The Nature of Things

The Gap of Time was the first entry, published last year, in the Hogarth Shakespeare series. This is the project that has modern writers reimagining the Bard's plays in modern settings. This book is a reimagining - or, in Winterson's own words, a cover - of Shakespeare's play, The Winter's Tale . It is one of his late plays, usually classified as a romance. It starts in tragedy and ends in comedy with everyone, but for two notable exceptions, living happily every after. The tragedy part of the play deals in some heavy psychological drama and the comedy part is replete with Shakespeare's famous misdirections and misunderstandings that are all cleared up in the end. At least this is what I gather from the Wiki information about the play, for, in truth, I have not read it nor have I ever seen a production of it. Neither have I ever read any of Winterson's work, so I come to the book as a complete virgin. The center of Shakespeare's tale is King Leontes of Sici...