The Canterbury Tales by Geoffery Chaucer

I had to go with a thoroughly modernized translation because the original language was Middle English, and I didn't particularly feel like torturing myself. I mean, the untouched version would be worse than Shakespeare by, like, hundreds of years. So, I got the gist of the stories, even if I didn't get the flavor and feel of Chaucer's language.

This means, of course, that I can really only evaluate the stories on their narrative merit. Many could only be described as bawdy, the dirty jokes of the Middle Ages, and not stuff one would neccessarily summarize out loud. Others were cute and romantic, and some were satires. I enjoyed this glimpse into medieval life. It is not often I read a book actually written in the time it speaks of, especially this far back in history. It is almost like learning history firsthand, from someone who was actually there. A writer's material is so personal that it becomes a sort of conversation with the reader. It was quite pleasant to hear voice from such a distant time, even if the sound might have been distorted through the translation.

One point that struck me when reading the tales was that nothing has truly changed. People, no matter their location in time, are still people. They still have the same sense of humor (imagine- a joke almost one thousand years old, is still funny), there is still infidelity and idolatry, girls are still embarrassing flirts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Fascinating stuff.