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thereaderintherye's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
fridakeskyla's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Very long discussions and juatifications of people's feelings. Obsolete views of women and their role, every story is about love and sex. Lots of killing for a girl, everybody just starts loving deeply without actually knowing the person. Altogether - an old book. Lots of stories though that make you question how anybody could write some of those.
if_you_give_a_mouse_a_prozac's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.5
eric_d_peterson's review against another edition
3.0
While the Decameron has been on my “to read” list for some time, the pandemic provided the impetus to tackle it. The literary conceit is that 10 citizens of Florence decamp to the countryside to wait out the plague which was ravaging Florence. The company consists of seven ladies and three gentlemen. To pass the time, each is required to tell a story. A king or queen is chosen for each day who sometimes decrees that the stories follow a theme. The title refers to 10 days. Ten days, ten people in company equals 100 stories which points to the problem with the book: quality control.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales seems to have been modeled on the Decameron and there is a small amount of shared material. However, Chaucer’s 24 tales are better chosen, and, in my opinion, it is a better book.
Both works represent early literary writing in the vernacular during a time when many serious writers continued to write in Latin. It is interesting that modern Italian readers have no more trouble with Boccaccio’s Tuscan Italian that we do with Shakespeare, but English readers are obliged to read Chaucer in translation.
The stories are varied and come from multiple sources. Some stories are off-color, others are morality tales. There is a strong current of anti-clericalism with a lot of lecherous and corrupt clergy (the Friars Minor are specifically targeted). The comical stock figures of Calandrino, Buffalmcco, and Bruno make multiple appearances.
I really wanted to like this this book and I don’t regret reading it, but it was more of a chore than a pleasure.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales seems to have been modeled on the Decameron and there is a small amount of shared material. However, Chaucer’s 24 tales are better chosen, and, in my opinion, it is a better book.
Both works represent early literary writing in the vernacular during a time when many serious writers continued to write in Latin. It is interesting that modern Italian readers have no more trouble with Boccaccio’s Tuscan Italian that we do with Shakespeare, but English readers are obliged to read Chaucer in translation.
The stories are varied and come from multiple sources. Some stories are off-color, others are morality tales. There is a strong current of anti-clericalism with a lot of lecherous and corrupt clergy (the Friars Minor are specifically targeted). The comical stock figures of Calandrino, Buffalmcco, and Bruno make multiple appearances.
I really wanted to like this this book and I don’t regret reading it, but it was more of a chore than a pleasure.
jessicamdawn's review against another edition
3.0
I read only 3 of the stories, for a college class. They were Day 1, Story 3; Day 2, Story 1; and Day 3, Story 1. I liked the stories well enough and found them humorous, which was the point after all.
ph1lb's review against another edition
3.0
The copy I read was translated by Richard Aldington in 1958 who does not get a good review in Wikipedia. My book only covered five days out of the nine, but even that seemed long.
The description of the plague in Florence in 1348 was horrific and credible.
I am not a fan of short stories and they did get a bit repetitive.
One thing that struck me was that servants were non people. The story is about seven women and three men escaping from the plague. What is only mentioned in passing is that there are in addition, seven servants, despite the fact that servants were said to be hard to come by during the plague. The servants are preparing all the food for everyone while the ten noble women and men sat around and told stories, sang and danced.
In addition, in one of the stories, a young woman awakes and is all alone. She then calls out to a servant (doesn't the servant count?).
The description of the plague in Florence in 1348 was horrific and credible.
I am not a fan of short stories and they did get a bit repetitive.
One thing that struck me was that servants were non people. The story is about seven women and three men escaping from the plague. What is only mentioned in passing is that there are in addition, seven servants, despite the fact that servants were said to be hard to come by during the plague. The servants are preparing all the food for everyone while the ten noble women and men sat around and told stories, sang and danced.
In addition, in one of the stories, a young woman awakes and is all alone. She then calls out to a servant (doesn't the servant count?).
tombomp's review against another edition
5.0
I find it hard to rate this because like 75% of it is funny stories and they're *really* funny. The translation (the Penguin Classics edition) does a really great job of conveying subtle jokes in the original. The funny stories are really clever, extremely bawdy and made me laugh out loud many times. If the book was just that I would have no hesitation in describing it as one of my favourite books ever.
The problem is that the author is a sexist - I assume about as much so as most other male medieval authors - which sometimes comes out in gross discordant ways. Most stories aren't really affected or you can play the 1 or 2 sexist comments off as tongue in cheek but a few make uncomfortable reading in that they emphasise violence against women as if in a "justified" way. So one story is a typical "fool" story where people play a prank on a man... and then at the end of the story he beats up his wife, with a description of the pain she suffers, and she didn't even have anything to do with the prank. Which obviously completely sours the story. The worst is VIII, 7 (which the translator emphasises his disgust of in the footnotes) where a widow a man is trying to woo pretends to be interested but leaves him out in the cold all night instead. So he takes revenge in a horrific fashion where she nearly dies and the injuries she suffers are written about in grotesque and disturbing detail. It's also the longest story in the book (!).
There's also some stories which are tragic romances or fairy/folk tale style retellings of things like nobles suffering and then later being restored to their rightful place. That style is... OK. They don't really stand out but they're still well told.
Obviously it's sort of a ridiculous thing to want but if the book had the worst offenders for sexism cut I would wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. As is, I still think it's definitely worth reading but you probably want to read the quick summary of the story which introduces each one and skip any which have obvious dodgy plot points. In fact, this approach is endorsed by the author in his epilogue!
The problem is that the author is a sexist - I assume about as much so as most other male medieval authors - which sometimes comes out in gross discordant ways. Most stories aren't really affected or you can play the 1 or 2 sexist comments off as tongue in cheek but a few make uncomfortable reading in that they emphasise violence against women as if in a "justified" way. So one story is a typical "fool" story where people play a prank on a man... and then at the end of the story he beats up his wife, with a description of the pain she suffers, and she didn't even have anything to do with the prank. Which obviously completely sours the story. The worst is VIII, 7 (which the translator emphasises his disgust of in the footnotes) where a widow a man is trying to woo pretends to be interested but leaves him out in the cold all night instead. So he takes revenge in a horrific fashion where she nearly dies and the injuries she suffers are written about in grotesque and disturbing detail. It's also the longest story in the book (!).
There's also some stories which are tragic romances or fairy/folk tale style retellings of things like nobles suffering and then later being restored to their rightful place. That style is... OK. They don't really stand out but they're still well told.
Obviously it's sort of a ridiculous thing to want but if the book had the worst offenders for sexism cut I would wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone. As is, I still think it's definitely worth reading but you probably want to read the quick summary of the story which introduces each one and skip any which have obvious dodgy plot points. In fact, this approach is endorsed by the author in his epilogue!
rclyburn's review against another edition
5.0
I can't believe this was only translated in 1972.
Hated the fourth day.
Hated the fourth day.
serrasa's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
3.0