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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb re-creation of the probably real Macbeth, 2 Feb 1999
By A Customer
This is a book I have read again and again with increasing pleasure. The story of Macbeth as written by Shakespeare paints him as a double-dyed villain. Here we see what COULD have been the true story - an awkward and fatherless boy growing up in Orkney, Caithness and Moray under the hand of a Norwegian guardian, a Scottish mother and a Moray step-father; a gawky but intensely intelligent young Earl of some-of-Orkney, desperate to win the respect of his people and regain his stolen inheritance; and at the end an almost unwilling king of Alba, thrust to the forefront by the death - some would say murder - of his half-brother. Both were grandsons of King Malcom of Alba (Scotland) and sons of Bethoc the king's daughter - Macbeth/Thorfinn fathered by Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, and Malcom fathered by Crinan the mintmaster. The possibility that the historical Thorfinn of Orkney was the semi-fictional Macbeth of Alba is chronicled elsewhere, and Thorfinn, particularly with regard to his Mormaership of Caithness and Moray, is an indubitably historical character. The fact that he was married to the Norwegian Ingjeborg (Groa) is also historically documented, and recounted fictionally by Nigel Tranter in his knowledgeable novels featuring Malcom Canmore - Thorfinn's nephew, whom Ingjeborg married after Thorfinn/Macbeth's death. Whatever his historical provenance, Thorfinn of Orkney, like all Dorothy Dunnett's primary characters, stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries. This brilliant story of 10th century Scotland, Norway, England and all Europe, even if you don't believe that Thorfinn WAS Macbeth, teaches you so much about what it must have been like to be alive at that time, when Emma of Normandy, Canute's widow, was still the power behind the throne in Winchester, Norway held sway in most of north-east England and William the Norman was poised at the other side of the Channel to reap the seeds that Emma had sown in the fields of southern England. A tremendous novel, and like all Ms Dunnett's books, needing more than one read to grasp the full complexity of the story. Buy it - and be enthralled!
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Vividly enthralling account of the life of Macbeth, 6 Aug 2000
By A Customer
Dorothy Dunnett's finest achievement, King Hereafter brings to life Macbeth and the epoch in which he lived so vividly that it puts to shame Shakespeare's hatchet job of one of Scotland's finest kings. Do not be put off by the size of the book, as from the first page the reader is enthralled. Whenever I pick up a Dorothy Dunnett novel, I find myself living the book (which does not make me easy to live with, according to my nearest and dearest). She is truly one of Scotland's greatest writers, historians and storytellers, of a stature comparable to Sir Walter Scott.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Miraculous reconstruction of Macbeth, 18 Oct 2006
Forget Shakespeare, this is the 'real' Macbeth... as Dunnett imagines him. Half-christian, half-pagan; half-Scottish, half Norse; Macbeth grows before our eyes from an unprepossessing and angry boy, to a man, a warrior and a king.
Like Dunnett's other magisterial books (the Lymond chronicles and House of Niccolo) this isn't ever an easy, formulaic or comfortable read, and the intricacies of the politics means that you have to read this more than once to have even a hope of understanding what is happening, but as any of Dunnett's fanatical fans will tell you, the effort is more than worth the payback.
In some ways this is a very different book from the two series, set in the Renaissance - but the brutality of the politics fits the geography of Scotland, Orkney and Scandanavia admirably.
As always in Dunnett, though the political intrigues are based on fact, the true fascination is with her characters, and here Thorfinn/Macbeth and his wife take and deserve centre stage.
The fact that we know how the story will end, is used magnificently by Dunnett, so that as readers we read with a growing dread that must surely mimic the feelings of the characters and still wish that somehow that end can be averted.
Magnificent, alive and ultimately heart-breaking, this is one of my all-time favourite novels.
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by Dorothy Dunnett
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