Macbeth: A Novel, Hartley and Hewson (narrated by Alan Cumming)

After Agincourt I really didn't think I'd be reviewing an audio book again soon. But just as I finished that one, the Shakespeare Geek tweeted a link to this one. A novel that had been specifically intended to be an audio book. So, of course, I hopped right back to Audible.com and downloaded the 10 hour book.

The authors, in their commentary before and after the novel, said that they didn't want to create a novelized version of the play we know from Shakespeare. They wanted to take that play, like Shakespeare took Holinshed's history, and create something new and visceral to a modern audience. Hot damn did they.

There's enough of the play to recognize lines and elements without it being too on-the-nose (except, I think, the "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech - that sounded almost like a word for word translation). But here we got personal histories, motivations, small elements that change the way we look at the play.

For example, the Macbeths in this novel are not wildly ambitious for the sake of being crowned alone - but for the good of Scotland they believe they have to end Duncan's reign before his spoiled son Malcolm can take it for himself. In feudal Scotland, kings were chosen by a council of thanes, so Duncan naming his son his heir would have changed the way Scotland's political system had worked for hundreds of years. But because we get to be inside the heads of many characters in this novel, we understand his good reasons for making that decision, too. No one is truly good or truly evil - they're all humans.

The Weird Sisters were certainly something. Are they evil? Are they magical? Are they spiteful? Or are they seeking good themselves? Their arc over the course of the book was just as conflicted as everyone else's but with very little history to go off of - leaving them as mysterious as before.

This is a bloody bloody book, too, so not for the faint of heart - nor for the person who hasn't eaten lunch and crams herself on the metro home only to hear the grisly end of one of the main characters and almost faints on the train. Not for you. However, aside from that one incident, the violence actually made the novel really present in my imagination. Duncan's murder was terrifying, and the Macduff family's end was heartbreaking - I found myself almost in tears during that scene.

Will history ever look fondly on the Macbeths? This novel might allow us to, for it's a very human portrayal of two people who wanted better for themselves and their country, and paid too dearly to get it.

You can download this novel for $20 at Audible - and I strongly recommend it. I mean - Alan Cumming's rich brogue is reason enough. See the video below for a sample of the audio and some words from authors A. J. Hartley and David Hewson:

Check it! The paperback novel of this book will be printed in May! You'll be missing the brogue and the music, but getting the great story.

Macbeth: A Novel

• Paperback
• Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (May 21, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1612183018
• ISBN-13: 978-1612183015