ARTS & CULTURE
Book Club CAMBRIDGE EDITION A CLASSIC REIMAGINED, A SWEEPING FAMILY HISTORY AND A THOUGHT-PROVOKING THRILLER ARE THIS MONTH’S MUST-READS
WORDS BY CHARLOTTE GRIFFITHS
Learwife BY J.R. THORP This fascinating concept shines the
spotlight on a character traditionally in the background: the wife of King Lear, Shakespeare’s tragic anti-hero and mother of his three infamous daughters. She only appears in two vague references (one to her being dead) in the original play, yet is given her own voice in this genre-defying debut from J.R. Thorp. We meet the 55-year-old queen in the convent she was banished to 15 years prior – just after the birth of her youngest, Cordelia – and told to ‘pray for the soul of the king’. Accompanied by her maid Ruth, she learns, like someone waiting outside the theatre doors of the tragic play, about the multiple deaths which have unfolded. Her husband and daughters are dead, her family disgraced – and she reels under the waves of grief, thrust into the knowledge of this harsh new world, while still physically locked within the convent’s walls. She reminisces about old conversations with her husband, her life in court, and – assuming she’s now free to go – makes plans to leave to find her family’s graves, and perhaps seek out her old friend, Kent. “I have been so quiet,” she says. “I have done my penance fivefold. Nobody could tell me for what, and I took the punishment in any case, because the king my love required it.” Her requests to leave are blocked by the abbess, who asks the nameless queen to stay, pointing out the hazardous and futile nature of the journey. The royal mother unwillingly agrees, stalking the walls, turning events over and over in her mind, in beautifully transporting prose that almost read like modernist poetry in places. The shards of meaning in her sentences only become clear when you let the words wash across you, slipping effortlessly between narrative and memory, sense and nonsense. The
subjectivity of madness and how to recognise it in others is one of the brightest themes woven into this beautiful book. The queen makes further attempts to leave, but sickness comes to the convent and the nuns are locked in quarantine together until Lent, faced with the all-too- real possibility of death at any moment. The abbess sickens and dies, lying in a “cave of her madness” for days, before leaving the convent rudderless. The remaining women jostle for power, while Thorp’s queen – outside the system, yet still within the walls – reigns supreme, sharing stories from her past, slipping into the present and back again. “And women last,” the queen observes. “Men rise and fall in sheaves, every season shaving down a new crop – war, honour. Women are weaker but we last: we sink into age, grow long bones, tell stories, hoard four score and ten. We get old and hairy and forget naught.” This immersive, wonderfully constructed book spans grief, love, duty and power, and is a must for anyone who enjoys feminist-focused reimaginings.
WAYS OF SEEING As a sort of retelling, Learwife is an outstanding example of a novel reimagining classic tales, a genre which has experienced a wave of popularity in recent years
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK NOVEMBER 2021 23
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