Prospero's Daughter: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: blue eyed hag, red leather bound book, Inspector Mumsford, Port of Spain, Miss Sylvia (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nunez (Bruised Hibiscus; Grace) critiques colonialist assumptions about race and class in this ambitious reworking of The Tempest, set in her native Trinidad in the early 1960s. Dr. Peter Gardner (the Prospero figure) arrives on the island with his baby daughter after a botched medical experiment in England made him an outlaw. The novel's Caliban is Carlos, a mixed-race orphan whose house on an outlying island the doctor steals. Gardner teaches the boy biology, astronomy, music—"an exclusively European education," Carlos later reflects—but his natural brilliance far surpasses anything the doctor can impart. Inevitably, Carlos and Gardner's daughter, Virginia (Miranda), fall in love; the doctor, in a paroxysm of rage at the thought of a sexual union between his daughter and a dark-skinned man, accuses Carlos of attempted rape. As the criminal charge is investigated, Nunez reveals Gardner to be the real criminal—not only toward Carlos, but also toward his native servant, Ariana (Ariel), and Virginia herself. With its strong themes and dramatic ironies, this story should speak for itself; Nunez, however, overexplains her material, forecasting plot developments and leaning, at times, toward didacticism. But while her portrait of demonic scientist Gardner remains superficial, readers will find her love story—which has a refreshingly happy ending—very sensitively told. (Feb.)
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From The Washington Post

Crime and punishment always make a good story; crime without punishment, even more titillating. But punishment without a crime? Now that's a good start.

In Prospero's Daughter, Elizabeth Nunez's retelling of "The Tempest" set in the 1960s, John Mumsford, a jaded British inspector, is called to investigate a rape on Chacachacare, a small island off Trinidad's coast that is home to a leper colony. Mumsford fears Trinidad's independence-minded natives, so when he learns that a biracial servant has assaulted a white girl, he resolves to carry out justice. Upon arriving he meets Dr. Peter Gardner, a British scientist mysteriously living in exile on the island with his daughter, Virginia. So far as Mumsford can determine, though, no sex act has occurred. The accused, Carlos Codrington, whom Mumsford finds penned and blistering in the sun, simply made the mistake of quoting "The Tempest" while declaring his love for Virginia to Dr. Gardner: "I had peopled else/ This isle with Calibans."

While "The Tempest" and Nunez's novel share some interesting thematic elements -- both deal with racism, the dangers of art and the usurping of power -- their plots differ significantly. In "The Tempest," after his brother seizes his position as Duke of Milan, Prospero escapes to an uninhabited island with his daughter, Miranda. There they are served by the spirit Ariel, who works Prospero's magic, and Caliban, a deformed slave who claims the island as his own. When Prospero's brother sails nearby, Prospero conjures a tempest and uses the shipwreck to regain his title. Nunez, by contrast, imagines a romance developing over the years between daughter and servant, and thus Gardner unleashes his metaphorical tempest upon Carlos, not his usurping brother.

Gardner's vengeance, fueled by racism and a twisted paternalism (he vows, a bit too passionately, to protect his daughter's "virgin knot"), unfortunately contributes to one of the novel's shortcomings: He is a thief, racist, suspected murderer and rapist. He is just too villainous. The extremity of his evil makes him uninteresting, even unreal. Strangely, no one living under Gardner's roof recognizes the extent of his wickedness. When Virginia asks herself, after Carlos has gone missing and she hears her father drag a large bag across the house, "Was there a connection between the blue bruise on Father's forehead and the loud bang I heard when Carlos closed his door?," it simply strains credibility.

Nunez describes Inspector Mumsford as uncomplicated: "His sense of morality left him no room for shades of good and evil. One was either good or one was evil." But it's precisely this polarized morality that at times compromises the novel itself: Gardner is evil, but Carlos and Virginia are good. Entirely good. It is chiefly Ariana, the female servant based on Shakespeare's Ariel, who meanders intriguingly through the novel as a morally ambiguous character. And the simplicity of her statements -- "They love one another. Bad." -- often strikes a more resonant chord than Carlos's or Virginia's enlightened, intellectual explanations.

Although the characters at times lack complexity, the novel's setting is wonderfully drawn. In vivid prose, Nunez renders the landscape of Chacachacare: "the sweet perfume of overripe fruit and the pungent odor of fried fish and curry that came from the open stalls in front of the shops." And Nunez uses the Trinidad setting to great thematic effect: When Gardner arrives in Chacachacare, he usurps control of the house that Carlos's mother left to him, in effect mirroring the British colonization of Trinidad in 1797. Nunez brilliantly sets Carlos's growing ambitions to reclaim his house against the backdrop of the country's independence movement. These parallels, however, work well because they aren't explicitly stated.

