Published under the anagrammatic pseudonym of Alcofribas Nasier, Pantagruel established a whole new genre of writing, with a riotous mix of rhetorical energy, linguistic humor, and learned wit. In creating a comedy of sensory excesses, playing off various licentious, boozy, and lusty appetites, Rabelais also prefigures much in the history of the novel, from Don Quixote to Ulysses. Perhaps his greatest achievement is his free-spiritedness, which combines high-jinking vulgar materialism with a profound, skeptical mode of humanist wit. The novel itself tells the story of the gigantic Gargantua and his son Pantagruel. The first book details fantastic incidents in the early years of Pantagruel and his roguish companion Panurge. The second, Gargantua, tracks back in time to the genealogy of Pantagruel’s father, while satirizing scholasticism and old-fashioned educational methods. The third develops as a satire of intellectual learning, mainly through the heroic deeds and sayings of Pantagruel. In the fourth book, Pantagruel and Panurge head off on a voyage to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle in Cathay, which provides scenes for satire on religious excess. The fifth and most bitter book takes them to the temple of the Holy Bottle, where they follow the oracle’s advice to “Drink!” The plot hardly rises to the level of picaresque, but there is a feast of mirth in the telling. DM