HjemGrupperSnakMereZeitgeist
Søg På Websted
På dette site bruger vi cookies til at levere vores ydelser, forbedre performance, til analyseformål, og (hvis brugeren ikke er logget ind) til reklamer. Ved at bruge LibraryThing anerkender du at have læst og forstået vores vilkår og betingelser inklusive vores politik for håndtering af brugeroplysninger. Din brug af dette site og dets ydelser er underlagt disse vilkår og betingelser.

Resultater fra Google Bøger

Klik på en miniature for at gå til Google Books

Indlæser...

Rough Magic

af Caryl Cude Mullin

MedlemmerAnmeldelserPopularitetGennemsnitlig vurderingOmtaler
295807,858 (3.5)4
Follow the interwoven stories of two girls and one woman, their lives all tied to the enigmatic figure of Caliban, the character first introduced by Shakespeare in The Tempest, his famous play of love, loyalty and magic. Rough Magicforms both prequel and sequel, telling the stories of the sorceress Sycorax, Caliban's mother; Miranda's daughter Chiara, who becomes like a daughter to Caliban; and Calypso, a magical young woman with ties to them all. All three women must fight against a world that sees magic as evil and uses women as political pawns. Finally, it is the island and its power that draws them all back, demanding amends from the humans who have exploited its natural wonders. A magical story that combines an old-fashioned tale of shipwrecks, adventure and sacrifice, with an inspiring message of the earth's power and our environmental responsibility. Caryl Cude Mullingrew up on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and as a result developed an abiding fascination with islands and odd characters. She now lives in Montreal, Quebec, where she works as a teacher and writer.… (mere)
Ingen
Indlæser...

Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog.

Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog.

» Se også 4 omtaler

Viser 5 af 5
Rough Magic is the story of the island in the Tempest. Caliban is the main character with Miranda and Prospero being side notes. It meanders through three generations of powerful witches, the first being Sycorax who makes an inexplicable decision to kill her first husband, leaver her daughter and run off with the king of an invading army (a choice that isn't very well justified or explained and comes out of nowhere) instead of protecting her realm. This eventually leads to her being exiled to the waste of an island by the same king. She is pregnant and mad. She has Caliban on the island, which turns out ot be full of magic. needing more power, she steals the magic from the island releasing a chain of events that would affect the next couple of generations.

Although some sections of the book sing, it is an uneven, patchy song. Her description of the relationship between Caliban and Miranda's daughter, Chiara is beautiful. Prospero is well portrayed, becoming a stubborn, not unkind but petulant alchemist. The story belongs mainly to Chiara and to Caliban, but too much time is spent on Sycorax's past and at the end, an important character is suddenly introduced. The relevance of the first part of Sycorax is not made clear until quite a ways in the book. Characters suddenly appear and then suddenly disappear without much explanation. Choices are not well explained, but seem more like whims. I think this might be Mullen's first novel. Although it is uneven, I am curious to see her more seasoned writing, as the parts in the middle, with Caliban and Chiara were well worth the read. ( )
  wiremonkey | Feb 5, 2011 |
An interesting take on Shakespeare's "The Tempest"--although I know only vaguely the plot of the original; I haven't read it--and because it's a quick read, it manages to pull you in. The characters all have their strengths and faults, and Mullin manages to make you feel for all of them, even the supposed "bad" characters (in Mullin's version, not Shakespeare's). It's not a deep book, but it's a good way to pass the weekend. ( )
  DebBaze | Jan 18, 2011 |
This is a YA fantasy that spans multiple generations, all of them important to each other and none that could be glossed over without missing some essential element of the tale as a whole. Not an easy task to accomplish, yet Caryl Mullin carries it off with grace and style.

The GoodReads description, I find, does not do this novel justice. With mentions of "earth's power" and "evironmental responsibility", one could almost expect a book filled with heavy-handed preaching and obvious neo-pagan elements. That isn't what you'll find in this novel. This isn't a, "clean up the world or we'll all suffer later," book of doom and gloom, but rather an engaging story that happens to have strong elements of, "one of the last places in which magic freely exists is dying because people arew fallible and we made some serious mistakes." It isn't heavy-handed. It is done beautifully, which makes that message far more enjoyable to see and tolerable to hear.

Because let's face it, nobody really enjoys being preached at.

This book will also be a treat for anybody who enjoys seeing strong female characters in the media. From a powerful sorceress to a girl who's just so very competant and forthright that you can't help but like her, this book puts women in the spotlight and does it with flair, but doesn't relegate males to the background as completely unimportant to the plot. Both sides of the gender coin get their fair and wonderful treatment.

A page-turner from beginning to end! This is one book that I'm proud to recommend to just about everybody!

(Received for review direct from Second Story Press) ( )
1 stem Bibliotropic | Jul 2, 2010 |
Characters of Shakespeare’s The Tempest get revisited and retold in ROUGH MAGIC. Sycorax is a sorceress whose unfortunate lot in life banishes her to live on a magical island with her ugly son, Caliban. A man named Prospero and his daughter Miranda shipwreck on the island, and Prospero makes Caliban his magical slave. Caliban returns with Prospero and Miranda to the mainland, where he befriends Miranda’s plain daughter, the princess Chiara.

