Gargantua (in French) [Hardcover]

Francois Rabelais (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 1965 | ISBN-10: 0685239640 | ISBN-13: 978-0685239643

The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel (in French, La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a connected series of five novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It is the story of two giants, a father (Gargantua) and his son (Pantagruel) and their adventures, written in an amusing, extravagant, satirical vein.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"'Andrew Brown creates a wholly credible, modern, reinvigorated Rabelais who still jumps off the page after more than 450 years' TLS, Feb 2004" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: French, French --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: French & European Pubns (June 26, 1965)
• Language: French
• ISBN-10: 0685239640
• ISBN-13: 978-0685239643
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,276,428 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous, January 11, 2004

By 

Frikle - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gargantua & Pantagruel (Classics of World Literature) (Paperback)

I was gonna compare this one to Don Quixote to see another reviewer beat me to it! Well I shall anyway.

Both are one of the first examples of novels, both are extremely long, both are successful and funny satires of society (in this case of the 16th century) at large.

The difference is this book is much less philosophical and more slapstick. It has less high concepts and more toilet jokes. But that's what I found great about it! It is much more farcical and is about the furthest you can get away from realism. The author does not try to be consistent in terms of scale (the book - made up of five books - chronicles the life of the giants Gargantua and his son Pantagruel) but that's the point. Every conceivable historical figure and literary work is mocked.

I think this is one of the first postmodern works(!). Rabelais experiments with heaps of different text types, he has certain chapters which are lists of things pertaining to happenings (like insults hurled by two characters at each other - over 100 in all) etc etc. He goes off on tangents, talks about all the topics on earth from scholarship to sign language. And the antics of the characters are hilarious.

Personally I found this just a tad better than Don Quixote (4 stars). Yes, this book is also a tad too long. But it's actually five books and with short chapters on diverse topics, you can just pick it up and read another chapter. The translation is great, using white space and punctuation in a very unique way and highlighting the comic nature of the book. In fact, Urquhart's translation is a masterpiece in itself.

A great, great book to knock down your sense of decency and pompousness.

1 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not so..not so...., March 2, 2001

By 

Jaques Jesus (Brasília, Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gargantua & Pantagruel (Classics of World Literature) (Paperback)

Bakthins critics on GARGANTUA and PANTAGRUEL created too much stir over the book. But it is not so good, the jokes are too scatological and its popular knowledge does not aid too much, do not make us tremble so much as in DON QUIJOTE. Well, that's it.

2 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Horror! THE HORROR!!!!!!!!!!, June 14, 2004

By 

Melting_Pot (Shreveport, LA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gargantua & Pantagruel (Classics of World Literature) (Paperback)

In nine short words: This is the worst book I have ever read. It is awful, simply awful! First of all, it's 800+ pages long, so it takes ages to read. The jokes that are supposed to be rude are outdated and disgusting. The only upside of this is that that's where the word 'Gargantuan' came from, and I don't think we could live without that word.