Gargantua and Pantagruel - Rabelais

(This concerns books 3 and 4 only.)


With book three, we rejoin Pantagruel and his friend Panurge.  Panurge now has some money to himself and there is a lengthy discussion about whether or not he should marry.  Pantagruel says that he should but Panurge is afraid that he will be cuckolded; that his wife will sleep around on him.  They agree to consult various sources for advice.  This includes wisemen, learned men, married men.  It also includes various forms of fortune telling.  The answer is remarkably uniform: if he marries, his wife will sleep around and he will end up beaten and robbed.
Panurge refuses all of these answers.  He constantly finds ways to deflect and reimagine the advice or prediction.  In this, he shows off high abuse of logic in every way imaginable.  He also shows disrespect for every level of authority he can find.  I laughed and laughed.
In book four, the two friends go on a long sea voyage so that they can consult with an oracle known as the 'Divine Bottle'.  This trip reminded me of Gulliver's Travels, in that they go to many different bizarre and absurd places.  The strangest is an island of 'Chitterlings', which are sausage like beings.  They fight against Pantagruel until a giant pig flies overhead and excretes mustard over everyone.  The book ends without a satisfying conclusion.  There is a fifth book but there is great doubt as to whether it was written by Rabelais.  It was published some years after his death.  There is speculation that it contains materials of his that were then polished up by someone else or not.  I didn't read it.


Rabelais is something of an acquired taste.  He is disrespectful of authority, writes outrageous things about women, is incredibly fond of bathroom humor and is very, very funny.  I wouldn't recommend him to everyone, but he has an important role in Western thought (as I've argued here).  We need to be able to laugh at those in power and Rabelais helps us in this.  I love that he is included in the Great Books of the Western World.
Not that his role is as easy as others to communicate.  Last year I read a book called 'Dead White Guys' by Matt Buriesci.  The author wrote this book as a gift to his young daughter for when she turns 18.  He read through the first year of the ten year plan and wrote about each of the pieces.  Except one.  He skips Rabelais. 
I don't blame him for this.  I would be hard pressed to really explain to my young children why Rabelais was important and why he still is important.  For one, they have no trouble questioning my authority and two, they're already too fond of bathroom jokes for my taste. 
One other small note: the ten year reading plan divides Rabelais in an awful manner.  His first two books come up in the first year.  The second two don't arrive until the seventh year.  Putting six years (and more than 100 other works) between the two sections is outrageous. 

Upcoming

Chaucer went very quickly.  (Some very good stuff there.)  Up next is Rabelais, with books 3 and 4 of 'Gargantua and Pantagruel'.  We read the first two books all the way back in year one.  If I'd followed the pattern of the 10 year reading plan, I would have tackled these two in year seven.  That's not how I would have designed it.  Anyway, I enjoyed the first two books and I'm looking forward to this too.


In other writings, I've now finished all of Shakespeare's comedies.  I need to write about the last three of them.  Hope to do that next week.  I'm currently planning on reading the Henry VI plays and Richard III.  Then on to the rest of the tragedies.  We'll see what happens.

Rabelais for teens?

Way back when I mentioned that the only thing I really knew about Rabelais is that he was one of the authors that Marion (the librarian) had urged on the teens of River City, Iowa in 'the Music Man'.  I wondered how good a fit that would be and whether the town mothers should have been upset.  Now that I've read some of his work, I can finally give that an answer.
I'd be very surprised if anyone urged a teen to read Rabelais in this day and age.  There are some certainly, for whom it would be good but far more for whom it would probably be a mistake.  I can't imagine a school teacher assinging a reading of 'Pantagruel' without risking being fired. 
But that may not be the full story.  It's not all that hard to imagine an edited translation of Rabelais that would keep all of the joy and humanism while skipping the obscene and nasty stuff.  If Marion was urging a bowlderdized version to those teens, that would almost certainly be fine.
My kids?  My oldest right now is four so it's hard to really understand what her teen reading habits will be.  I do know this, when I was a teen I read things that would have raised my parents eyebrows.  I'm guessing that's not all that unusual.  If one of my kids, at fifteen or so, wants to give Rabelais a spin, I'd smile and hand it to them.  I'd tell them that some of it is unbelievable and that they could talk to me after if they wanted.  And then I'd smile some more.

Why Rabelais?

(Good grief, I screwed up the formatting on this.  Or had conflicting edits or something because now that I look at it, there are parts missing from what I wrote.  I've updated it and hopefully now it makes more sense.  Sorry!)

