| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Red Queen for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
About the Author
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Chosen to be the bride of the Crown Prince when both are ten years old, the Princess abandons her family and marries the prince that year. We hear her adult voice relating the sad changes her husband undergoes after their marriage, as he becomes increasingly fearful and eventually insane, committing atrocities, including murder. "I failed my husband," she says, unable to stop his rampages. Describing her training to be queen, the birth of her children and their fates, and her experience in the claustrophobic court, she breathes life into her descriptions of her unusual existence. Though her observations are honest and fair, her language, not surprisingly, is elegant and formal. She keeps her distance, not really sharing her innermost thoughts and feelings.
In Part II, Babs Halliwell, a contemporary scholar in Oxford, leaves for Korea to deliver a paper at a conference on globalization. Drabble creates obvious parallels between the life of the Princess and that of Halliwell from the outset of Part II. As Halliwell boards the plane, she brings with her a copy of the Princess's memoirs, "sent to her anonymously, packaged in cardboard, through Amazon.com," which she reads in flight.
No reader will miss the parallels between the life of Halliwell and that of the Princess, who "has entered her, like an alien creature in a science-fiction movie." Halliwell's background, her tragedies, her own difficult marriage to a mentally ill husband, and her uncertainties about the future are clearly created to show parallels to the Princess's life. Drabble draws additional parallels between recent news events from around the world and events in the life of the Princess, in an effort to continue the connections across cultures and time.
Those who have studied other cultures may find Drabble's themes obvious and her deliberate parallels lacking in subtlety. She explains these parallels, rather than allowing the reader to discover them. The construction feels artificial, and Drabble's tone is sometimes arch. The diary of the Princess, however, is especially interesting for the light it casts on a way of life almost unknown to contemporary westerners, and for this the novel is both important and fascinating. (3.5 stars) Mary Whipple
It is important to read the prologue to enable one to understand the author's inspiration for this novel.
A story written in two parts, based on historial memoirs narrated first by a Korean Princess in Ancient Times, then in Modern Times through British Academic Dr Babs Halliwell.
A very cleverly constructed narrative as the 'dead' Princess tries to ensure her story is not forgotten through Babs Halliwell's eventual affinity with the Princess.
An intriguing read.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