To protect Chiara from being a pawn in her father’s political plans, Caliban brings her back to his island, where they must undergo a series of difficult tasks in order to restore the island’s magic. Along the way they meet Calypso, a mysterious and magical woman with connections to them that they don’t know…

ROUGH MAGIC will appeal to lovers of ambitious fantasy chronicles, but not those looking for Shakespeare-related literature or well-written characters. Indeed, I was more than disappointed especially as the premise sounded interesting and promised the discussion of issues such as feminism. Unfortunately, it is a poorly written and narratively overdone tale.

ROUGH MAGIC was difficult to swallow because it tried to tell four characters’ stories in the course of about 200 pages. The story moves over several decades and lifetimes; as a result, important, character-defining events are merely glimpses that poke in and out within one chapter, never to be mentioned again. Additionally, nearly every chapter tends to awkwardly explain in flashbacks the life-altering events that occurred since the last chapter. This skipping-stone method of narration ensures that we readers never feel as if there is any action going on, since everything important seems to have happened invisibly between the chapters!

All of the characters are weak because they did not have the time and room within the book to develop. I had immense difficulties connecting with and understanding the motivations of any character, so either vaguely or lumberingly were they when they took up space on the pages. ROUGH MAGIC reads more like an extensive character study of four very different characters rather than an actual story.

That being said, the world that ROUGH MAGIC creates for us is a rough-and-tumble, fantastical one. I enjoyed the idea of the island’s wildness being almost a character in itself. While the enormous task of developing four characters over a period of several dozen years was ultimately unsuccessful, the storyline did bring up a number of interesting “mini-stories” that I would’ve perhaps liked to see in short story format—in particular, Sycorax’s development from reckless sorceress to repressed courtwoman under her husband’s hand.

Unfortunately, ROUGH MAGIC was not very successful in telling a clear and intelligible story, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its attractions. Readers and writers may do well in considering this book as an example of what not to do with one’s own writing: overly ambitious and directionless saga-stories will drag a perfectly intriguing idea down to its death. ( )
  stephxsu | Aug 20, 2009 |
Reviewed by Cat for TeensReadToo.com

Forget everything you know about THE TEMPEST, 'cause Caryl Cude Mullin's ROUGH MAGIC ain't your mama's Shakespeare.

Born of a corrupt king and power-hungry sorceress queen, raised in complete isolation on an island stripped of its magic, Caliban - previously portrayed as a nonsensical, gibbering rapist - takes center stage. In contrast, this Caliban is a quiet, gentle soul, subject to the whims of a magic-maddened mother, angry island spirits, and a pompous, self-important alchemist king.

Caryl Cude Mullin depicts not just the events of William Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST, but the origins of Caliban's mother, his childhood on the island, his subsequent departure as Prospero's servant, and his final return.

Spread out among multiple characters, including Prospero's granddaughter, Chiara, and a mysterious young girl disguised as a boy; the expanded narrative allows for a rich, nuanced exploration that has, until now, been one-dimensional. Ms. Mullin depicts the characters' plights with such sophistication and deft that it's possible to empathize with each one, even the villains.

Books like this are a rare and genuine treat. ( )
  GeniusJen | Jan 29, 2010 |
Viser 5 af 5
ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse

Er en genfortælling af

Du bliver nødt til at logge ind for at redigere data i Almen Viden.
For mere hjælp se Almen Viden hjælpesiden.
Kanonisk titel
Originaltitel
Alternative titler
Oprindelig udgivelsesdato
Personer/Figurer
Vigtige steder
Vigtige begivenheder
Beslægtede film
Indskrift
Tilegnelse
Første ord
Citater
Sidste ord
Oplysning om flertydighed
Forlagets redaktører
Bagsidecitater
Originalsprog
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

Henvisninger til dette værk andre steder.

Wikipedia på engelsk

Ingen

Follow the interwoven stories of two girls and one woman, their lives all tied to the enigmatic figure of Caliban, the character first introduced by Shakespeare in The Tempest, his famous play of love, loyalty and magic. Rough Magicforms both prequel and sequel, telling the stories of the sorceress Sycorax, Caliban's mother; Miranda's daughter Chiara, who becomes like a daughter to Caliban; and Calypso, a magical young woman with ties to them all. All three women must fight against a world that sees magic as evil and uses women as political pawns. Finally, it is the island and its power that draws them all back, demanding amends from the humans who have exploited its natural wonders. A magical story that combines an old-fashioned tale of shipwrecks, adventure and sacrifice, with an inspiring message of the earth's power and our environmental responsibility. Caryl Cude Mullingrew up on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and as a result developed an abiding fascination with islands and odd characters. She now lives in Montreal, Quebec, where she works as a teacher and writer.

No library descriptions found.

Beskrivelse af bogen
Haiku-resume

Current Discussions

Ingen

Populære omslag

Quick Links

Vurdering

Gennemsnit: (3.5)
0.5
1
1.5 1
2 1
2.5
3 2
3.5 1
4
4.5
5 3

Er det dig?

Bliv LibraryThing-forfatter.

 

Om | Kontakt | LibraryThing.com | Brugerbetingelser/Håndtering af brugeroplysninger | Hjælp/FAQs | Blog | Butik | APIs | TinyCat | Efterladte biblioteker | Tidlige Anmeldere | Almen Viden | 202,649,423 bøger! | Topbjælke: Altid synlig