Why are we reading Rabelais anyway?  He's educated, true, but he's also one of the coarser and filthy writers that you'll find.  At least, let me say, I'd be shocked if anything else in the Great Books series compares. 
So.  Should it be included in the Great Books?  As a fellow blogger asked:

I just don't get why this made the Great Books... especially when books like Ovid's Metamorphoses and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur are noticeably absent.

Rabelais started publishing in 1532 and quickly came under fire from the church and the universities.  His work would have been banned if the King himself hadn't stepped in.  Eco writes of a man a full century later who is still upset that he is being persecuted for his reading tastes.  And persecuted by men who are full of sin.Well . . . let me take a swing at this.  I'm going to lean a bit on two different books by Umberto Eco, one of my favorite authors.  If you're not familiar with Eco, he's an Italian author who studied medieval philosophy and literature and used that knowledge to create some wonderful historical fiction.  I was reading from his 'Island of the Day Before' and there is a description of a fighter in the 30 years war.  The figher is complaining about the state of the world and says:

Now Jesuits lascivious as rams fulminate against the readers of Rabelais and the latin poets, and would have us all be virtuous and kill the Huguenots.

The state church of the 16th century had too much power.  Any organization that can ban books probably has too much power.  That's doubly true if they can also grab the ear of the state and spark religious wars.  In short, they had too much authority and needed someone to stand up to them. 
That's the role that Rabelais played.  He said that man should laugh and he provided targets for them to laugh at.  He also deflated the authority of some groups that dearly needed to be taken down a notch.  (I'd also argue that it does the church no good to become that powerful in worldly affairs.  The higher levels of the church were notoriously corrupt.  Several medieval popes were contemptible creatures.  It's hard to imagine that today.)
But Rabelais is sooo crass!  Yes, he is and if he wasn't, he might not have been nearly as effective.  His writings wouldn't have been as popular if they'd been more subtle.  If he had only offended a little, he would have been quickly forgotten. 
The other book by Eco is one of my all time favorites, 'The Name of the Rose' and if you haven't read it before, well, I can't recommend it highly enough.  The book is set in an abbey in the late 12th century and it involves a murder mystery.  During the book there are a few discussions on the value (if any) of laughter and the ridiculous.  Eco's protagonist argues that humor, especially that of the crass and absurd, is important because there is no better weapon against the too powerful.  Authority can stand power and challenge but it has trouble with laughter. 
Did Rabelais have some effect on the move towards the Enlightenment?  I'd have to read more but I wouldn't be surprised if he did.  There was a long period of time when much scientific effort was spent solely on Biblical study.  Not that such a study is wasted, no, but if it keeps the brightest from studying other areas as well, that's a problem.  If Rabelais convinced some of the geniuses of his age to branch out, then he did the world a huge favor. 

If I get more time, I'll look online and see if I've suggested too much about Rabelais' influence.  Other opinions are certainly welcome and if I'm wrong I look forward to correction in the comments.

Pantagruel - Rabelais

This was the novel that Rabelais first published, even though it read second in my set.  Rabelais opens by walking through the genealogy of Pantagruel, very much patterned after the begat sections of the Bible.  He even explains how these giants made it through the flood.  The ancestral giant simply rode on top of the ark, like a toy horse.  I doubt that the church was very happy with this.
The book moves along in a like manner.  Pantagruel develops a reputation by successfully trying a very difficult case in court.  It was difficult because both parties were so full of nonsense that no one else could even understand what they were arguing over.  After listening to the two buffoons, Pantagruel matched their buffoonery and both were pleased with the verdict.  I doubt that the courts were very happy with this.
But the really crazy stuff happens once we are introduced to Panturge.  He speaks to Pantagruel and his companions in about ten different languages until the admits to speaking French.  They quickly become the best of friends.  And man, Panturge is amazingly wicked.
The book relates a long argument of Guesstures where Panturge is declared the winner.  After this he becomes famous in Paris and, um, wears out his codpieces.  There is only one woman who resists his advances, a very religious married woman.  Panturge tries various methods to seduce her but each one fails.  Finally he devises a way to attract every dog in Paris to her and they all try to mate with her.  I doubt that polite society was very happy with this. 
And that's without relating the story of the lion and the ax wound which is almost too over the top to be believed!

