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To: grey_whiskers
(All I can remember are some of the racier parts of Rabelais and Boccacio...)

There's a pair I never got around to, g_w. "The Decameron" was always on my list (and no doubt shall remain there); "Gargantua and Pantagruel" never tempted me. I think I mentioned before that I still hope to finish "Tristram Shandy"...

68 posted on 06/26/2009 2:16:06 PM PDT by snarks_when_bored
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To: snarks_when_bored
My favorit quote from Tristram Shandy (which C.S. Lewis recommended for reading at table, as it was a "gossipy, formless book which can be opened anywhere":

Chapter 75

Dr. Slop was within an ace of being an exception to all this argumentation: for happening to have his green baize bag upon his knees, when he began to parody my uncle Toby — 'twas as good as the best mantle in the world to him: for which purpose, when he foresaw the sentence would end in his new-invented forceps, he thrust his hand into the bag in order to have them ready to clap in, where your reverences took so much notice of the ***, which had he managed — my uncle Toby had certainly been overthrown : the sentence and the argument in that case jumping closely in one point, so like the two lines which form the salient angle of a ravelin, — Dr. Slop would never have given them up; — and my uncle Toby would as soon have thought of flying, as taking them by force; but Dr. Slop fumbled so vilely in pulling them out, it took off the whole effect, and what was a ten times worse evil (for they seldom come alone in this life) in pulling out his forceps, his forceps unfortunately drew out the squirt along with it.

When a proposition can be taken in two senses — 'tis a law in disputation, That the respondent may reply to which of the two he pleases, or finds most convenient for him. — This threw the advantage of the argument quite on my uncle Toby's side. — "Good God ! " cried my uncle Toby, "are children brought into the world with a squirt?"

69 posted on 06/27/2009 4:23:39 AM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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