Anyway, last night I went to BAM to see The Tempest, which was pretty damn good. Prospero was excellent, as he should be... Miranda was a little annoying, mostly just her voice I suppose... but her part really isn't that big, I realize. It's been a while since I read the play so I guess I gave the sole "major" female role a lot more credit than was due. Caliban stole the show, unsurprisingly, though since they cast a black man in the role all the lines just seem so terribly horrid and racist... However, Shakespeare might have actually meant it to be that way, since the character is supposed to be the son of an Algerian witch, the only "native" of the island... Ahh, the 1600s weren't exactly politically correct.
Regardless, it was good to see a Shakespeare play for the first time in a very, very long while. I really ought to do more culturally significant things like see plays, but I just don't seem to get around to it. Next weekend, however, I'm going to see "The Cherry Orchard," which I actually haven't read. I think the only Chekhov play I have read is "The Three Sisters" in my Modern European Drama class during junior year of college. How odd, since I consider Chekhov one of my absolute favorite writers. I can't remember if we read "Uncle Vanya" in that class or not... Oh well. I've read most of his short stories on my own, over and over again since early high school when I opened up some literature textbook and found "Lady with a Lap Dog" and was hooked. I didn't even know who Chekhov was or how famous he was, I just knew I liked the story.
That's somewhat similar to my discovery of Kafka around the same time. I found "The Metamorphosis" in probably the same textbook and was enthralled, and again, had no idea how famous Kafka was. I just knew that the story was absolutely bizarre and probably had some deeper meaning that my 14-year-old self couldn't quite grasp. I'm not sure my 24-year-old self even grasps it in the end. That's the problem with taking philosophy classes throughout college... You think you understand the underlying meaning and the real symbolism of all these strange literary works, because the professor tells you so, then you forget what you wrote for your essays and tests and you reread and rethink things years later and realize you don't actually have a damn clue and you probably never did.
The same with Shakespeare, though the deeper "meaning" is more just getting through the language and historical rifts than uncovering some underlying message. How easy it is to understand when you're sitting in a class with 30 other English majors who are about your same level of interest and intelligence, being told by the professor exactly what the lines mean and then arguing with each other about the deeper levels of meaning until you uncover your thesis for your upcoming paper, and then you really start taking notes... As I was watching the play last night, I found I could only really get about half of what was going on, just because I haven't been exposed to that language recently. On paper it's pretty simple for the most part, but for 2 and a half hours I found myself a bit lost.
I found this very ironic and somewhat disappointing, since I remember seeing "Romeo & Juliet" at the National Theater when I was in 5th grade, and since I had read the play over and over after I discovered a copy of the book in a box in the attic and saw the movie on TV, I understood every word. My father kept leaning over to me and asking if I understood what was going on, and I would nod and shush him, since I did understand, and I wanted to absorb every single word and action without interruption. I realized he didn't understand, however, so later I translated some lines for him later, with pride. Watching "The Tempest" I realized I didn't have the same familiarity or emotional connection with the text... But I'm not 10 years old anymore so I'd think I have a better understanding of Shakespearean language than I did then!
Once again, this makes me come to the conclusion that I have to read and reread and think and rethink all those literary works I've been exposed to, or should have been exposed to, and I have to do it every few years. From Shakespeare to Chekhov to Austen to Faulkner to Steinbeck (he's one of my formerly favorite authors who I haven't read in many years) I need to keep myself up to date. But I also need to read new works by new authors... And I need to sift through the past and read all those classics I never read in college since I concentrated more on the International Phonetic Alphabet and dialect change than great classic literature.
There's only so much time to read so many books, but I really need to be more conscious about choosing things of substance and not wasting my time with fluffy crap. Not that I ever do choose fluffy crap, but I just need to be selective and diligent and stop wasting my time. Except for David Sedaris, I am not allowed anything I would deem "light reading." Those days are over.... though I don't think they ever existed in my life anyway.
Right now I'm reading "The Elegance of the Hedgehog," having put down Joan Didion to resume at a later date... I really needed a novel instead of essays, and I'm reading it for my book club. The characters in it make me want to read more, anyway, especially more philosophy. There was a chapter on Husserl and phenomenology, though she advises to read Kant and Descartes first. NO WAY. I will draw the line there, because there's no point in reading great works if you're not even going to enjoy them. So diligence about reading also involves not pressuring myself to read mind numbing works of greatness.
Works of greatness, however, I need more of in my life...
2 comments:
Where are you seeing the Cherry Orchard? My awesome cousin, Peter, is doing it somewhere in NYC. I hope you are seeing him do it, because he is awesome. And you will love it.
read kant and descartes. they aren't as boring as your ethics teacher made them seem.
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