adiva_calandia

I have a book, back home, called the Ten Greatest Shakespeare Stories, or something along those lines. It's ten of Shakespeare's plays told in various different ways for kids (the best, by far, is the retelling of Hamlet as a report by a police officer who's trying to avoid the paperwork that comes with a murder investigation, and cheerfully misinterprets Hamlet's death as heavy metal poisoning). The book is . . . questionably accurate in places, like when it says that Puck makes only Lysander fall in love with Helena, rather than both men, but. Good basic introduction to the greats -- Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer, Macbeth, etc.

So I'm reading King Lear for the first time, for class and because I'm seeing it tomorrow night (and, tangentially, I know I'll be thinking the whole time of Jerry Harper, even though I never saw his Lear). And I had been under the impression, from this book, that Regan and Goneril were so mean, making their sister look bad and being mean to their dad and all and I didn't like them one bit.

Now that I'm actually reading the play?

Holy crap, Lear is an asshole. "Dad, could you get rid of some of your knights? They're wrecking our house." "I HOPE YOU NEVER HAVE KIDS, YOU UNGRATEFUL BITCH. I'LL BET YOUR MOTHER SLEPT AROUND 'CAUSE YOU'RE NO KID OF MINE. BYE."

Not to mention he's an idiot, as the Fool is wont to point out, but I think that's pretty well established. Eesh. He justifies himself a little on both counts because, well, he's going crazy, and the line O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper: I would not be mad!-- is so desperate that I do start to feel sorry for him.

But dude. You're still kind of an asshole.

Hopefully this impression will change as the play continues.

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