DNF: 20%

Tried and tried, but couldn't pay attention. Audiobook helped, but it wasn't enough. ( )

s um dos livros que ajudaram a formar a literatura ocidental tal como a conhecemos: comédia, costumes fustigados e a graça infinita de um titã da imaginação. Publicado pela primeira vez em 1475, Contos da Cantuária é uma coleção magistral de histórias de cavalaria, alegorias morais e farsa desbragada. Tudo começa a partir de um certame entre peregrinos acerca das melhores histórias de cavalaria e romances. Rico e diverso, o livro descortina - com crueza e lirismo, graça e deboche - o universo social e cultural da Inglaterra em plena Idade Média. Anedotas, ciclos cavalheirescos, escatologia, ensinamentos edificantes e muita caricatura surgem nas histórias desses peregrinos que rumam em direção à Cantuária, onde pretendem visitar o túmulo de São Thomas Becket.
Vertido para o português com maestria, mas sem deixar de lado o humor e a diversão, o livro tem tudo para cativar leitores de todas as idades. ( )

Chaucer is an author I have long neglected. I keep meaning to read him, but never do -- well finally I have in a Modern English translation. The translation is rhymed to boot. This is probably as good a translation as one can get, which made it much easier to read. I can't say the stories were mesmerizing or even that entertaining -- but it does make clear to me that most marriages were not all that happy and the most common entertainment was to seduce someone's wife or cheat on one's husband. I guess our tv shows have pretty much the same theme. There was one story, however, that was not about that. The Prioress' tale is about a Christian child who is murdered by some Jews and the miracle of the child singing though his throat was slit. It is an awful, anti-semitic story and disturbing too. ( )

Good example of frame story, and I think it is amazing for the times in which is was written, that is the 14th century. We've studied it in high-school. ( )

What do they say? Third time is a charm? It took me a third try to understand the attraction of this work, and even enjoy it.

I read the Bantam Duel-Language version, edited by A. Kent and Constance Hieatt. Reading the duel-language, with the Middle English on the opposite page of the Modern English helped tremendously. I could read the modern version first, for understanding, then read the original version for the poetry and humor. In this way, I could appreciate both the meat and the broth of the stories.

I am very glad that I read a book a year or two on the whole topic of Love and Chivalry in the Medieval times. It shines the light on a lot of behavior and actions in these stories which would have been dark and repulsive to me if I didn't understand where the ideas came from. Not that I'm saying the behaviors were not dark and repulsive. Even though not all of the tales were included here, I feel no compulsion to seek out more of them. This was an interesting read, and I'm glad I gave it a third chance. ( )