Rabelais published this and there was immediate clamor from all of the respectable establishments (church, school, etc.) to have it banned.  The King of France himself intervened and we still have it today. 
I didn't enjoy this as much as 'Gargantua'.  The biggest reason is that I was somewhat horrified by Panturge.  Maybe in one of the later books he has some kind of comeuppance or change of character but here is astoundingly wicked.  Wicked and well liked.  That seems to cross the line between laughing at authority and laughing at cruelty.  Which meant that the smile I read sometimes became pursed lips. 
At the end of the introduction to 'Gargantua', Rabelais says:

Good friends, my Readers, who peruse this Book, Be not offended, whilst on it you look: Denude yourselves of all depraved affection, For it contains no badness, nor infection: 'Tis true that it brings for to you no birth Of any value, but in point of mirth; Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind Consume, I could no apter subject find; One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span; Because to laugh is proper to the man.  

(Italics mine.)  I thought that 'Gargantua' hit the target well, 'Pantagruel' not quite as much.

Gargantua - Rabelais

This first book of Rabelais, well actually wasn't written first.  He wrote about Garagantua's son Pantagruel first and them came back and filled in some back story.  I hadn't known that until I was about half way through 'Pantagruel' and it is interesting to compare styles back and forth.  While 'Gargantua' is certainly shocking in parts, it is less so than 'Pantagruel'. 
Gargantua is a giant and this is the story of his birth, upbringing and days as a student.  Right away we get a feel for Rabelais' style as he explains in anatomical detail how Gargantua was born to his mother in an usual way.  He came out of her ear.  Rabelais tells us that he sees nothing in the Bible that would prevent such a thing from happening.  He goes on to tell us what kind of things Gargantua would do during a normal day.  There is a Renaissance writing rule that says if you're going to list three things you should probably list fifty.  We get that in full scope.
Two early bits stood out for there shock value.  The first is a list of the euphemisms that Gargantua's maids have for his penis.  The list goes on for paragraph after paragraph.  The second takes place when Gargantua greets his father and tells him that he has been searching for the very best way to wipe his bum.  His efforts were exhaustive and included all kinds of cloths and fine things and then on to various animals.  I won't spoil the ending but I will say that I've never felt 1/100 so adventurous on the toilet.
We read about growing up in France in the early 1500s and we hear about Gargantua's exhausting daily routine of study and exercise.  From what I can tell there is quite a bit of historical value here as a glimpse into life at that time.  I won't dispute that.
Then we read about a dispute over cakes that somehow escalates into a full scale war on Gargantua's home province.  He comes back from school and does mighty things.  I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't the first time many people had read an account of a foolish war.  In fact, that is one of the wonders of the reading.  I kept asking myself how in the world this got published back in the day that it did.  If it's shocking today (and some of it is) then how must this have been in a time where life was sometimes very cheaply held.
Did I enjoy it?  Yeah, I really did.  Rabelais has a very earthy humor and it's easy to see the smile on his face as he was writing.  Would I give it to teenagers to read?  As I said the other day, I don't know if I would want them to read it but at the same time, I'm absolutely certain they would enjoy it.  

Biography of Rabelais

Francois Rabelais was born some time in the late 1400s.  Some think as early as 1483 and some as late as 1494.  In his early life he was a novice in the Franciscan order but he eventually found it too restrictive and left.  He studied at a couple of universities and ended up studying in Lyons.  He also practiced medicine and you can really tell that from his writings.
In 1532 he published 'Pantagruel' and later the prequel 'Gargantua'.  Both were popular with the people but condemned by the Sorbonne and the Catholic church.  However he received approval from the King himself and was allowed to keep publishing.  He spent quite a bit of time outside of France, probably in hiding from those who had branded him a heretic. 
He died in Paris in 1553 and had at least two different sets of last words attributed to him.  He apparently wrote 'I have nothing, I owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor' and said 'I go to seek a Great Perhaps'. 

June Reading - Rabelais

June

Rabelais: 'Gargantua and Pantagruel' books 1 and 2 Kindle/Nook/Google

Virtually all I know of Rabelais is his inclusion in a song from 'The Music Man'.  You may remember that Marian, Madame Librarian is trying to broaden the minds of some small town Iowan teenagers by introducing them to some classic authors.  The town mothers resist, listing Chaucer, Rabelais and Balzac as the worst offenders.  (On a side note, this is my daughters favorite song to sing in the car.)  One of the things I'll look out for this month is whether or not Rabelais is appropriate for a librarian to give to teenagers. 

Update: I forgot to mention that books 3 and 4 pop up in year seven.  If you want to read the whole thing and make some notes, please feel free to do so.