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A review by masterovcrabs
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
4.0
Unfortunately jumping ship early with this one. The first two books and the adjoining almanacs were an absolute riot, a colorful cornucopia of drunkenness, debauchery, violence, dazzling codpieces, and joyfully irreverent toilet humor. However, I found myself losing patience with Rabelais' terribly dated philosophy and the one note humor of the third book. (Do we really need to spend 200-something pages discussing Panurge's cuckold status?) The points where the story moved away from comedy also felt like utter slogs, all creativity seeming to have vacated the writing whenever the subject deprived Rabelais of opportunities to apply his learned wit and fascination for bodily functions.
Still, I'll go forth remembering the good times and set my rating accordingly. These adventures might not hold up as a complete body of work, but they exhibit more than enough style and creativity to make reading them at least somewhat worthwhile. In truth, Rabelais reminds me a lot of Kafka, in the sense that he's an author whose work (at least in my mind), while not holding up terribly well on its own, has served as a quintessential launching off point for writers I adore (Theroux, Joyce, and Del Paso, to cite three exceptionally pertinent examples of Rabelais' reach). Hence why you gotta respect your classics, flawed as they are, for the real good stuff wouldn't be here without 'em.
So in conclusion to this shambling apology of a review: Read your Rabelais. Just don't expect to be dazzled all the way through.
Still, I'll go forth remembering the good times and set my rating accordingly. These adventures might not hold up as a complete body of work, but they exhibit more than enough style and creativity to make reading them at least somewhat worthwhile. In truth, Rabelais reminds me a lot of Kafka, in the sense that he's an author whose work (at least in my mind), while not holding up terribly well on its own, has served as a quintessential launching off point for writers I adore (Theroux, Joyce, and Del Paso, to cite three exceptionally pertinent examples of Rabelais' reach). Hence why you gotta respect your classics, flawed as they are, for the real good stuff wouldn't be here without 'em.
So in conclusion to this shambling apology of a review: Read your Rabelais. Just don't expect to be dazzled all the way through.