Favorite of the Hogarth so far.

Perhaps I am just too much of the peasant class, but I have yet to like one of these Hogarth Press re-imaginings of Shakespeare's plays. I had hoped that their "King Lear" entry, "Dunbar", would change that since it was by Edward St. Aubyn, author of the Patrick Melrose novels which I loved, marveled at, and read more than once.

Alas. No. There is nothing new enough about it to justify the re-telling, and the having to hew to a pre-ordered plot seems to have leached away his wit, incisive emotional acuity, and style. Too, perhaps, at this point in history, it is difficult to summon any sympathy for the ruination of a delusional, patriarchal nut-job who has thrived on wielding his power and influence.

We can only hope . . . .

I don’t really know King Lear nearly as well as I should, but it sounds like it’s pretty nuts. Loved this and love this series.

A version of King Lear with a media mogul as the beleaguered king. It feels a bit redundant after Succession but there are some excellent sentences. The man can write but here I felt the story was almost like an exercise.

I added a star because the reader here--Henry Goodman--is so very fantastic. It takes a while to set the volume appropriately as his dynamic range swings from muttering to bellowing, but hotdamn is he fantastic.

The novel itself is...fine? It wisely breaks from the strictures of King Lear early and recasts the story in broad strokes rather than some more tedious analogy, but the end comes with a suddenness that falls flat. Much of this is convincing and stands well on its own merits, but as the story nears its conclusion and returns to the sudden death of Florence (Cordelia), St. Aubyn relies too much on the emotional weight we might carry over from King Lear. Some decompression--a bit more to flesh out the relationship between Dunbar and Florence--would help us feel her death and Dunbar's despair more acutely. Lear is the only Shakespeare play that really makes me feel, and that depth is lost here in a conclusion that rushes itself, seemingly out of fidelity to the source material.

A modern day retelling of Shakepeare's "King Lear" with a "once all-powerful head of a global media corporation" as the Lear.

This book started with a bang. I was so impressed by how the author set the scene and wove difficult characters into modern telling. How do you incorporate a royal fool/court jester? You make him a troubled comedian being treated for chronic alcoholism at the same facility as the main character!

The writing and dialog was also brilliant at the beginning. And then it began to drag...and drag. A few pages spent in the mind of an old man losing his mind is plenty. This went on for far too long. In Mr. St. Aubyn's defense the same could be said for the original play of King Lear.

The ending really annoyed me. It wasn't bad, just very, very abrupt. After many pages of rambling thoughts we get to the wrap-up, the completion of schemes, and backstabbing and bad behavior and shenanigans and we get a whimper instead of a bang.

I am not sad I read this, but I think I would recommend watching HBO's "Succession" over this for a very similar tale.

This was gorgeous and brutal, just as Lear should be.

Updated rankings of Hogarth retellings thus far:

1. The Gap Of Time (The Winter's Tale)
2. Dunbar (King Lear)
3. Hagseed (The Tempest)
4. Vinegar Girl (The Taming Of The Shrew)
5. New Boy (Othello)

Really looking forward to Jo Nesbo's take on the Scottish Play next year.

I won this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway, so here is my review:

I am a fan of Shakespeare. Not a fan of reading his plays, but a fan of seeing and experiencing his words as they were meant to be experienced: aloud. I took a college class or two about Shakespeare and have a vague recollection of the ferocity contained in Lear and was hopeful for an inventive or novel retelling of the original. I am sad to say that this book was rather bland. It began with Dunbar (Lear) and Peter (the clown) and moved outward introducing the other characters. I felt that Florence was still much too two-dimensional of a character, even though St. Aubyn had bothered to give her more of a back story, and a love interest, she was still flat to me. Her sisters weren't much better, one appearing to be a violent sociopath who enjoyed S&M and the other being a caricature of a typical rich, powerful woman. It was a faithful retelling of the story, to the point where nothing was surprising except for the abruptness of the end of the book. One major complaint I had was the way Peter was written. He was clearly meant to be a man of many voices -- I pictured Robin Williams in the role -- but it was hard to follow the characterization of his delivery with it changing so consistently.

Overall, it was okay. I knew what was going on, I understood why it was all happening, and felt like St. Aubyn tried to give a lot of insight to Dunbar's inner monologues. I had hoped for more, since writing a book allows for omniscient narration and the ability to delve deeper into the characters than a play might allow for. Alas, this was not to be and I felt gypped that this version of Lear lacked all the passion the original brings to the world.