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A review by quoththegirl
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
2.0
Now I'm working on The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. I have an ancient, musty, humongous copy that I picked up for 10 cents somewhere and which has an inscription dated 1937 inside the cover. It's...interesting. I was reading it at work, and someone smiled and said knowingly, "Ahh, you like to read the Good Book on your lunch?" I informed them that it was very definitely NOT the Bible, but rather was a medieval Italian work from 1350 in which Florence is succumbing to an epidemic of the Black Plague. People don't ask me what I'm reading at work anymore.
Update: In a tragic accident, I left The Decameron at work over the weekend, so I couldn't finish it as I had planned. I'm 150 pages from finishing it, and it reminds me more and more of The Canterbury Tales, not because of the obvious similarities in structure and premise but because good grief, these stories are raunchy. I was 12 when I read Canterbury and was utterly scandalized by several of the stories. Twelve-year-old Stephanie wouldn't even have known what to do with The Decameron, where every other story includes adultery in some form. Those medieval Italians...tsk tsk. I kind of feel like I have to finish it now, after spending so much time on it. :/
I did manage to finish The Decameron at last, in spite of abandoning it to the cleaning crew's clutches at work for one weekend. By the end, I didn't hate it anymore. As Boccaccio says in his conclusion, "My tales will run after nobody asking to be read." Nobody made me read it, so perhaps I shouldn't complain...
Update: In a tragic accident, I left The Decameron at work over the weekend, so I couldn't finish it as I had planned. I'm 150 pages from finishing it, and it reminds me more and more of The Canterbury Tales, not because of the obvious similarities in structure and premise but because good grief, these stories are raunchy. I was 12 when I read Canterbury and was utterly scandalized by several of the stories. Twelve-year-old Stephanie wouldn't even have known what to do with The Decameron, where every other story includes adultery in some form. Those medieval Italians...tsk tsk. I kind of feel like I have to finish it now, after spending so much time on it. :/
I did manage to finish The Decameron at last, in spite of abandoning it to the cleaning crew's clutches at work for one weekend. By the end, I didn't hate it anymore. As Boccaccio says in his conclusion, "My tales will run after nobody asking to be read." Nobody made me read it, so perhaps I shouldn't complain...