Winterson wrestles wonderfully with a perplexing text and emerges with a
complicated, satisfying and contemporary tale that stands wholly on its
own, despite the Bard’s significant shadow.
The Winter’s Tale, one of the late, 'problem' plays, is a story about loss, remorse and forgiveness, and the nature of time. Winterson has captured all this with evident respect and affection for Shakespeare’s text, and made it new with her own bold and poetic prose and her insights into love and grief.
Readers unfamiliar with the play will gain little from Winterson's retelling: her characters are incorporeal without Shakespeare's characters standing behind them.
