King Lear by William Shakespeare

Title: King Lear
Author:  William Shakespeare
Genre: Tragedy
Length:  384 Pages
Weight:  0.9 lbs
Date of Completion:  March 17, 2013

Thoughts:

William, William, William.  In my opinion, Shakespeare has no equal.  His understanding of human nature and his ability to bring it life, both in the pages of his work and on stage, is unparalleled.  When I decided on this challenge, I made a short list of books I wanted to make sure I completed.  The entire collected works of Shakespeare was very near the top.  So, while I have been working my way through the unread stack of books by my bed, I had to sneak in one by Will.  I have so much of my soul in his books, that I feel almost a personal connection with him, so much so that I will refer to him in an overly friendly manner, and call him Will. I wish more people could write with the grace, ease, and wit that is found in Shakespeare's books.  

Reading King Lear brought back so many memories, but more importantly it reignited my indignation at living in such an uncultured society where I cannot go see any of his works performed at any time other than the Shakespeare Festival in the fall.  It is at times like this that I wish I lived in a city with a more active theater community.  I'm a huge fan, but there aren't too many shows.

That short rant aside, I pulled out King Lear at random off of the shelf in a hurry while I was packing my bags.  So, while I was sitting by the pool, enjoying some sun (and more importantly HEAT) for the fist time in months, imagine my surprise to find I had picked one of the books I had read and annotated way back in high school.  I have several versions of different works, including a fancy, leather-bound edition, but I like the Folger library version the best.  I'll be the first to admit that I like Sparknotes while I;'m reading.  There are people much more intelligent and knowledgeable than I am who can expound and clarify where my understanding may fall short.  I will take any assistance to receive greater enjoyment while reading.  

Whenever I read Shakespeare  I am drawn back to my favorite scenes, soliloquies or images.  In this book, my favorite scene is Lear's decent into madness as he wanders amidts a terrible storm.  Particularly, I love the echo of unhinged destruction in the weather.  I can imagine one of those dark and stormy nights with wind that skins your face and hands raw whipping sleets of rain against you.  Thunder crashing as lightning etches across the sky, the only light as Lear crawls away from his cruel family and the remnants of his sanity.  This continues onto the tribunal of Goneril and Regan in a cave.  While Edgar and Lear egg each other on in their madness, you can almost forget that Edgar is only acting.  He presents a convincing loon that fools his own father. 

This madness is my favorite part of the story. I think Will does such an incredible job of showing how a certain sort of clarity often accompanies madness.  It can be like losing your filter, where the simple truth can hold the greatest wisdom.  Gloucester only sees the truth once his eyes have been put out. There is a tragic and poignant beauty in the scene where Edgar, disguised as a madmen leads his now blinded father to his suicide "at the top of the cliffs of Dover."  

With a wonderful insight into the human psyche, I think King Lear does a great treatment of old age.  It is both terrible and fascinating.  Of greater terror is the function of Regan and Goneril.  As they sin against nature to plot the death of their father (and each other), Will portrays them as the ultimate evil.  Afterall, Cornwall only puts our Gloucester's eyes after Goneril suggests it.  That is also something I noticed while reading this.  The tragedies of Shakespeare are incredibly violent, as well as deadly.  You don't exactly get this when all you read is stage directions that say his eye was forced out.  In a play, you can a get a better image of this grisly scene, but even so-that would be a terrible and bloody reality.  

On a happier note, I want to talk about my favorite characters, the Fool and Kent.  The Fool is wise and honest, a perfect foil to the foolish actions of Lear.  His position allows him the freedom to speak frankly with the King, even if it does no good.  As for Kent, his loyalty is the greatest attribute a friend can have.  We all have that friend who is kind and loyal no matter what we do, the friend that we never deserve.  That is Kent, and I think Lear is never thankful enough.

The Mabinogion translated by Jeffrey Gantz

Title: The Mabinogion
Author:  Unknown, but translated by Jeffery Gantz
Genre:  Fantasy-Fairy Tale
Length:  320 Pages
Weight:  0.6 lbs
Date of Completion:  March 15, 2013

Thoughts:

This book was suggested to me by my Amazon book account.  Obviously, I buy an absurdly large amount of books online through them, so whatever algorithm system tracks my account knows my taste in books fairly well.  The combination of Welsh/British culture that I love so much mingled with fairy tales was a perfect match--Medieval Welsh prose tales that contain a twist of the ancient but a common theme instantly recognizable.  Add in a pleasant bit of Arthurian escapades and you have a winner.  I really enjoyed this book and it was a fairly quick read (I have to excuse myself on the time it took to read it as I tried to get into a book in the middle of mid-terms right before spring break.  Bad idea.)  I have so many thoughts about reading this books, but I will try to organize them into some sort of coherent stream.

