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Title: Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais, J. M. Cohen ISBN: 0-14-044047-X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: June, 1955 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.29 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Multi-faceted laugh-a-minute and dead serious
Comment: The praisers of Rabelais and this particular product he created have already expressed a lot of the truths to be found here, the exquisite style, the masterly satire. All they say is true and would be reason enough to read Gargantuan and Pentagruel. I won't repeat those laurels to affirm them. Instead, I'll suggest another reason a segment of readers might find Rabelais interesting. Followers of the Thelemic 'traditon' created by Aleister Crowley during the early 1900s might be surprised to discover Crowley's claims to having channeled the doctrine from Horus in Cairo in 1910, were preceded by Rabelais several centuries earlier. Rabelais creats an imaginary monastary and sect of monks he names, "Thelema", where a sign above the entry reads, "DO AS YOU WILL". Sound familiar? Buy this book and read on. But if you do so as an admirer of Crowley's channeling be prepared to experience a deflating of some of your balloons and butchering of a sacred cow for the barbeque.
Rating: 5
Summary: It's all about the Bottle...
Comment: Some years ago I read a quote by Rabelais -- something about whether a chimera bombinating in a vacuum could devour second intentions -- and I sensed that his humor might appeal to me. "Gargantua and Pantagruel," his literary landmark and the source of that quote, is a virtual encyclopedia of Renaissance satire that contrives a heroic epic as a backdrop for a comprehensive commentary of medieval and classical history and mythology.
The story, which concerns the adventures of the giant Gargantua, his son Pantagruel, and Pantagruel's friend Panurge, is completely silly; just scan the chapter titles in the table of contents for an indication. Silly, but not stupid: Rabelais is a serious scholar who has written a book that is not intended to be taken seriously. An epicure with an insatiable appetite for learning and a fascination with bodily functions, he believes that wine, scatology, and the pursuit of knowledge are inseparable. The book is all codpieces, urination, defecation, and flatulence at the service of satirizing the pedantry in the medical, legal, ecclesiastical, and academic professions as they existed in the sixteenth century. It should be noted that Rabelais's satire is generally playful and cheerful rather than bitter and mean-spirited, so the book's tone is always light even if its content is very erudite.
The plot, such as it is, is episodic rather than unified. Gargantua defends his country, Utopia, from invasion by King Picrochole of Lerne, in a war started by an argument between Utopian shepherds and Lernean cake-bakers; Pantagruel and Panurge then defend Utopia from invasion by Anarch, King of the Dipsodes; Panurge conducts inquiries among a variety of experts on whether or not he should get married, which leads to several discussions about cuckoldry, impotence, and cuckoldry as a consequence of impotence; and Pantagruel and Panurge, along with their monkish friend Friar John and several cohorts, embark on a sea voyage to consult the oracle of the Temple of the Bottle, visiting many strange islands and encountering many bizarre creatures along the way. As mentioned, it is of course all nonsense, but it is a definite precursor to the more farcical works of Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Lewis Carroll, and James Joyce, and for that reason it has significant value as a ribald curiosity.
Rating: 1
Summary: so clever? so what...
Comment: Rabelais is much heralded for his skewering of the rich and powerful. Frankly he does not measure up to Thomas More, Machiavelli, Erasmus or Castiglione or their writings. Some may find his works clever or cute, they may certainly rattle pre-conceptions of the stiffness of the era. As for me, it lacked wit and was mostly just crude, which some find to be groundbreaking but in fact crudeness has existed through out the ages.
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Title: Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin, Helene Iswolsky ISBN: 0253203414 Publisher: Indiana University Press Pub. Date: April, 1988 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Michel de Montaigne - The Complete Essays (Penguin Classics) by Michel De Montaigne, M.A. Screech ISBN: 0140446044 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 1993 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli ISBN: 0553212788 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 August, 1984 List Price(USD): $4.50 |
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Title: Selections from the Canzoniere and Other Works by Francesco Petrarch, Francesco Petrarca, Mark Musa ISBN: 0192839519 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Essays by Michel De Montaigne ISBN: 014017897X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: July, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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