Joan H Parks

The Book Club Chronicles Joan H Parks

The ladies keep trying to find as easier Shakespeare play to study and decided upon Twelfth Night, another late play. As they start reading it, they discover that it is complicated. They find the Rylance version on a DVD and entranced use it and the text to study it. They reflect upon how Viola and Olivia respond to grief, their reading deepens as they witness their own responses to grief, Annie, Henry, Katherine, and Franny have buried well loved spouses. All wrestle with their physical aging and the threat and advantages of retirement. They reflect on the many love stories in Twelfth Night as they wrestle with their own love stories, late life marriages, and the how they have brought their pasts into the present. They struggle to make sense of this simple on the surface but very complicated theatrical play. Most of all, once again they, as a group, revel in the beautiful language of Shakespeare that pierces their hearts and at the same time uplifts them.