Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey [Book Review]
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.
Jacqueline Carey's Miranda and Caliban is a retelling of Shakespeare's final drama The Tempest. It assumes that Miranda and Caliban had romantic feelings for one another prior to and during the course of the play's narrative.
The Tempest, next to Titus Andronicus, is my favorite Shakespeare play. I enjoy the redemption and journey of forgiveness of a complex character, Prospero, though I can acknowledge he is a racist colonialist and Caliban's fate is an issue, since he essentially presumes the master-servant relationship. The racist and misogynistic parts of Prospero's character are further explored in this novel, as well as detailing his abusive nature and how he orchestrated Miranda and Prince Ferdinand's love without much consideration for her own thoughts on the matter. He has softer moments to keep him complex, but his actions are abhorrent, and he doesn't seem to quite grow past these transgressions even when given what he wants to reclaim.
The prose is beautiful and fits the surreal, magical environment beautifully. Carey, as usual, excels at lyrical descriptions. However, the book's greatest trick is how it treats Caliban's POV. I was not aware this was a dual POV book, but it is, and it goes with Miranda being the one to teach Caliban language, as it was in the play. Caliban's sentences start off as fragmented and binary, but as he learns language, his thoughts are conveyed with more winding imagery and contemplations. I found this narrative technique to be extremely clever and an important aspect of the Miranda and Caliban's relationship.
In the play, Miranda was indeed his kind teacher, and Caliban attempted to rape her and threatened to, essentially, use her as a broodmare, which very much ties into the "aggressive, hypersexual black man attacking white woman" trope that Shakespeare portrayed and, in Titus Andronicus and Othello, explored. Miranda and Caliban sidesteps the attempted rape and Caliban's threat by making everything gentle and consensual, though Caliban does consider murder because if he is treated as a monster no matter what because of his skin color, he may as well be one and find freedom. (On that note, I'm glad to see an adaptation that acknowledges the imperialist overtones of Prospero's actions and Caliban being a man of color, since his mother was from Algiers, and her being blue-eyed is an Elizabethan reference to pregnancy, not her actual eye color.) However, the actual The Tempest section of the novel is brief and Caliban remains devoted and kind to Miranda. The halfway part of the story perhaps has one of the most explosive revelations (and additions) to the novel, but I wish the climax as Caliban plots against Prospero was more detailed.
Also, while I appreciate that the relationship was a bittersweet slow burn, it seemed like it just begun before the conclusion occurred. I think perhaps it is meant to be a mostly-chaste courtship, but I did wish for more payoff and risks. I do think the characters, especially Miranda, weren't quite pushed enough. While, yes, if you follow the trajectory of the play, the ending is inevitable, I did want her to fight her papa more. I can sympathize with her reticence till the last few pages because of the extensive emotional manipulation she endured under her father's control, and I understand her defiance is subtly done, but I hoped for more of a push against the characters' boundaries.
I do like how Carey brought the characters to life, and so Miranda is more complicated than the good maiden she is in the original play. Ariel, too, goes from a character I didn't pay much attention to to an especially vile, mischievous character who incites much of the midway conflict. Kudos to Carey, and I mean this, for making me go from being indifferent to a character to loathing them. That belies a strong reader reaction.
Overall, if you love beautiful, dreamy prose, I'd recommend Miranda and Caliban. However, if you can't stomach fictional depictions of abuse or ritualistic animal death, this may be a difficult read.
The art above, which is part of the book cover, can be found here.
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