The Red Queen: A Transcultural Tragicomedy

This book has an interesting and unconventional style. The half of the book tells the story of a Korean woman who became a princess and was to become the Red Queen. Her real name is not known. I'll call her the Red Queen for the sake of clarity. She lived a long life and saw her father-in-law, son, and grandson as king; her husband was mentally ill and was murdered by his father (the king). The second half of the story tracks a female professor in England in the 21st century. She mysteriously received a copy of a memoir of the Red Queen and becomes somewhat obsessed with her.

The most unusual characteristics of this book are:

1. The whole story is told in the voice of the Red Queen. She is dead but is tracking the developments of the modern world. She is aware of the internet, reads voraciously, and has a vested interest in continuing to share her story.
2. The author (Margaret Drabble) wrote herself into the second half of the book. She is a character who interacts with the other fictional characters in the book. She is a novelist in the book and is only a minor character.

I thought this book was interesting. The story of the Red Queen was fascinating, but the idea of continuing mentally after death is more intriguing. The Red Queen has all of eternity to read whatever she wants, to research topics that interest her, and to see how she has impacted the world. That idea is quite compelling. It would be very painful to see the world continuing to unfold, while having essentially no impact upon it. However, at the same time, the idea of having eternity to read sounds fabulous,  although I could imagine that at some point eternity would feel exhausting.