humans because she isn't human so I feel like holding her to the same moral system seems a bit foolish! Overall, I enjoyed it!
June 2, 2018
Tiffany's plot takes Shakespeare's: The Tempest and changes the focus to Ariel. In Tiffany's hands, Ariel's inhumanity is emphasized by her cruelty towards Caliban. In some ways, Tiffany's interpretation of Ariel is similar to J.M. Barry's: Tinkerbell. The changes made to the well known play are intriguing.
February 20, 2016
Born of a dying man's dream, clinging to life in lies and fantastic tales is Ariel. She never understood the truth of humanity, but knew enough to use Caliban & Prospero to her schemes. Nice for light reading or an in-between series book.
September 1, 2016
Shakespeare's character from "The Tempest" fleshed out.
September 18, 2011
Shakespeare-influenced. Wow, intense and slightly dark, tragic love, the play Tempest as a novel from the spirit's point of view. Good, good, good.
April 16, 2008
this book is not what I expected...its pretty weird...not that great...it looked good though..but it wasn;t..
not really reccomended...
not really reccomended...
July 14, 2008
One of the weirdest books I ever read.
April 2, 2010
I'ts interesting
January 8, 2012
Not nearly as cool as it could of and should have been. A missed opportunity for the author.
February 20, 2014
I really enjoyed this book. I think the ending was wonderful!
June 26, 2014
This book was weird right from the start. It reminded me of a Disney cartoon on Acid. I know there was supposed to be some message to the story but it just wasn't executed well.
May 8, 2021
I enjoyed this book. The author did a good job of taking the story of "The Tempest" and making it her own by telling it from the point of view of Ariel.
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