Rabelais was a doctor as well as an author, a Franciscan novitiate, as well as a Benedictine monk, for awhile. He travelled widely for his day, studied in Paris, grew up near Poitiers, worked in Lyon as a doctor and latin editor for new published books. He also long studied ancient Greek, wrote humorous pamphlets, got out of obligations, went to Rome a number of times with a cardinal friend Jean du Bellay, and after publishing books of fantasie, even hid out in Metz to avoid being harassed by the authorities. But lacking so many details of his life, it is tempting to forego the normal methods of determining the shape and direction, or purposes of his life. Those can come later after a quick dunk in the smelly ocean of Rabelais' own words. A surer and more certain way to get to know the guy and what he thought of his world can't be found, than by just getting right to the meat of what he will always be known for.
In a forward 'To the Readers':
"My friends, who are about to read this book,
please rid yourselves of every predilection;
You'll find no scandal, if you do not look,
For it contains no evil or infection.
True, you'll discover upon close inspection,
It teaches little, except how to laugh:
The best of arguments; the rest is chaff,
Viewing the grief that threatens your brief span;
For smiles, not tears, make the better autograph,
Because to laugh is natural to man."
Gargantua and Pantagruel came out in several parts. It was popular, then banned, withhheld from publication, praised and shunned, laughed at, hidden from view, read widely, grossly impugned, cut up, misinterpreted, picked over fondly, memorized by ideosyncratic surrealists and called father of the modern novel. Its characters laugh and lust and drink, tell the worst stories and break out into song, for no reason but to forget the always present lack of whatever it is that people always thirst for. It makes fun of everything, especially when audiences are not supposed to laugh. And it drinks deeply of the profound changes that thinking and acting and believing were making in the years that Rabelais lived, roughly 1483 - 1555. Thirsty days.
"It may not be a useless nor an idle proceeding, in view of the fact that we have plenty of leisure on our hands, to refresh your minds regarding the primary source and origin of our friend, Pantagruel. For I notice that all good historians do this in their Chronicles, not only the Arabians, the Barbarians, and the Latins, but also the Greeks and Gentiles, who were endless drinkers. It is fitting here, that you make a note of the fact that, at the beginning of the world -- I am speaking from a long way off, for it is more than forty times forty nights, calculating according to the method of the ancient Druids -- at the beginning of the world, shortly after Abel had been killed by his brother Cain, the earth, imbued with the blood of the righteous, was one year so very fertile in all the fruits that are produced from its flanks, and especially in medlars, that that year has been known from time immemorial as the year of the great medlars, since three of them make a bushelful."
So begins the Second Book of Pantagruel, the one beginning the story of his life. The chronology of the story being interrupted to give the backstory here, the genealogy of the 'son of ' Gargantua. The story itself is backwards as well as the chronology, showing that none of this matters more than a carriage that can only go forwards by driving headlong in reverse. In a comfortable chair, such a sight is laughable only from a fair distance, especially when too much furniture is piled on top, and many fine rugs full of extended yarns, bad puns, split hairs, all cut on the stump of ecclesiastic non sequiturs and official sounding pomposity.
Rabelais always seems to be winking and licking his chops, wiping his eyes, falling in the mud. Starting off well, verging wildly off somewhere (that you hadn't expected) and then clapping you on the back, wiping that mud off onto your coat, and then laughing all over again, but at you, for letting him. If he seems too close, he was there long before us and will be there again, whispering in your ear, before you were born, delivering the baby and while attending the funeral being, too drunk to sing, but doing it anyway, making a scene.
If this makes too little sense, then you might be in the neighborhood but not drunk enough on him yet. The thing is to let go and just laugh and not worry about it. A postmodern midievalist, a rake in a swan's coat, a stand-up comedian that takes his audience very seriously, but won't need to beg you to stay, just for one more. In no time at all, you'll find your thirst dry again, but the appetite renewed, richer in the bacterial cultures lining your gut as well as the rest of humanity. No longer a stranger to all of them, excepting the views of one's former self. But less finicky. He goes on.
"That was the year the Calends were discovered by the Greek almanacs. The month of March fell in Lent, and the middle of August was in May. In the month of October, as I recall, or perhaps it was September (if I am not mistaken, for I wish to guard carefully against that), there came the week so renowned in History, that is known as the Week of the Three Thursdays. There were three of them that week, on account of irregular leap years, as a result of which, the sun stumbled a little to the left, like a bandy-legged person, the moon varied from its course more than five fathoms, and there was clearly to be perceived a movement of trepidation in that part of the firmament known as Aplanes, or the heaven of fixed stars."
Certainly, Samuel Putnam deserves so much credit for this translation. He makes it present and accurate, it is said, rather than longer and divergent, like the older and more famous adaptation by Thomas Urquhart who probably loved it all a bit much. I will quote liberally from this Putnam translation in English, as often as there is time. A Cervantes scholar of the early-mid 20th century, Putnam took the time to make this amazing work accessible - and for the 'everyman' - of the Viking Portable Library series in 1946. Just in time for the hordes of GI's home from WWII looking to learn and laugh and even, get over themselves after so much bloodshed and cultural upheaval.
"You may very well imagine that people were glad enough to eat those medlars I was telling you of, for they were very good to look at and delicious to the taste, as well. But like Noah, that holy man (to whom we are all under such obligations for his having planted the vine, from which we get that nectar-like, delicious, precious, celestial, joyous, and deific liquor called wine) -- just as Noah was deceived in drinking the wine, being unaware of its great and powerful virtues, so the men and women of that day took great pleasure in eating this fine large fruit. But many varied accidents came to them as a result of it, for all of them experienced a most horrible swelling of their bodies, though not all in the same place."
These medlars turn out to be one of the oldest of known cultivated fruits, coming from the near east or Asia Minor. They also, acccording to wikipedia could be a euphemism - for Chaucer and Shakespeare no less - for prostitutes or gaping anuses. The swelling bodies in Rabelais' tale, affected different people differently but all came as a result from eating these fruit. Some in the belly, some in the back, some in the groin, this swelling phenomenon seemed most often in reality to stem from the frequent occurrence of plague in those days. Plague and gout and boils, carbuncles, syphilis and various other forms of disease and disfigurement would be common ailments to many, then. All without an effective treatment or cure. The best thing a doctor might perscribe would be for the victim to learn to laugh and maybe, have another drink.
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