Cheating with Boccaccio
The other day I read an essay on how to survive the credit crunch. The author suggests that we read Boccaccio’s Decameron. Written in the 14th century, the Decameron is set in a time more horrific than ours: the Black Death of 1347 which wiped out much of the population of Europe. In the book, seven ladies and three gentlemen try to escape the plague by fleeing to the country. There they entertain themselves by telling stories. Each day a theme is set—say, love stories with unhappy endings—and each participant has to tell a tale along those lines. There are horror stories, romantic stories, tragic, comic, and erotic stories (Such as the one about the well-endowed young man who goes to work as a gardener at a convent and pretends to be a deaf-mute…). The point being that even in the worst of times, people will go on laughing, crying, and repopulating the earth. You can’t beat the life force.
If you’re going to read just one book in your entire life, I recommend the Decameron for its wide range of human experience. I dusted off my browning paperback (the one bright spot in an incredibly tedious Medieval and Renaissance lit survey—some teachers take the fun out of everything), had a little nosh, and before I knew it, it was 3 am. I don’t know about surviving the recession, but Boccaccio is exactly what I need to survive The Wings of the Dove by Henry James. I’m still slogging through the James in the hope that any minute its beauty will kick in and I’ll see what the fuss is all about. Whenever I feel like hurling the book at the wall or yelling “Shut up! Shut up, you old fart!” I pick up the Boccaccio and read a few stories until my fury passes. I think of it as cheating on Henry James with Giovanni Boccaccio.
Today after dinner, Jay and I were sitting in Jan’s studio when Jay noticed a pot of basil on the window seat. This reminded me of that tale in the Decameron about a young woman whose lover is killed by her brothers. He appears to her in a dream and tells her where his body is buried. She unearths his head and plants it in a pot of basil which she waters with her tears.
Lorenzo de Medici (the Magnificent) commissioned the painter Sandro Botticelli to do four paintings based on the 8th tale of the 5th day (The table of contents includes very helpful summaries of each tale). In the tale Nastagio falls in love with a haughty woman who treats him cruelly, but he can’t get her out of his mind. So he goes on a trip and one day, in the forest, he beholds a terrifying sight:
A beautiful naked woman being chased by a knight on a black horse (Botticelli preferred white) and two huge dogs.
The dogs attack the woman, tear her apart and devour her. Nastagio learns that the knight was a lovesick man like himself, and the woman was his tormentor. Upon their deaths, the knight and the woman are condemned to enact this horrible chase every Friday for all eternity.
Clever Nastagio realizes that he can benefit from this regularly-occurring apparition. He organizes a breakfast banquet at the exact spot where he’d seen the bloody vision, and invites several guests—including the cruel woman he loves.
The chase takes place right on schedule. Nastagio’s beloved is so disturbed by the vision and its similarity to her own situation that she immediately resolves to be nice to him.
I had a DVD of Pasolini’s adaptation of The Decameron. It came free with an Italian magazine—I don’t speak Italian, but I figure that if I keep trying to read it, comprehension will kick in at any moment (same principle I’m applying to the James). The DVD had no subtitles, not that it needed any: it was all nudity and boinking. It got boring after a while so I gave it away.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
January 15th, 2009 at 02:31
Hi Jessica, sorry this is out of topic. But I just would like to ask your opinion about the suspension of 4 QCSHS students for writing about their principal in their blogs. Thanks…
January 15th, 2009 at 08:53
My copy of The Decameron was bought in 1993 and it is one of the few classics I have wrapped in plastic. (I wrap the books I love.) Now that you have brought this ravishing classic up I encourage others to really read it. I love the sensuality of the stories. As regards Henry James, well it is indeed quite punishing reading his heavy works. His Golden Bowl was torture. But I still got to finish it and patted myself on the back. The Wings of the Dove was not as cruel to me. By the way, I had intended to read this week I Celebrate Myself, a bio on Allen Ginsberg but I instead was drawn to the paperback copy of the under-rated classic McTeague by Frank Norris, an ignored gem at Book Sale.
January 16th, 2009 at 14:12
My recent reading was meant to take in The Great Gatsby as per one of your posts last week, but instead, I re-read my Asimov books. Maybe it’s just me, but everytime I read a Susan Calvin story, I was struck by the similarity between her and speech and your Twisted articles. Also, I reached two conclusions:
1. Norman Muller (and Multivac) elected Barack Obama on November 4, 2008 (see ‘Franchise’ and confirm the details); and
2. Barack Obama may be an humaniform robot and may or may not be otherwise known as Stephen Byerley – check the similarities; he as good as sucker-punched an aggressive Clinton in the primaries; he’s a lawyer; he campaigned on a platform of benevolence; he captured world attention and interest to an almost unprecedented degree, etc. (see ‘Evidence’).
Also, I don’t know if Lest We Remember has ever been made into a film, but I would love to direct a version.
Cheers.
January 18th, 2009 at 21:27
This has nothing to do with anything, but it is bugging the hell out of me and maybe someone can help.
From somewhere in my subconscious, the traces of an old short story (I think) that I read ages ago has intruded upon my thoughts. I want to read it again, but I can’t remember sufficient details of the plot or the author that would enable me to find it. What I remember is this:
It starts off with a priest or other clergyman listening to the story/confession of a man on death row. The man claims that he is going to be executed for not knowing the answer to a trivial question (that everyone, or at least a the person he claims that he is, would know) or for some otherwise insignificant personal trait (I’m not too sure of what the factor is, but it is the key to solving the puzzle both in the story and in my memory banks). The priest thinks this suggestion is an impertinence until the man explains how he got to where he is. It turns out that he left his wife and wandered around the countryside. Eventually, he ended up exchanging clothes with a stranger who was either already dead in a field or ended up being so. [For some reason, I recall that the clothes were peculiar in some way, either being brown, or a Salvation Army uniform, or something.] The man was then picked up by the Police for matching the description of a criminal – the clothes he took belonged to the true culprit. He then attempted to prove who he really was by requesting that they ask him the really obvious question referred to above. However, at that inopportune time, the obvious answer would not come to his mind, try as he might. Witnesses who might have been able to exhonerate him are unable to properly identify him. Being thus unable to disprove being the culprit and establish his real identity, he was convicted and sentenced to death. The priest leaves with an uneasy mind.
I have flipped through a bunch of books looking for it, so Jessica, if you recall it or if anyone here knows where it is from, please let me know, I’m going crazy over this. I ask here because I place great store in the literary experience of the habitues of this blog and I don’t know where else to find such an assembly; plus you might relish the challenge.
Thanks.
January 18th, 2009 at 23:12
It’s The Lost Sanjak by H.H. Munro (Saki).
http://www.online-literature.com/hh-munro/1835/
January 18th, 2009 at 23:23
That’s the one! Thank you so much Jessica. Brilliant and impressively fast! Faith was not misplaced. Now at last I can rest in peace.
Cheers.
January 19th, 2009 at 00:29
I too need a respite from Middlemarch so I shall give your recommendation serious consideration. The mind-numbing parts notwithstanding, I marvel at the piercing psychological insight. Plus I have already cast Julie Walters for the part of the busybody Mrs. Cadwallader. And now I find out from Wikipedia that Sam Mendes has a movie adaptation out this year. Okay, must. finish. book. before. film. comes.out.