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Just finished The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (J.U. Nicolson translation). "The Miller's Tale" alone was worth the price of admission, if only for the lesson taught that people should be careful of kissing in the dark. Plus it has a great flatulence joke, and I've always considered flatulence, like music, to be a universal language.
"The Merchant's Tale" was another winner that told the story of blind January whose wife was makin' whoopie with a lover right in his presence when the god Pluto, infuriated at her actions, chose that moment to give him back his sight. But Pluto's wife, Proserpina, upset at the double standard that unfairly singled out women for criticism for what was a nearly universal failing in men, gave January's wife the gift of gab so that she was able to convince January that he didn't see what he thought he saw.
The final one was "The Parson's Tale," which wasn't a tale at all, but at over 3 hours and 19 minutes, was hands-down the longest sermon I've ever heard. All through the book, up until the end, bawdy story telling was inter-spaced with Christian piety. Chaucer seems to have hit on something that Hollywood discovered back in the silent era: The right mix of sex and religion can result in a combination that's pure box-office gold (think of the nude dancers leading the parade through the streets of Rome in the 1925 movie Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ). This was a very enjoyable and imaginative book, and one I'm sure I'll be returning to in the future.
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