I expected greater things from this book than what I received. How can a book about the tumultuous life of a Crown Princess in Korea centuries ago be boring? And yet, it was. For one thing, let us not underestimate the importance of chapters. They are a way for the reader to take a break from the story for reflection and pondering. It seemed as if the first part of the book just kept going on and on and by the time it came to an end it was already fuzzy in my mind. They were so many interesting experiences that got lost in the writing. The second part was better because it didn't try to span an entire life, just a section of a life. Whatever was missing from the first part (indepth descriptions, dialogue, fleshed out experiences) was present in the second, which made the book not an entire waste of time. ( )

I thought this was going to be a good one. Unfortunately, I thought the prose stilted, the characters pathetic and the plot pointless. I got two thirds of the way through, then stopped wasting my time. ( )

This book is in 2 halves, the first one written by the Crown Princess of Korea set in around 1795 (based on some real life memoirs written by the Crown Princess), the second half about a modern day academic reading the memoirs and attending a conference in Korea. I found the writing style a little stilted and overly formal in some parts, but this kind of fitted the topic especially in the first half. I found it was a bit of a slow burner, but the story did draw me in, and I'm tempted to find out more about the real memoirs. ( )

I like Margaret Drabble's work. I know next to nothing about Korean history. And I have a ridiculous fascination with royalty. So Drabble's The Red Queen easily caught my interest with only the barest minimum of jacket copy. Taking a fairly unknown, at least in the West, account written by a Crown Princess in eighteenth century Korea and weaving it into a novel, Drabble has written a completely engrossing story in three sections. The first section, narrated by the Crown Princess' ghost, tells the outline of her life. She married the Crown Prince as a child, long before his later mental illness became not only evident but increasingly dangerous and uncontrollable. She tells of her everyday life, sequestered in the palace, surrounded by political enemies and a few friends. Her account of a priviledged woman's life would be interesting enough without her marriage to the Crown Prince but the manueverings that his illness caused the court and his father the King to emply were also terribly interesting. The second section of the book, once the Western reader is conversant in the Crown Princess' life, focuses on Barbara Halliwell, an English academic travelling to South Korea for a conference, and the chosen "emissary" for the Crown Princess' story. Babs reads the princess' diary on her way to the conference and her interest is so piqued that she spends much of her down time (and a bit of the conference time as well) exploring the places connected to the princess. She is accompanied by a Korean doctor she meets and the pre-eminent speaker from her conference, with whom she embarks on a brief affair. The third section shows Babs after the conference is over and all the momentous events of it are long concluded and it details how the Crown Princess' story will be passed along into the future because it is a story that deserves to be told. There is a neat convention that strikes me as particularly Drabble-esque in this last part of the book but you'll have to read it yourself to see what it is. As always in Drabble's novels, the writing is precise and tight and very well done. The links between the three sections are strong and pull the reader along happily. I am thoroughly glad I took the time to read this one last month and recommend it to others who like depth and thoughtful reading in their lives. ( )

That The Red Queen's author is surnamed "Drabble" is the highest of ironies, considering how bloated, redundant, and masturbatory I found her prose. This novel has a fabulous concept: what if Princess Hyegyong, author of a celebrated late Joseon-era autobiography, were to reach from beyond the grave to influence the life of a 20th century envoy into whose hands Hyegyong has placed her memoirs?

Unfortunately, this concept fails miserably due to Drabble's utter lack of anything approaching talent. When it comes to chronologically-challenged narration, telling-not-showing, inexplicable plot holes, horrid contrivances like flashbacks within flashbacks, and above all multiple self-inserts, Drabble is the worst offender I've encountered since Anne Rice. The Red Queen is 376 pages of endless, mind-numbingly dull exposition provided by Drabble, Princess Hyegyong, and "Babs" the worldly, 20th century rising-star academic who is so obviously Drabble's stand-in it's embarrassing.

Each of these "characters" shares the exact same narrative voice, which is to say a complete lack of any narrative voice whatsoever. And the problems don't stop there. Drabble admits on the first page that she knows next to nothing about Korea and has made no attempt to correct this ignorance, which is why Drabble's Hyegyong thinks and acts like a 20th century Westerner. (In an attempt to excuse this inexcusable laziness, Drabble informs us that Hyegyong acts like a 20th century Westerner because she reads widely from beyond the grave. Yeah, right.)

And then there's Babs: beautiful, cultured, her rising academic career tempered by the dark secrets of her past, and utterly captivating to every man she meets: the top academic in her field falls madly in love with her at first sight and they embark upon a May-December romance before he dies, at which point Babs befriends his clinically insane third wife (I am so not making this up) and gives her a reason to go on living by helping her to adopt a Chic Designer Accessory--I mean, underprivileged Chinese baby, which they then raise together. In case one might be tempted to run for one’s life to escape the Mary Sue-ism, Drabble is there to assure us that Babs is no such thing--by having Babs meet Margaret Drabble in the book. And wait--there's more! Babs is a long-time fan of Drabble's writing! And you can be too; Drabble has the characters plug one of her earlier books in the story. My final verdict: do yourself a favor and go read Dan Brown instead. ( )