Not the Protagonist

Mar 17, 2010 11:34

I'm reading the Decameron at the moment. It's bizarrely hard going ( Read more... )

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Comments 15

phlebas March 17 2010, 12:15:21 UTC
I have the same issue with that romantic plot trope, though it isn't by any means restricted to romcoms - possibly I just identify more with the Incumbent Dull Fiancé than the Exciting Hero Type.
Have you seen Everyone Says I Love You?

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gnimmel March 17 2010, 13:43:03 UTC
Yes, that sort of thing is a standard plot trope all over the place (especially the bit where dull fiancee gets left at the altar, grrr). I haven't seen Everyone Says I Love You - does it conform to the stereotype or excitingly destroy it?

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phlebas March 17 2010, 13:47:02 UTC
I think it subverts it rather nicely - Edward Norton puts in a delightful performance as the lovely-but-dull guy who's dumped for someone more exciting.

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bluedevi March 17 2010, 21:27:52 UTC
I love this post. Even as a deeply gullible early-teenager, seeing the film with my mum who kept gushing about how lovely it all was, I had serious misgivings about the treatment of the poor fiancé in Sleepless In Seattle. What, the fact that he kept talking about Duluth (or whatever it was) was a dumping offence?

Have you ever read The Invisibles comic series by Grant Morrison? It starts out as simple kiddie-anarchist forces-of-order-vs-forces-of-chaos fun, but the point where it becomes truly awesome and meaningful is where he does a whole issue from the point of view of a random enemy mook who got shot in Issue 1.

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friend_of_tofu March 17 2010, 12:17:13 UTC
Excellent post. Have you considered watching Pasolini's film of The Decamaron? That might incline you enjoying it
more, I don't know.

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gnimmel March 17 2010, 13:43:58 UTC
It might be on our LoveFilm to-watch list (there's some Pasolini on the list anyhow, I forget which). I will put it on if it's not there!

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friend_of_tofu March 17 2010, 14:07:51 UTC
I quite enjoyed it, there was a sort of cheerful ordinariness to it which you might approve of.

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the_lady_lily March 17 2010, 13:00:55 UTC
I haven't actually read the Decameron yet, although it is on the List.

I can definitely accept that the morality context would be troubling in a piling-it-on sort of way. I think a similar problem kind of manifests in the rest of Boccaccio's writing as well - it's the sheer morality-breaking element without much of a thought for the consequences. The anti-Dante in some ways, actually.

What I plan to read post-Decameron is Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley, which apparently is a modern rework/inspired thingie and which the New Yorker was very keen on; I don't know if that would be appealling as something to give a different angle or not.

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gnimmel March 17 2010, 13:51:12 UTC
I've already got some post-Decameron reading planned - Dan Simmons' Hyperion, which is structured broadly similarly. But I think the content is rather different. The other thing I've read which has a similar structure is, um, the 120 Days of Sodom. However that book knew very well it was promoting a highly, er, individual morality and was less interested in hammering home that this is how everyone is.

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gnimmel March 17 2010, 14:10:17 UTC
Yes, it does veer between silly and cute and You What?? quite a lot (and all of the stories are then praised equally).

I guess a lot of the missing context in the cheating thing may be arranged marriage, FWIW. That and life being typically crappy and short, which somewhat changes the balance of what people are willing to do for themselves and to each other. Part of my problem may be that the translation is quite modern-sounding - much more so than Chaucer or Shakespeare. So there's not the sort of linguistic distance that suggests a cultural distance as well.

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caulkhead March 17 2010, 23:15:02 UTC
I think there's something of the same attitude in the Roman de Renard (disclaimer; it's fifteen years since I read it!), which dates from a similar period; deception is Good in itself, even when the end of it... isn't.

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ashfae March 17 2010, 14:53:53 UTC
Oh, the Decameron. I adored the story of How To Put the Devil Into Hell, which delighted my friends and I beyond reason in high school and with which I have some hilarious associations, but found the rest mostly forgettable.

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