I've accidentally set a new reading goal for myself. It was entirely by mistake, but I have now got it in my head that I would like to attempt to read through all 80 of the Little Penguin Classics collection. I've not idea why I began this challenge, but now that I have started, I am honestly curious what makes these classics classic. I've already read three, and I honestly am no closer to answering that question. But I have found that I've been thinking a great deal about how stories have changed through the course of time as well as contemplating all that gets lost when translating text not only from one century to the next, but from one language to another. It's been quite fascinating.
For the first of the classics, the reader is gifted four different stories, all taken from Giovanni Boccaccio's Florentine masterpiece The Decameron. Because these stories are all quite short, it is difficult to summarize without giving key points away. Feel free to skip to the end (denoted by the +++) if you want to avoid spoilers!
Our first story is about a man who travels to Naples to buy a horse and become a horse trader. At the market, a woman notices the money he keeps showing and devises a plan in which she might come to possess it. Pretending to be his sister, she successfully swindles him of his fortune. Then, through a series of bizarre events, the man winds up entombed with a recently deceased archbishop. He eventually escapes and returns home with a ruby ring the same value as the money he had brought with him to purchase horses in Naples at the start if the story.
The second story is about an older man who takes a younger wife but finds that having sex with her is too much for him to handle. So, to put her off of having sex, he teachers her all about the holy days and feast days and saints days, declaring that these are to be treated as pious days, ones in which they obviously cannot be having sensual relations. Then, while on holiday together, the wife is stolen from their boat by another man (whom I assume is equivalent to a pirate). He shows her all the love her husband has been withholding. When her husband eventually finds her, she tells him off and shows him all the ways in which he lost her through their marriage and declares that she will remain with this new man for the rest of her days.
"If my sin's a mortar one, I'll stay stuck in it like a pestle."
Our third story is about a priest who has relations with all the married women in town, but sets his sights on one particular woman who has eluded him thus far. It takes a long time, but eventually he "seduces" her with the promise of helping her fix some of her clothing. But then, he reneges on the bargain, declaring the price too high to pay for sex.
And finally, the fourth story was about a high lord who set out to test his wife in the worst possible ways to see if she was truly loyal, patient, and worthy of his love as she claimed to be. He went so far as pretending to murder his own children to test his theories. In the end, he admits to her what he has been doing, claiming that she passed his test to which everyone celebrated for three days.
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Honestly, I had no idea where these stories were going when I entered into them, nor do I really understand their purpose or what makes them classic now that I have come out the other side. Perhaps the overarching theme would be more evident if I had the full text of The Decameron, which I believe consists of 100 short stories?
I also am unsure if I am a short story kind of person. Each of these read almost like a bedtime story, which isn't necessarily bad, but is that how I wish to pass my time? Catching a brief glimpse of something? Without an inherent lesson to be learned?
And if I were to guess at any of the lessons, the only one I truly enjoyed was the woman who ran off with the pirate because he treated her like a whole human rather than a pretty ornament as her husband had. And the worst lesson was of the patient woman who took all the abuses of her husband without showing any emotional turmoil. That one felt as if it was glorifying listening to your husband above all else and trusting that he isn't treating you terribly on purpose or without good reason.