That Time I Read King Lear

King Lear by SparkNotes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Christopher Moore made me read this. Or reread this. And I'm glad he did.

I ran on to the second book in his Fool series, The Serpent of Venice, and loved it, even though I read it out of order. (It also made me re-read The Merchant of Venice, to remind myself of characters and such. Othello I was pretty good with.) I wanted to read the first book, Fool, which is based on Lear, and since I read that only once--as a 15-year-old--I needed some updating. Using the No Fear version, I read about 60/40 modern to original, and found it pretty readable and pretty fun that way.

I don't actually like tragedies--not in reality, not in literature--so I almost gave it a 4 instead of 5. But there's still a lot to like in Lear, speaking simply as a reader, not a Critic of Great Literature. I liked the loyal characters, Edgar and Kent and Cordelia, and their unswerving devotion to the king; in a way, I enjoyed how horrible Goneril and Regan and Edmund were; and the plotting among them all is charming in its own way. Horrible, but fun.

Now, I wish I could make the story end happily. That would increase my enjoyment. It might annoy the rest of the world to make that change, but I'd suffer their disapproval if I could "fix" Shakespeare... ;)

Another interesting aspect of this experience was what I learned about myself. As I read, I reflected on being a 10th grader long ago and just how much I *didn't* understand the first time. That was instructive. Even though I was a good reader at 15 with a lot of tolerance for tacking difficult books and plays, I could see that the intervening 40 years or so made a lot of the text more comprehensible to me. I understood things I didn't realize I misunderstood before. I tracked character motivations much better, as well as actions occurring offstage, and kept characters straight that I really didn't way back then. And I made many, many useful inferences (the type you're supposed to make) that I'm certain I didn't the first time. My comprehension was probably at least double compared to the young me.

That inevitably made me think about teaching Shakespeare to 10th graders, which I did for many years. Every time I taught Othello or some other play, especially to groups of students that don't consider themselves college-bound, I questioned the wisdom of it. There are, of course, many arguments both ways. ("It's well beyond their reading ability" is countered by "This might be the only time they read Shakespeare." There is also "You're gonna teach this, school district employee," which I found very persuasive.) But reading King Lear now was like opening a time capsule, and seeing how little I understood--even as a good student on the way to being an English teacher--made it seem that dragging struggling readers through Shakespeare is probably not justified. What do they learn that couldn't be accomplished more efficiently and pleasantly with literature that is both more comprehensible and relevant? Is the level of comprehension we help them achieve (we worked hard at it, bro, ISYN) worth the amount of time dedicated to it? Is the frustration worth it?

I kinda doubt it. The benefits are pretty dubious. But now that I'm retired, it's really not up to me anyway.

However, for me, Private Individual, rereading it this year was worth it. At least I can say that. And now I can go on to reading Christopher Moore's Fool, which I've been looking forward to.

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