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Evan's Reviews > Pantagruel
Pantagruel (Hesperus Classics)
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I came to Rabelais, on this reading, working backwards from the satirical visions of Sterne and Swift. These 18th century descendants evince traces of Rabelais' satire, but little of his raucous, borderline apocalyptic laughter.
Pantagruel is like a taunting parody of an Enlghtenment hero, the man of reason as productive monster. While Panurge, his master's Figaro, his Passepartout, is a cross between a warrior monk and a filthy uncle. "Pantagruel" is closer to Alfred Jarry or Bulgakov than to nearer early modern satirists. A laughter that speaks not merely of genteel criticism, but of the threat of popular justice. One imagines Swift commenting, in distaste colored with private admiration, "before us, the savage God."
No wonder Joyce was enamored of Rabelais.
As to this edition, I was glad to find Hesperus' offering of at least two of Rabelais' "cinq livres" published in more intimate novella-length packages (the other is "Gargantua"). This is a more pleasurable way to read, closer to how the works were first experienced, and a refreshing corrective to the modern tendency to present canonical literature in big value-pacs-- all the works of a given author, or some huge selection of works on a theme.
In the case of Rabelais, there is the Penguin edition for example, which presents all five "livres" in chronological disorder. So Gargantua (published in 1534) precedes Pantagruel (published in 1532), then come books 3 and 4 (published 12 and 14 years later) and book 5, whose authorship remains disputed. And so most readers will plow through this corpus as if it were a major novel, rather than an artificially linear assemblage never contemplated (or perhaps even written, in the case of book 5) by Rabelais.
In contrast, Pantagruel read separately as Rabelais' first work is bold and abrupt. After being introduced as the "sequel" to oral folk traditions, it promptly trashes the stage and then leaves before the audience quite has its bearings. And with the air still thick with dust, Rabelais steps out to admonish the reader that his characters are as saints compared to the kind of crap that's actually going on in the world.
Pantagruel is like a taunting parody of an Enlghtenment hero, the man of reason as productive monster. While Panurge, his master's Figaro, his Passepartout, is a cross between a warrior monk and a filthy uncle. "Pantagruel" is closer to Alfred Jarry or Bulgakov than to nearer early modern satirists. A laughter that speaks not merely of genteel criticism, but of the threat of popular justice. One imagines Swift commenting, in distaste colored with private admiration, "before us, the savage God."
No wonder Joyce was enamored of Rabelais.
As to this edition, I was glad to find Hesperus' offering of at least two of Rabelais' "cinq livres" published in more intimate novella-length packages (the other is "Gargantua"). This is a more pleasurable way to read, closer to how the works were first experienced, and a refreshing corrective to the modern tendency to present canonical literature in big value-pacs-- all the works of a given author, or some huge selection of works on a theme.
In the case of Rabelais, there is the Penguin edition for example, which presents all five "livres" in chronological disorder. So Gargantua (published in 1534) precedes Pantagruel (published in 1532), then come books 3 and 4 (published 12 and 14 years later) and book 5, whose authorship remains disputed. And so most readers will plow through this corpus as if it were a major novel, rather than an artificially linear assemblage never contemplated (or perhaps even written, in the case of book 5) by Rabelais.
In contrast, Pantagruel read separately as Rabelais' first work is bold and abrupt. After being introduced as the "sequel" to oral folk traditions, it promptly trashes the stage and then leaves before the audience quite has its bearings. And with the air still thick with dust, Rabelais steps out to admonish the reader that his characters are as saints compared to the kind of crap that's actually going on in the world.
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Started Reading
December 6, 2016
– Shelved
December 6, 2016
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