My first, and overarching thought is that I wish I had read this book in an English Lit class.  With few notable exceptions, I have always enjoyed literature classes.  Not only because I love to read, but also for the opportunity it gave for in depth discussion and analysis.  Those classes helped to build a foundation of thought on which I could pursue literature with a higher degree of skill and comprehension.  Thankfully, this book has a long forward to the body of the work that explains much of the historical context and importance of the branches of the work.

There are still so many things that were unclear; why were certain stories included? The context of several plot layouts and much of the symbolism was lost.  While the cultural content of most of the stories was understandable in the context of the story line, they were filled with completely foreign concepts.  I didn't find a Sparknotes for the book (Yes, I use Sparknotes for books I read for pleasure), so I wish that I had access to more than just an internet search.  English professors, especially those who have a specialization in a topic you are particularly interested in, are a veritable wellspring of information.  

My next thought sort of stems from the above topic.  There were several things that I found strange when reading this.  In one of the branches (stories), the brothers-in-law of the antagonist were given his conquering armies to wreck havoc wherever they pleased as a reward for their assistance.  When they were finished killing and rampaging, they and their men came home with all of the loot (money and women).  To keep the women from contaminating their language with their foreign words and accents, they cut out their tongues.  And this was all written with the same jovial tone as the rest of the story.  I can understand that the traits of conquering and domination through quests was a large part of proving one's worth as a man, but the tongue thing caught me off guard.  It was just thrown in at the end of the story and I had to re-read the passage several times to make sure that I wasn't mistaken in my understanding.  Apparently this barbaric act of permanent silence is acceptable, even commonplace in the ancient world.  Maybe this is just a Welsh thing.

Speaking of Wales, I am supremely grateful that Mr. Gantz translated the Mabinogi into English.  At the beginning of the book, there is a pronunciation chart to help with all of the Welsh names.  Now, I have ancestry in Wales and a lot of experience with foreign cultures and languages, but I could not decipher how to say most of the character's names.  For the most part, I had to resort to the simple and childish method of simply associating the organization of letters to a person without any effort to make sense of them.  This was highly effective, and only became difficult when several characters had similar names, or when a character re-appeared in another story.  Even with the pronunciation guide, I'm still hopeless.  At the very least though, this was a minor inconvenience; it didn't detract from the stories at all.  

Examples:

Pwyll, Prince of Dyved
Manawydan
Penn llwyn on Bwya 
Annwvyn
Arllechwedd

In conclusion, I'm a big fan of fairy tales, both original and retold.  It is always interesting to see how our modern versions differ from the original forms.  I have so many comments about the strange characters and stories, but I think I'll have to end this post with one last thought.  This book was a lot of fun, and I think it is extremely unique and undervalued.  If you can get your hands on this edition (don't go with Guest's), it is well worth the time to read.  

The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead

Title: The Indigo Spell
Author:  Richelle Mead
Genre:  Paranormal Romance/Fantasy
Length:  432 Pages
Weight:  1.2 lbs
Date of Completion:  March 2, 2013

Thoughts:

Ok.  Here it is:  the first of what will likely be many vampirically inclined novels.  Twilight may have given the genre of teen paranormal romance a bad rap, but that doesn't mean that all books featuring vampires and/or vampire-human relationships are terrible.  I saw, I think, a quote from Angeline Jolie who said that she wanted to be a vampire when she was little.  My poor mother understands this;  she was understandably horrified that her 7 year-old was reading Ann Rice and L.J. Smith.

Richelle Mead's books do fall into the paranormal romance category with the whole human-vampire love triangle.  But I like that.  And its not a phase--I've been reading books like this for years.  I do find it odd that my initial reaction to posting about this book is immediately to defend my choice in reading it.  People, including my family, have given me flack for years about my recurring interest in the supernatural-themed books.  I honestly don't care.  If you are interested in this genre, I have several other series I would recommend.  

In comparison to the Vampire Academy series, I think I like this one better.  Sydney's personality is far more similar to mine than Rose.  Also, I'm one to admit that I'd pick Adrian over Dimitri (for myself at least).  Green eyes and a sharp suit are definitely a weakness of mine.  At least he doesn't have glasses and/or a British accent or I'd be a hopelessly lost cause.  This book was a particular pleasure for me as I forced myself to wait until I wasn't so bogged down with schoolwork to lose myself for a few days.  Indigo Spell was released almost a month ago, so the fact that I held out this long is a testament to my willpower.  However, I finished this book in less than 24 hours, so perhaps my willpower isn't quite up to par after all.  I have no shame in admitting that I spent my Friday night at home curled up with a mug of tea and a good book instead of socializing.  Who needs people when I've got a library, right?