Scan barcode
lydia_cap's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
cathydavies's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed the Decameron and may even buy a copy to dip into now and then.
kristenmtan's review against another edition
2.0
1.5/5
read excerpts for hum. you know those classics that are revered as so good and some of the best works of human literature but then you read them and it’s so fucking bad that if anyone tried to publish this shit now they probably wouldn’t even get to querying? this is one of them. it’s the same shit over and over again, most of it is heavily misogynistic in ways that i am quite frankly very bored of, and the ONLY redeeming story in this book is day 3 story 1 where all the nuns fuck that one guy.
read excerpts for hum. you know those classics that are revered as so good and some of the best works of human literature but then you read them and it’s so fucking bad that if anyone tried to publish this shit now they probably wouldn’t even get to querying? this is one of them. it’s the same shit over and over again, most of it is heavily misogynistic in ways that i am quite frankly very bored of, and the ONLY redeeming story in this book is day 3 story 1 where all the nuns fuck that one guy.
steven_nobody's review against another edition
5.0
I listened to this translation on naxos audio. I really like the material that falls in between the stories and in between the days - so full medieval details! The songs were sung with Renaissance style music, I suppose, a lute, anyhow. And all the characters had different narrators. One of the readers was Irish so this certainly added a new level of texture that I would not have had if I had read it on my own. As for the stories, I like the cuckolding and horny clergy stories the best. The tragic stories we're also very good. The only real letdown where the noble stories which took up the last day. Otherwise I just loved this experience!
iriswindmeijer's review against another edition
4.0
I only read day one and day ten for school and I liked it! This book is certainly one I'd like to finish :)
provaprova's review against another edition
2.0
I had to give up reading this halfway through. The stories are just too awful and didactic and trapped in a moralizing medieval milieu, centering around caricatured one-dimensional characters. However important and key to the history of literature it is, it's not worth reading for any but scholars or historians.
mysimas's review against another edition
an interesting thing to sample, but it's too dated and repetitive to normally read
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Misogyny, and Infidelity
designwise's review against another edition
2.0
A 700-year old Monty Python written during the Black Plague. If you don't mind sexist humor from an era when wife-beating was the rule of thumb, you will love this classic. A hundred folk tales bound up in a single volume wherein the wealthy avoid the pandemic by eating, drinking, dancing, and storytelling. I found it a labor to read and impossible to accept as entertainment. Seek out Canterbury Tales of Tales of the Arabian Nights instead.
dllh's review against another edition
4.0
This was a delight. I learned a little bit about medieval Italy and the plague (apparently the worst in European history) that wrecked the population and I had lots of laughs. The story here is that seven women and three men left disease-ravaged Florence to distract themselves in the nearby countryside by singing, dancing, and telling stories. Each in the company tells a story each day for ten days. More often than not, the stories stick to a common theme for the day, and more often than not, they're at least a little bawdy.
Boccaccio's book (and his sources) served as source material for some of the stories most of us read from Chaucer, and his book makes me want to go back and reread The Canterbury Tales. It's a pretty long read (in this edition, about 800 pages plus about 140 pages of introductory matter and a bunch of end notes), and though I enjoyed it and didn't ever quite get bogged down, I imagine that many would find it tedious in spite of the belly laughs it so often inspires. It's definitely one I'll dip into from time to time in the future (I dog-eared the best of the dirty jokes).
Boccaccio's book (and his sources) served as source material for some of the stories most of us read from Chaucer, and his book makes me want to go back and reread The Canterbury Tales. It's a pretty long read (in this edition, about 800 pages plus about 140 pages of introductory matter and a bunch of end notes), and though I enjoyed it and didn't ever quite get bogged down, I imagine that many would find it tedious in spite of the belly laughs it so often inspires. It's definitely one I'll dip into from time to time in the future (I dog-eared the best of the dirty jokes).
a_verthandi's review against another edition
to be updated later with list of what tales I read.