The Virginia-Carlos love story is touching, and the novel moves at a strong pace, but in the final chapters Nunez undercuts the momentum by allowing her characters to spend too much time interpreting the narrative. When Virginia explains that her father believed "the life of a person born of English parents -- a white person -- was worth more than Carlos's life, the life of a black man, the life of a man in whose veins ran the blood of Africans," it feels as though Nunez has lost confidence in the reader. Such explanations bog down the novel, obscuring what might have been a more dramatic finale.

After all, what would become of all those scholars -- the Harold Blooms and Frank Kermodes and Nunez herself, who wrote her dissertation on "The Tempest" -- if Shakespeare had provided, in the midst of his plays, his own interpretation? If between scenes, Iago offered a sociological explanation of his evil deeds, or Lady Macbeth subjected her ambitions to psychoanalysis? Shakespeare's works, of course, have found immortality by asking fascinating questions, not by providing answers. And Prospero's Daughter is at its best when it sparks ideas, not when it explains them.

Reviewed by Jennifer Vanderbes
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345455355
• ISBN-13: 978-0345455352
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,228,444 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ms. Nunez has done it again, November 3, 2006

By	S. Siraaj (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First off, I have to say I am biased because, to-date, I have loved every single book written by Elizabeth Nunez. Needless to say, this book was no exception. Ms. Nunez's well-written, well-crafted take on Shakesphere's Caliban is incredible. Told from the perspective of the "native" this book explores the complexion dynamics of race, class and gender.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Review of Prospero's Daughter, July 4, 2006

By	M. Fetler (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I opened Elizabeth Nunez book, "Prospero's Daughter," expecting an adaptation of Shakespeare's Tempest. The story happens in the West Indies on an island that houses a leper colony. The British Empire is disintegrating, rotted by past practice of slavery and present day racism. Descriptions of the leper colony, tropical heat, and poisonous insects, foretell trouble.

Nunez drew some plot elements from the Tempest. Although Shakespeare's play unwinds in the Mediterranean, readers may see hints of the West Indies, suggested by Strachey's 1610 report of the shipwreck of the Sea Venture near Bermuda. Shakespeare's island is a brave new world, full of enchantment. The lead role, Prospero, was duke of Milan. Betrayed by his brother, Prospero is banished to an island with his daughter, Miranda. They find the uncultured Caliban (whose name suggests "cannibal" or the "Carib" Indian tribe), son of a witch, and Ariel, a sprite that was imprisoned in a tree by the witch. Ariel becomes Prospero's ethereal servant when he frees her. Caliban teaches Prospero how to survive on the island. In repayment Prospero educates Caliban. When Caliban makes sexual advances toward Miranda, Prospero punishes him. The play's theme is redemption: Prospero reconciles with his brother and Miranda marries his brother's son.

Nunez' counterpart to Prospero is Peter Gardner, a mad genius who arrives on the island with his sweet daughter Virginia, fleeing prosecution for conducting medical experiments on people. A good-hearted native, Carlos Codrington (Caliban) is heir to an island estate. Ariana, a servant, lives on the estate with Carlos and his family. At first offering to help, Peter moves into the house and then takes over. Peter educates Carlos. Revealed as a bully, Peter remodels the estate after his own european taste. His rapacious sexual cravings are aimed at the submissive Ariana. Carlos and Virginia fall innocently in love. Enraged by the interracial affair, Peter falsely accuses Carlos of rape, tortures him, and calls in the colonial police. Although the police suspect Carlos and act to protect Virginia's reputation, the truth comes out and the lovers are united. The villainy, frustrated lovers, and happy ending impart a touch of melodrama.

Nunez combines the West Indies first-name "Carlos" with a British last-name, "Codrington." The town Codrington was established in 1666 in the country of Antigua and Barbuda and is the location of a slave rebellion that took place in 1741. "Prospero's Daughter" is less an adaptation of Shakespeare, and more a vigorous criticism of racism in the West Indies. Nunez lived in the West Indies and I see her book as a tale of social justice. Carlos is the central character who embodies the growth of West Indies independence as British influence wanes.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Shakespeare must be spinning, July 31, 2008

By	Ann Ahnemann (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Prospero's Daughter: A Novel (Paperback)

Billed as a modern telling of The Tempest, Nunez hasn't even come close.
This book will give you nightmares and/or ruin your plans to cruise the West Indies, or the appreciation of the Hibiscus blooming so lustily on your deck. Dr. Peter Gardener (get it?), madman to the max. Reading, I could picture Ms. Nunez saying, What more horrible abomination can we dream up for Dr. Gardener to perform?
I didn't get anything of redeeming value from this book. It's not about love, however nobly one tries to conjure it from this book. Prospero's Daughter is a vision of hell on earth. A three because hell was quite well described.