“It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change.”

Disclaimer: I received this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am not intimmately familiar with either Jeanette Winterson or The Winter’s Tale, but I was intrigued behind the idea of the Hogarth Shakespeare collection and was able to read this through NetGalley.

Obviously, The Gap of Time modernizes Shakespeare’s work, changing the setting, some character names, and other superficial details, but retaining the driving themes of the original (the summary of which is included in the beginning of Winterson’s story, for reference.) It goes like this: a wealthy and powerful man — in Shakespeare, a king; in Winterson, an entrepreneur — becomes irrationally convinced of his pregnant wife’s infidelity, and upon the birth of the child sends her away, believing she is not his daughter. The trauma of all of these events results in both the estrangement of the couple as well as the loss of their first born son, while the daughter grows up blissfully unaware of her connections to this broken family. Eventually, through some fated coincidences many years later, the key players are reunited in tentative forgiveness, with the suggestion of rekindled and growing new relationships.

The first part of Winterson’s adaptation is very difficult to read. Consumed by rage, Leo has an utterly grotesque inner monologue filled with any and all imaginable epithets one could direct toward one’s wife or queer best friend. When his emotion turns murderous and abusive, it’s nigh impossible to not completely loathe the guy. Personally, I believed that he doesn’t deserve the redemption that is coming to him, he made me so disgusted.

After the flash forward, where we meet Perdita, Leo’s grown daughter, the acerbity of the writing mellows a bit and the story becomes rather sweet. The shift in tone is exemplified by interactions between Perdita and her adoptive family, who are goodhearted and clearly love her. You know that, even if Leo’s paranoid conspiracy theory-based meltdown had never occurred, Perdita would still be better off being raised by the adoptive father she ended up with. And that’s one exploration of the story that occurs after they are reunited: Leo’s values and philosophy on life are interrogated:

“Leo, you’re one of the guys who makes the world the way it is. I’m one of the guys who lives in the world the way it is… And money and power being the most important things to you, you reckon they are the most important things to those that don’t have them. Maybe to some people they are — because the way guys like you have fixed the world, only a lottery ticket can change it for guys like me. Hard work and hope won’t do it anymore. The American Dream is done.
“I guess we’re different there, you and me, Leo, because owning doesn’t mean that much to me. Seems like it’s one of the miseries of the world.”

I don’t have much to say in the way of criticism. The Gap of Time is a provocative, well-executed short story that is respectful of its source material. For my own taste, Leo’s repulsiveness was a bit heavy-handed, but I believe the histrionics may have themselves been a nod to the high drama inherent in Shakespeare’s tragedies (not that Winter’s Tale is considered one, but it does share some dark, psychological characteristics with the classic tragedies.)

After seeing some of the other authors participating in the Hogarth collection and encountering Winterson’s successful attempt here, I’m looking forward to reading the other adaptations.