Shaking the Shakespeare Tree

It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by.  How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone.  That is where the writer scores over his fellows:  he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.  ~Vita Sackville-West

 

    To capture the moment: That is the gift of words, of film, of art in its many forms. It is the reason I write and draw. But more than just capturing the moment, writers write to capture the spirit of the moment, the place, the time. And their words are powerful.

 

     So what is the power of the word? We watched As You Like It , an HBO/BBC production with Kenneth Brannagh's Shakespeare crew. Wonderful. Both boys loved it. So did I, though periodically, I had to dive out of the room, the play was so silly. But its effect: now that was interesting. That afternoon, we had a friend over. He is six and had not seen the play/movie -- nor to my knowledge has he ever seen any Shakespeare production but he was game. Jason was charging around the yard, creating his own play -- using Shakespearean English and timing and thoroughly amusing himself. Our friend, who quite admires Jason, watched for a bit then shouted 'Do you want to see MY Shakespeare play? It is called 'The Revenge of BOO BOO!' (Somehow I think he confused Shakespeare with 'Star Wars' -- LOL) For my sons, the word woke their own imaginations. And their words sparked their friend's ideas.

 

     Truly, though, I am becoming more and more convinced that what we read/watch/listen to shapes our perceptions, our speech and our actions. Such ideas are not new. Thit Nhat Hahn has commented on this, for example -- talking about the effect of violent shows. And there exists a large body of evidence that indicates that children who watch violent shows become deadened somewhat to the implications of guns et al. Horrible thought. Of course, that makes me wonder about some of the books that I was required to read in High School -- not a funny one amongst the lot, only grim and horrifying: Lord of the Flies, Bless the Beasts and the Children, A Rose for Emily. GAWK. Awful stuff. Why don't they require works by people like Mark Twain? Oh, we read 'The Jumping Frog of Calavares County' from an anthology but I never knew, until much later, that he had written a host of short stories. My father read us The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain Library) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when my brothers and I were little and I later reread them on my own. On a trip to England, I found a copy of The Complete Mark Twain Collection (Over 300 works, with active table of contents) in a shop. I carried that book with me all over Europe and Twain, with his acerbic wit and clever insights, kept me grounded. So why isn't Twain a required part of reading?

     There are so many wonderful writers out there and not all of them are grim and gloomy. Perhaps I am odd in my preference for the lighter stuff. It is not that Twain does not speak of serious matters. Anyone who has read Huck knows that Twain had very strong views on issues such as slavery. But Twain, like Bill Cosby today, puts human behavior into perspective. He offers his insights with wit and a measure of kindness, something that writers like William Faulkner often fail to do. So here is what I think: I think I shall have to create, for my sons, a 'required' reading list that highlights the good in humanity. We have already started there. We read and watch Shakespeare -- and he is very clever and insightful... Think, for example, of my sons' favorite line from 'Much Ado About Nothing' -- 'For Man is a Giddy thing'.  Boys certainly are!

 

     What would be on such a list? Well, Twain and Shakespeare, of course, But then too, I should add things like The Brendan Voyage: Across the Atlantic in a Leather Boat . Who needs The Swiss Family Robinson (Signet Classics)or Robinson Crusoe (Norton Critical Editions) when one can read about a real adventure. Don't get me wrong: Both SFR and RC are wonderful reads -- and read in context of their time and history, they are valuable. It is interesting, though, to read a novel that references RC, something like Elizabeth Speare's  The Sign of the Beaver.

 

     I know that this latter book is not approved by Oyate. The critique of the book by Doris Seale is interesting and the points are well made but for me, the book did have redeeming characteristics -- as noted by the reviewer, the relationship between the boys is uneven. The indian boy is MUCH more sophisticated in the ways of survival. Without him, the settler boy would never have survived. This is in strong counterpoint to the book -- Robinson Crusoe -- which the settler boy uses to try to teach the Indian boy to read. Early on, Speares makes the point that the portrayal of Friday is deeply flawed. That the same critique is leveled at her writing is interesting but in neither case are these critiques sufficient reason to discard the books. Both books are good reads, raise many questions and used with care, can teach us a great deal about ourselves and about the past. Both books are well written and engaging. Both draw the reader into the story and excite the interest of the reader to learn more about peoples, places and events. As with all material, these books should be read with care and with awareness. If we do so, then we learn valuable things.

 

     The critiques available at Oyate are balanced by their catalogue wherein one can find a number of excellent and 'approved' books. Some of these we have read, some we have not. Of the ones that we have read, I will say that they have been lovely -- and the point made, that cultures are not interchangble, as so often happens in popular books, is clearly respected here. Each book presents material from a particular tribe and in doing so, offers up the richness of human experience.

 

   The power of words is not to be underestimated. Words, used well, take us into the world of someone else's imagination and sparks our own. Badly used or misused, words can damage and warp our view of the world. The power of the writer is to share words, ideas and images so as to capture and activate the reader's imagination. Surely this is something one should keep in mind when one writes, just as when one speaks. Words can hurt... and just as surely, they can heal.  Remember 'Man is a Giddy Thing' and given to changableness. Let us write and read with care and with appreciation.