"The Satyricon" by Petronius (?)

 The Satyricon is composed of fragments from a much longer Latin work which most scholars think was written by Petronius. It is written in both prose and poetry and seems to be based on the Odyssey, being a comic picaresque following the adventures of a runaway slave called Encolpius (the narrator), his boyfriend young Giton, and his friend (and rival for Giton's affections) Asclytus

Much of the work is lost. The first (incomplete) remaining section seems to be an account of the punishment of Encolpius and Asclytus for having (inadevertently?) seen the secret female rites of Priapus: they are tied up and buggered by a male prostitute. 

The second, and most famous, section involves a dinner hosted by a freed ex-slave turned millionaire called Trimalchio (which includes a story about a man turning into a werewolf). Trimalchio has been seen as the model for Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby. This section also influenced Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray. 

They then fall in with a windbag of a poet called Eumolpus and board a boat which they then discover is owned by the slave-owners they are running from; shipwreck is the deus ex machina which gets them out of a very tight situation. 

They then travel to a place called Croton.

It is difficult to judge the literary merit of a work that only exists in fragments. I suspect that much of its fame rests on the fact that the narrator is joyfully gay.

Selected quotes:

• "An adolescent taste is quite worthless." (Puteoli 4)
• "I personally went colder than a winter in Gaul." (Puteoli 19)
• "He pulled the cheeks of our bottoms apart and banged us" (Puteoli 21)
• "So the starry sky turns round like a millstone, always bringing some trouble, and men being born or dying." (Dinner with Trimalchio 39)
• "It's night 'fore y'can turn around. So the best thing's get out of bed and go straight to dinner."  (Dinner with Trimalchio 41)
• "A hot drink's as good as an overcoat."  (Dinner with Trimalchio 41)
• "If you were somewhere else, you'd be talking about the pigs walking round ready-roasted back here."  (Dinner with Trimalchio 45) A version of 'the grass is always greener'

February 2024; 123 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

"La Vida del Buscon" (The Swindler) by Francisco Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas

 The father of Pablos is a thief, his mother is a witch, his uncle is a hangman. He becomes the servant of Don Diego, a young gentleman, accompanying him to boarding school where he goes hungry. Eventually he becomes a rogue, making money using any tricks he can: including theft, beggary, and card-sharping. 

This is a classic picaresque, set in 1600s Spain. It is knockabout stuff, frequently scatological, which reminded me of the crude humour of the Carry On films, but without their subtlety and euphemisms. There is no character development, unless you count the gradual learning of new tricks. It presumably provides an insight into the society of that place and time (clothes, frequently threadbare, play an important part and everyone is on the make; he spends some time in prison and the author was at one time a governor of a prison so he must have known what he was talking about) but many of the jokes are too obvious to be very funny and in the end I grew a little weary. The ending is abrupt, as if the author ran out of things to say.

But it had its moments:

• "You are well aware of the price of this book, as you have already bought it, unless you are looking through it in the bookshop, a practice which is very tiresome for the bookseller and ought to be suppressed with the utmost rigour of the law." (To the Reader)
• "They brought in little bowls of a soup so clear that if Narcissus had drunk it he would have fallen in quicker than into the pool." (1.3)
• "I had no right to take anything more out of the house than my shadow." (1.8)

April 2021, 131 pages

This review was written by 
the author of Motherdarling

"Lazarillo de Tormes" by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (?)

 Lazarillo is the first of the Spanish picaresque novels and was published in 1554 in Burgos and Alcala and Antwerp; it was published anonymously and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza is only the most popular candidate for authorship. My edition was translated by Michael Alpert and published by Penguin in 1969. 

Picaresque novels are slightly unstructured and follow the adventures of a 'picaro', a rogue. Lazaro is a young lad whose mother gives him as servant to a blind beggar; he then works for a priest, then an impoverished nobleman and other masters. It is amusing and very short (fewer than 60 pages). It reminded me of Candide without the characterisation and the philosophy.

There were some great moments:

• "We find very few authors who are prepared to write just for themselves. After all, it's not easy to write a book and if they go to the trouble they want to be rewarded, not financially but with the knowledge that their work is bought and read and praised if it deserves praise." (Prologue)
• "Cicero says 'Honour encourages the arts'. Who thinks that the soldier who reaches the top of the scaling-ladder first hates like the most? No, of course he doesn't; it's desire for praise that makes him expose himself to danger. It's the same in the case of the arts and in literature." (Prologue)
• "How many people must there be in the world who run away from others in fright because they can't see themselves?" (Ch 1)
• "Charity had not only begun at home but stayed there too." (Ch 3)
• "So skinny that he looked like a pedigree greyhound" (Ch 3)
• "I had to find a fourth employer and he turned out to be a friar of the Order of Mercy. ... I left him because ... of one or two things that I'd rather not mention." (Ch 4)

Extremely short, easy to read and amusing. April 2021

This review was written by
the author of Motherdarling