It's not every day that you get to sit down and read a story set during the Black Plague of the 1340s. It's rarer to get to read a book written contemporaneously.
The Decameron is one such book, written by Boccaccio around 1350.
Now the story deals with a group of ten aristocrats (seven women, three men) who decide to retreat from the world while the worse of the plague ravages Florence. They head to an estate and spend their time in idle pursuits.
The main pursuit is that of telling each other stories about people and their actions. Tales of love, duplicity, joy, and lust.
Now I won't say these tales have a great complexity. Rather, they are presented in fairly simple language with a few metaphors to make sure you understand.
The easiest analogy would be to present would a Jerry Springer and Maury Pauvich episode from the 1300s. Cheating housewives, lecherous priests, horny nuns, homosexuality, gullible fools, everything is presented here. Boccaccio really gives us a portrait of humanity, with its warts and beauties all presented. Some of the stories are funny but most eligit a "meh".
The characters are simplified versions and I have not really found any of them to have any personality.
One fun fact, it was one of the first books banned by the Catholic Church for showing priest doing... parishioners... Yeah. I'll say that.
For the book, I'll give it a 3/5. I leaned towards a 2 but its forbidden draw AND it's historical significance increased my appreciation...
When I saw that Netflix was adapting the Decameron as I was in the middle of reading it, I added it to my list and waited.
Suffice to say that they are two completely different animals. Whereas the book presents people sitting down and talking, the series weaves everything into a narrative that happens to the character during their retreat. The names and character types are taken from the book but the similarities end there.
I wondered whether I liked it early on, but as the series continued, the characters grew on me, especially Tindaro and Liscica. Though I will say most are pretty reprehensible and discusting. Such characters make for good storytelling. Indeed Dioneo is the most boring of the characters in the series IMO.
Thinking about my appreciation, I leaned towards a 2/5 early on, but it finishes strong with well-built and merited emotional moments at the end, ending on a solid 4/5. So I will average it at a 3/5.
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