A review by outcolder
The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio

5.0

This took me over a year to finish. The stories in here offer a broad range of themes and moods but first and foremost, they all take place in a horrible society where women are essentially chattel slaves. Men who don't automatically rape women when they are alone with them are considered to have exceptional moral fiber. Women are traded like any other object and are included when men speak of "all their possessions." It is disturbing. Within that context though, the female characters in the stories are incredible survivors. In quite a few of the stories, women succeed at their goals or even triumph over the men they "belong" to. Some of the stories are extremely dark, including horrible torture. But most are more or less the equivalent of a fourteenth century "truly tasteless jokes" collection. Boccaccio pops up himself once in the middle and then again at the end to defend his work and to fight against censorship. Although I found it difficult going, it was well worth it and I would like to learn more about Boccaccio the man and how this work was published and distributed and received at the time and through history. I would also like to know what literary theory types make of it today, and which stories were reused where. I did recognize one Shakespeare plot in here, but there must be tons of others. Just an amazing collection, full of humor and soul but also a brutal depiction of its times.