[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 1.33 MB, 2499x1242, 1570729093883.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19117629 No.19117629 [Reply] [Original]

Are Tristram Shandy and Gargantua et Pantagruel as good and as funny as Don Quixote?

>> No.19117656

>>19117629
Tristram Shandy I think is funnier than Don Quixote, can't speak on Gargantua & Pantagruel since I never read it.

>> No.19117801

>>19117629
that Tristram Shandy's cover is awful omg how can one do this to him

>> No.19117823

>>19117629
I remember Rabelais from high school but 16th century French is horribly difficult for some reason (harder than medieval French, and things got better in the 17th century thanks to Richelieu and the Académie Française), at least in prose. The Pléiades' poetry is easier to read, perhaps because they're the guys who defined and unified the French grammar.

>> No.19117863

>>19117801
There was a bit in the book about a man with a very impressive nose that drove nuns mad with lust

>> No.19117953

>>19117629
I read Tristram Shandy earlier this year and quit page 300. I was reading it with the free audiobook but it was too shit and i got confused and stop reading it. The comedy was alright, made me chuckle at times. Can’t say the same for Gargantua and Pantagruel, because I haven’t read it. But you want i can talk to you about other 18th century literature like tom jones and Humphrey clinker, as they’re inspired by Don Quixote. In fact the author who write Humphrey Clinker, Tobias Smollet, did a translation of Don Quixote.

>> No.19117963

>>19117953
Learn english

>> No.19117966

>>19117629
I read Gargantua, most of the jokes went over my head but some parts were really funny. I think you have to know a lot about late medieval/early renaissance culture to get it, and being able to read latin would help as well.

>> No.19117975

>>19117629
They are funny yes, but the real question is if they can be as profound as don quixote

>> No.19117976

>>19117953
>reading
>audiobook

>> No.19117978

>>19117963
It’s called Stream of consciousness, dude!

>> No.19117981

I guess I got filtrered by Tristram Shandy cause I dropped that shit after 40 anguishing pages. The whole "joke", if you can call it that, is that narrator has terrible ADHD and can't stay on one topic for more than a page. Basically Lol So Randumb: The Novel

>> No.19117998

Everything I've heard about these three makes me want to read them more.

Need to finish the recognitions first.

>> No.19118112

>>19117976
I know your joking but shandy really works if you reading it someone. Especially if they could do a norm macdonald expression (rip)

>> No.19118131

Part I of Tristram Shandy is good but it gets stale really fast after that

>> No.19118134

>>19117629
both books have some very funny moments but are reduced by their length. gargantua in particular has many sections that are boring as fuck. i'm glad i read them but i don't see myself reading them again

>> No.19118149

>>19118131
>>19117981
Its important to understand that Tristram Shandy, like many books of its time, was published as serials. It was basically 18th century Seinfeld, like any comedy it suffers from marathoning.

>> No.19118643

>>19117629
Tristram Shandy is as good as Don Quixote, though it's style and structure make it more challenging to read.
Gargantua and Pantagruel are not as funny, definitely feels more primitive in it's humor than the other two, It's not medieval work but in it's humor I feel it's more in touch with medieval sensibilities than modern sensibilities unlike the other two. If you laugh at gross out humor and slapstick you will find it funnier. The third books is the best one in my opinion (G&P it's actually 5 books), very different from the other ones.
Also, Tristram Shandy is heavily inspired by both of those works, and constantly references them, as well as Shakespeare so you might get more out of it if you read those first though it's not necessary.

>> No.19118666

>>19117629
>>19118643
What kind of translation should i get for g and p? I’m thinking of getting the latest penguin copy but i want to hear your guy’s thoughts on it.

>> No.19119819

>>19118666
I read the Urquhart and Motteux translation. I enjoyed it. I've read some opinions on the different translations and it seems like nobody has done a great job. Time to start working on classical French, I guess.

>> No.19119840

>>19117801
t. skipped the part in Latin

>> No.19120099

>>19117975
Maybe some stuff of Gargantua.

>> No.19121283

I'm French so maybe it has to do with my culture but I definitely found Gargantua hilarious. Rabelais uses a lot of classical medieval and ancient culture that he mixes with grotesque jokes but the whole thing makes it very funny. After all, Rabelais was an author of his time, so you have to know how to extract the substantifique moelle of the work, which requires a good knowledge of the historical, cultural and intellectual context of the time, at the beginning of the Renaissance, where new theories about man coexist with esotericism and the Language of the birds that Rabelais may have used. A work difficult to access certainly but very rich, I know for example that Tocqueville studied it extensively.