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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
challenging
funny
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Boccaccio's Decameron is a must-read for any lover of truly good storytelling. Here you can find the inspiration for countless standout works of the Western canon, from Shakespeare's plays to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Boccaccio's hundred stories are by turns tragic, comic, blasphemous, obscene, and hilarious, and Stephen Greenblatt was entirely accurate in calling it "a celebration of the sheer pleasure of being alive."
Rebhorn's translation is sharp, funny, and compulsively readable. The text is delightful in its own right, and manages to tell the tales for a modern reader's ear without losing the beauty of the classic language. Wholeheartedly recommended.
Rebhorn's translation is sharp, funny, and compulsively readable. The text is delightful in its own right, and manages to tell the tales for a modern reader's ear without losing the beauty of the classic language. Wholeheartedly recommended.
Funny, absurd, vulgar. Holds up about as well as a 14th century book can; it's still accessible, and while the sex and sensuality is oblique by modern standards, one can easily see why it's been so frequently banned over the centuries since its publication.
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
informative
lighthearted
slow-paced
Phew! This was one hell of a book...32 hours long! I laughed and laughed at some stories and could barely stay focused on others, and in the end was glad to be done with the book. There's lots to unpack and I could see someone spending a lifetime shifting through all of the layers and nuances within the 100 stories. I'm glad I've checked it off my list but am definitely ready for something contemporary!
Everyone's read the Canterbury Tales (except me), but have you read The Decameron?
Not the right time, feels like a chore
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Okay technically I only read the first day, but I call that enough to say that yes, I have read the Decameron, thank you (onto my grueling paper now!)
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Let Giovanni get medieval on your ass! In the best possible way, yo.
Seven ladies and three gentlemen flee plague-infested Florence for the surrounding hills, where they promptly decide to live it up in abandoned palazzos and tell each other stories. Ten days, ten stories per day, one hundred stories in all. Most are clever, a lot are bawdy, several are wildly and unabashedly implausible, and almost all are guaranteed to rankle a contemporary reader's sensibilities. In spades.
(Just wait until you get to the last tale. Or just skip ahead to it, and finish up with something more appealing. Yuck.)
But that, I feel, is at least the part of the point of reading this book. It's medieval. Its values, ethics and sense of morality are medieval. Filtered through Boccaccio's distinct perspective, but thoroughly medieval. Did I repeat that enough?
This is Medieval Italy in technicolor, rather than the sometimes indifferent black and white of history books. It's not a substitute for those; more like the messy, unruly and very necessary other half of the stereotypical odd couple. There's the serious, straight-laced academia, and then there's the often wild-and-crazy reality of history. The Decameron is a work of fiction, but all its parts, from the improbable to the offensive to the salacious, are firmly grounded in the sensibilities of its time.
Seven ladies and three gentlemen flee plague-infested Florence for the surrounding hills, where they promptly decide to live it up in abandoned palazzos and tell each other stories. Ten days, ten stories per day, one hundred stories in all. Most are clever, a lot are bawdy, several are wildly and unabashedly implausible, and almost all are guaranteed to rankle a contemporary reader's sensibilities. In spades.
(Just wait until you get to the last tale. Or just skip ahead to it, and finish up with something more appealing. Yuck.)
But that, I feel, is at least the part of the point of reading this book. It's medieval. Its values, ethics and sense of morality are medieval. Filtered through Boccaccio's distinct perspective, but thoroughly medieval. Did I repeat that enough?
This is Medieval Italy in technicolor, rather than the sometimes indifferent black and white of history books. It's not a substitute for those; more like the messy, unruly and very necessary other half of the stereotypical odd couple. There's the serious, straight-laced academia, and then there's the often wild-and-crazy reality of history. The Decameron is a work of fiction, but all its parts, from the improbable to the offensive to the salacious, are firmly grounded in the sensibilities of its time.