Lucas Blogs About Books

That's right, it's that thing I hate where the qualitative is quantified for no discernible purpose. But it is also kinda fun. So here are the rules: this is based solely on my own enjoyment of the extant Canterbury Tales; the General Prologue and Here Taketh the Makere of This Book His Leve are excluded, only portions of the text marked as tales will be considered; prologues count as part of their tale; in the event that I deem two tales to be equally enjoyable there will be a tie;  I'll try and come up with a pithy summation of each tale; and of course, we start with the worst: 24) The Prioress's Tale : Basically Blood Libel.  This one is just straight-up anti-semitic garbage. It has no redeeming value. It serves no purpose beyond defaming Jews and feeding a Christian persecution complex in spite of the fact that it was written in a country whose Christian king had expelled all Jews more than a century before it was written. It's trash. 23) The Parson's Tale :...

Well, I never need to reuse this picture again.   The Intro That's right, we've finally arrived in Canterbury, readers (Hypothetical or otherwise), this is the final installment of Whan That Month , a mere three months behind schedule. This month I'll be reading the longest of the tales (by about twenty pages) and something that's not a tale at all, so let's jump into— The Parson's Prologue Chaucer reckons that it's about four in the afternoon when the Manciple finishes his tale , and Harry Bailly triumphantly proclaims that they lack only one tale (the math definitely doesn't check out there, especially since The Manciple's Prologue is about the lack of a tale from the Cook). So he turns to the Parson who, having listened to the other pilgrim's tales on the road to Canterbury without comment replies, "Y'all need Jesus." And rather than a tale proceeds to deliver— The Parson's Tale Which, as it turns out, is a lengthy guide to p...

That's right, this photo's still goin' strong. The Intro Last month  time sort of got away from me and I only covered the Second Nun's Tale (a translation of the life of Saint Cecilia), which makes up the first half of the eight fragment. So let's see how Chaucer follows that up in–  The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue Shortly after the Second Nun finishes telling the life of Saint Cecile, and just as the pilgrims are nearly at Boughton-under-Blee (about five miles away from Canterbury), the party is overtaken by a chanoun (that is to say a member of the order of Augustinian canons, who can be distinguished by their white surplices and black habits) and his yeman (yeoman). It turns out that they've been riding hard because they wanted to join the company and Harry Bailly is more than happy to accommodate them, if they can add to the merriment by telling a tale or two. The Canon's Yeoman is more than happy to volunteer information about his master, who as i...

Oh, you thought I would use a different picture for this month? The Intro Welcome back to Whan That Month — Lucas Blogs About The Canterbury Tales . As you might have guessed, this is my new monthly feature about my plan to read Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales  in a year or less. Last month I covered the General Prologue and The Knight's Tale. What's coming up this month? I'm glad you asked. I did not. Oh, Hypothetical Reader, I didn't think you'd want to involved yourself in something you've described as my " fascination with this medieval bullshit ." I don't. So this digression is a waste of time. Yup! This month we're covering what I like to call The Canterbury  Tales of Ribaldry  (Chaucer even says they both spoke of "harlotrye"! That's right, we're gettin' a little spicy this month, because immediately following The Knight's Tale, Chaucer segues into: The Miller...

A blauggre ther was . . . The Intro I like to take on reading projects every now and then. Back before I had this blog I read one chapter of   Journey to the West daily for a hundred days. On the one hand, this made the episodic nature of the narrative feel a little repetitive. On the other hand it was an easy way to read a classic of world literature. I just wrapped up another reading project for this blog—  A Year of Unfortunate Events  — wherein I read one entry in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events every month for thirteen months. Oddly enough this did leave me feeling a little burnt out. I'm not particularly satisfied with the way the feature turned out. I guess those books and I weren't quite as simpatico as I remembered and the whole thing started to seem like a self-imposed chore. I guess what I'm saying is that this next project can go one of two ways. The Project I first encountered The Canterbury Tales  in college, and t...

Huh, five ads from five actors' parents? What are the odds? So, what's this book's deal? Well, actually, Hypothetical Reader, this isn't a book, it's just the program from a high school play! Oh, so that's a big, fat — That's fair. Maybe this is more of an Oddaptations : Slightly trimmed! Some people like to complain about the inevitable changes that occur when a story is adapted from one medium to another. But let's be honest, sometimes, the less faithful an adaptation is, the more memorable it is. So, in this series I'll be taking a look at adaptations where creators took one look at the source material and said, "FUCK THAT NOISE!" to see how that turned out. Today's Oddaptation: The Canterbury Tales ( Tales of Caunterbury ) (1387-1400ish) by Geoffrey Chaucer into The Canterbury Tales (2002) by Lindsay Price, dir. Stacy Castiglione (performed October 18-20, 2018) So how did the tale of pilgrims swapping ...