Reading Shakespeare: A Firefly Story
Perhaps the most revelatory moment in Victoria’s reading life happened when she was seven. This was the day I knew Victoria was smarter than me.
One Saturday, I walked into our family room to find Victoria sprawled on the floor, intently reading a large book. To my surprise (and a little concern), I recognized the book as my copy of The Riverside Shakespeare.
This is my Shakespeare bible. It’s a single volume that contains all of his plays, poems and sonnets, and has easily accessible definitions in footnotes. In order to make this book even reasonably transportable, its pages are very thin and somewhat fragile. So I had generally tried to keep it away from young Victoria. But on this day, I couldn’t help but be charmed by this scene and wondered if I should try to find my camera.
“Whatcha doin’?” I asked her.
“Reading.”
“Reading what?” I smiled, knowing full well that Victoria was pretending to read my Shakespearean tome.
“Twelfth Night.”
I started to laugh. I remembered the first time I read Twelfth Night. It was difficult. Of course, it begins with the oft-repeated line, “If music be the food of love, play on.” But then you soon get to the “surfeiting” and the “breathes upon a bank of violets” and the “receiveth as the sea, nought enters there” and certain parts become tangled and inscrutable. I smiled at this adorable moment of pretend, made even cuter by the fact that Victoria’s hair was organized in two pigtails hanging from the back of her head.
“But I’m not sure I understand,” Victoria said, now turning fully to address me. “So Viola is pretending to be a man, right?”
Silence.
“She likes Orsino, right?”
More silence.
“And he doesn’t know she is a woman and sends her to make Olivia fall in love with him, right?”
Stunned silence.
“And Olivia falls in love with Viola, right?”
As I’ve noted several times before, I love Shakespeare. I’ve read most of his work, much of it more than once. But I am by no means a Shakespearean scholar. The plots often get lost in a confused swirl in my head. I will sometimes attribute quotes to the wrong character or play, and I sometimes have to stop and take a few seconds to organize my thoughts to differentiate Hamlet from Macbeth. So while I remembered that I read Twelfth Night, I couldn’t recall which character was which, as I can easily confuse Twelfth Night with Much Ado About Nothing or As You Like It.
“So Mommy has been reading this to you?” I asked.
“No.”
“I mean, I know you are reading this now,” I said, joining the game of pretend, “but did Mommy start that story with you?”
“No.”
“Kathleen!“
“Mommy!”
Kathleen came running into the family room. “What’s wrong?” she asked, quickly directing her vex-ray vision (her innate maternal ability to quickly ascertain what was vexing her daughter) at me. “What did you do?”
“Have you been reading Shakespeare to Toria?” I asked.
“No.”
“I don’t mean, have you been reading to her today. I mean have you read any Shakespeare to Toria?”
“No.”
“At all?”
“No.”
“He didn’t believe me!” Victoria cried out, now catching the drift. Kathleen shot me an exasperated glare.
“She’s reading Twelfth Night,” I said, almost whispering as the realization washed over me.
“No, she’s not,” Kathleen replied.
“Yes, I am!” Victoria retorted vehemently.
Now Kathleen was disoriented, and I smiled as she slowly lowered herself onto the couch next to me. Victoria picked up the weighty book and wedged her way between her dumfounded mother and discombobulated father.
“Ask her your question, Toria,” I said, anticipating that Kathleen’s confusion would soon deepen. Victoria spelled out her full understanding of the play, which turned out to be amazingly accurate, and included some insightful and interesting questions about what it means for a woman to fall in love with a woman (whom she thinks is a man).
“Does that mean she loves a man or a woman?” she queried.
That was the exact moment I knew Victoria was far smarter than I was at her age. I barely understood Shakespeare when I first read his plays in my college course. Here she was at 7 years old not only understanding the play but asking a question we, as adults, struggle with today.
I did not know at that moment that Victoria would end up as a doctor. Nor did I think about any particular career for her. What I did know is that if I didn’t mess her up she would end up far more capable than I had ever been.
