Chwast's Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer adapted by Seymour Chwast  143 pp.

After being disappointed in Chwast's Dante's Divine Comedy, I decided to give him another chance with Canterbury Tales. I found this one amusing. It has the characters from the original along with their stories illustrated in Chwast's quirky pen & ink style. The pilgrims heading to Canterbury are riding motorcycles but their clothing, with the exception of the Wife of Bath are fairly traditional Medieval costumes. Each of the tales are abbreviated and there is no skimping on the bawdy parts. I enjoyed this one more than the Dante.

Canterbury Tales / Geoffrey Chaucer, adapted by Seymour Chwast 143 p.

I brought home this fun-looking graphic-novel version of Chaucer's classic, thinking it would be a nice way to get my 10-year-old son interested in 'good' lit. So I perused it first, and, thanks to the graphic nature of this work, was reminded of something I'd completely forgotten since college: Chaucer is so bawdy he makes your eyes water. (But in a good way.) The 10 year old never got to see it, but I had a great time re-reading these stories. The pilgrims in this version ride motorcycles to Canterbury, but Chwast has preserved much of the feel of Chaucer, while dispensing with the Middle English.