fabliaux

I've read Cuckolds, Clerics, and Countrymen. Translations by John DuVal, commentary by Raymond Eichmann. It has a selection of ten fabliaux that Eichmann feels are most representative.

The introduction defines "fabliaux" as "verse meant for laughter". These are bawdy, often involving seductions, but the sex is precursory. Only one of the ten would meet a more modern idea of erotica (material "to stimulate sexual desire"). In "The Lady-Leech" ("De la Saineresse"), a woman sneaks a lover past her husband by having him cross-dress and pose as a doctor (or more specifically a bloodletter) and then uses double-entendre to describe the treatment.

That aside, I didn't feel like I had wasted my time with the book. The tales were for the most part amusing, if very dated in parts. Husbands beating wives, or cuckolds caught, to an inch of their lives for trangressions are the norm here. Several involve the wrong person being beaten. "The Wife of Orleans" ("De la Borgoise d'Orliens") has a husband trying to catch his wife cheating by posing as her lover. She knows what's going on and plays along only to have the household staff beat him pretending it was her trap for the would be lover.

They really began to pound.
They were not bashful with the sticks.
He couldn't have gotten better licks
If he had paid them ten sous apiece.
...
But after all, it did him good,
And put him out of his bad mood
To know his wife was free from stain.

Which of course, she isn't. I'll probably hunt down some more fabliaux to read.

Final thought: could do without the rhyming couplets, though

David Macaulay books worth mention

Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay tells the tale of an archeologic exploration 4022 of a motel buried since 1985. The cause of the burial? An accidental lowering of the bulk mail postage rate caused postal spam to swell. (The book was published in 1979 and does not use the phrase "postal spam".)

Baaa is probably the favorite book of his among my kids. It tells a very literally sheeple story of a post-humanity world.

Final thought: has liked all of the Macaulay books he's looked at

More movies different than the book

Here's the quick summary of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, which I have read. (I have not seen the movie, I have seen clips.) Grandpa is making pancakes and one flies too far while being flipped. That becomes the inspiration for what is clearly a Tall Tale about an island where food falls from the sky every day. No one cooks, and no food shops exist. Restaurants have open roofs and merely supply patrons with seating and utensils. Then the weather starts turning bad: first unpleasant food, then too much, then too large. Eventually the townsfolk decide they have had enough and build boats from extra large bread and peanut-butter and flee the island. They use the bread to build new, temporary, houses on a far away shore. Then the kids go to sleep and dream about mashed potato mountains.

Final thought: thinks this movie shares as little with the book as Shrek

On movies different than the book

Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang is vastly different in book and movie forms. The list of things the two have in common is shorter than the list of things that changed.

There's an old race car with extraordinary capabilities in both, whistling candy, some of the characters, a trip to the beach. And now I'm running out of similarities.

The book has no Vulgaria, no Vulgarian king who wants to be rid of his wife, no Vulgarian queen afraid of children, no childcatcher or royal toymaker, no plot to kidnap the inventor.

The movie does not have the chocolate shop, the gangsters that rob that shop, the cave hideout of the gangsters, the kids do not get used as part of a robbery scheme, and Monsieur Bon-Bon does not have a secret fudge recipe revealed at the end.

Book is by Ian Flemming (of Bond fame) and screenplay by Roald Dahl (of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame). Albert Broccoli, who is well known for his Bond movies, produced the movie.

Final thought: has made the fudge