An Exuberant Masterpiece

This novel is almost 600 years old, yet it’s hugely entertaining, far more so than I had expected.

In both content and style, there were times when I couldn’t have guessed when it was written.

It’s no longer argued that it was the first ever novel. However, its narrative div

Rabelais is not to be skipped in literary history as he is a source of so much proverb, story & joke which are derived from him into all modern books in all languages
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is perhaps one of the most reassuring aspects of reading great books of the past how often you come across an i

That is why, Drinkers, I counsel you to lay up a good stock of my books while the time is right; as soon as you come across them on the booksellers’ stalls you must not only shuck them but devour them like an opiatic cordial and incorporate them within you: it is then that you will discover the good

Gargantua and Pantagruel is a bawdy feast of wordplay and erudition; a wild departure from the simple tales of The Decameron. It is unfortunate that so much of the linguistic inventiveness is obscured by the need for translation, as well as forgotten references and changes in meaning and pronunciati

«Αν μου πείτε: «Δάσκαλε, φαίνεται πως δεν στάθηκες ιδιαίτερα σοφός με το να μας γράψεις ετούτες τις κουταμάρες και ετούτες τις χαρωπές κοροϊδίες» σας απαντάω πως δεν είσαστε διόλου πιο σοφοί, αφού χάνετε την ώρα σας να τις διαβάζετε. Πάντως, αν για να περνάει χαρούμενα η ώρα σας τις διαβάζετε, όπως

Rabelais! The foreman of farts! The sheik of shit! The rajah of rectums! Listen, the first joke in the world was a fart joke; Sophocles, Shakespeare, Melville, all liked fart jokes; but no one has ever farted like Rabelais.

Here's the dirty truth: if you're not super into 1100 pages of 16th century f