It's a great read; perfect if you've always meant to get around to Mr C, are mildly curious as to the contents of his Tales, or have heard the rumours about how much sex and filth they contain but can't quite stomach the fact of all those olde worldly fpellings with their crazy mixed up letterf. (Why do I get the feeling this joke will be lost in translation? Stupid Blogger with its limited choice of fonts. And I do mean fonts, not sonts. There are no such thing as sonts.)
Part way through, I realised that I'm probably not the only person who has always meant but not quite managed to get around to reading the Tales. Mainly because just about every person who saw me reading the book said something along the lines of "oh yeah, those. I've heard of those. Never read them though...". It occurred to me that other people might be as curious as as I was as to what the Tales are all about and so the Bluffer's Guide to the Canterbury Tales was born, right here on this very blog. I am expecting a call from the blue plaque committee any day. There are fifteen installments in total, and you can find them all by clicking "Canterbury Tales" at the bottom of this post.
You're probably a busy person though. So, to make it even simpler, there's a quick summary below. What's more, if you want to read the full version of any of the tales (by which I mean the full version of my bluffer's guide version of Peter Ackroyd's version of the original version....are you still with me?) clicking on the title will get you to the right blog post. Isn't technology marvellous?
For a more detailed and accurate account of any of the Tales, of course, I will point you one final time in the direction of Peter Ackroyd's excellent book.
My copy is now looking rather dog-eared and tired, having been carted around in my laptop bag for four months, buried temporarily under a gigantic mound of parsley and introduced, by accident, to the contents of several cups of coffee. I don't usually treat my books like this, but sometimes sacrifices need to be made.
The good(!) news is there is a pristine copy of another classic text sitting on my desk waiting for the same treatment. It's something else that I've always meant to get around to reading, but never tackled; I have only read book one (of twenty four) so far, but it's going to be a cracker I think. And the sort of thing which it could be quite handy to be able to blag and bluff your way through in certain situations. Watch this space.
(I am perfectly happy to take requests for future bluffer's guides by the way; just leave them in the comments. No promises or anything, but it doesn't hurt to ask. And no using me to cheat on your A levels. I could do without that kind of responsibility.)
In the meantime, are you comfortable? Here, for the very last time, is my definitive Bluffer's Guide to the Canterbury Tales :
The Knight's Tale: Disappointingly filth-free. Arcite v Palamon; Palamon wins, in the long run.
The Miller's Tale: An old crusty carpenter has a young lusty wife. She has a bit on the side, he survives an unfortunate incident involving a falling bathtub.
The Reeve's Tale: Comedy bed-swapping mix-ups galore, involving two Cambridge scholars, a miller, his wife and their daughter. Who moved that cradle?
The Cook's Tale: Something about a prostitute. He's not allowed to tell it, initially, and later he's too drunk to care.
The Man of Law's Tale: Constance has the mother-in-law from hell. Twice. There's a happy ending though. Features an excellent picture which is not a snake with a woman's face for a head.
The Wife of Bath's Tale: A knight, in an attempt to find out what women want, marries an ugly old crone. Works surprisingly well in Lego. For video evidence, click that link (you know you want to.)
The Friar's Tale: Summoners are evil (allegedly).
The Summoner's Tale: No they're not. But Friars are pretty stupid, and deserve to be farted on (says the summoner).
The Clerk's Tale: Walter, who is an idiot, marries sweet and lovely Griselda, who turns out to be almost as much of an idiot for putting up with Walter's crap.
The Merchant's Tale: A knight called January marries May, turns blind and then regains his sight just in time to catch his (clearly rather flexible) wife doing the dirty with his squire, while they are both up a tree.
The Squire's Tale: Ghengis Khan has a birthday party and we meet a self-harming bird. We learn that tercelets are not to be trusted.
The Franklin's Tale: Good things happen to good people. Features some magic disappearing rocks.
The Physician's Tale: Claudius takes a direct and somewhat unconventional approach to dating and relationships. It's not very successful.
The Pardoner's Tale: Don't trust your mates too much, especially if they've been drinking.
The Shipman's Tale: Don't trust your mates too much, especially if they're having it off with your wife. Maybe you shouldn't trust your wife, either. Someone ends up 100 Francs better off, but I can't tell you who.
The Prioress's Tale: An incredibly annoying little boy sings a lot, then dies. Then he's resurrected, but then he dies again. Repeat ad infinitum.
Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas: Bad rhyme is quite a crime
The Monk's Tale: Why tell a story if you can thoroughly depress everyone by rattling off a long list of people who have suffered great misfortune instead? (He's a fun guy, the monk.)
The Nun's Priest's Tale: Don't expect to hear much about Molly the Sheep or Colin the Dog. Chanticleer the rooster is a bit of a stud, his girlfriend Pertelote is a drama queen and it doesn't take much to fool a fox.
The Second Nun's Tale: Everyone turns religious, and then they die. Blame Cecelia.
The Cannon's Yeoman's Tale: Alchemists are the 14th century equivalent of Gillian McKeith.
The Manciple's Tale: We find out why crows are black and can't sing. (Hint: it's because one in particular was not much of a romantic and a bit of a blabber-mouth)
And that's the end. Except for one thing which is driving me up the wall: The whole premise for this collection of tales is that a bunch of pilgrims are having a story-telling contest, to see who can tell the most entertaining story, but we NEVER FIND OUT WHO WINS. I want to know who wins. Is that too much to ask?
For the record, if I was in charge, and I have thought about this a lot, my money would be split evenly between the Man of Law and the Reeve. Plus, I'd give the Franklin an honorable mention because he's just so darned nice. You?
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