[Calvin Soderstrand]

Hi Adam,

I think the problem with Screech for me is that notwithstanding whether his interpretation is the most faithful understanding of Rabelais I feel that it leaves you empty handed in 2025; I don’t really feel affected by whether Francis 1 was a good ruler. I’d love to hear if there’s other perspectives you can think of or people felt differently in the group? I didn’t doubt that Screech was right that it’s a common trope but I think the mouth chapter in particular engages Kant’s theory of monstrosity and I wasn’t sure I was able to accept that having a size morphing giant could be written off easily.

I’d be really interested to explore playful multiplicity in the Mimesis so i will definitely look into this if you had an electronic copy that would be very helpful!

I really appreciate the second interpretation. I think the idea of the narrator starting to play an active role on the event level is just a great epitome of Rabelais but may be best addressed to the text as a whole either epistemologically or ontologically rather than this particular aspect. I’ll definitely have a long think about the consequences particularly on the reader I’m not yet sure that it follows that the reader is inside Pantagruel.

Having looked more at the Princess of Cleves I wonder if this is a better example of where the reader’s boredom merges with the more languorous boredom of the characters and enters the book on the event level as a compulsive weight or a silent character weighing on that classic french classical Fatalistic attraction. I mentioned in the seminar in Swann in Love Proust seems to make a point of acknowledging the reader’s discomfort and boredom. I think it’s really interesting to look at Rabelais as opening up a can of subversion in perspective maybe culminating in Nabokov?

Finally I don’t see him becoming educated and reasonable, his judgement to the litigants is more gibberish than Panurge’s languages but he does actually resolve the conflict very well, I suppose we might compromise to say that he is educated by ridiculous books in a ridiculous world and he has to try to navigate that whether or not he himself is ridiculous?- I wonder if that goes more to Screech or Bakhtin’s reading?

Once again thank you so much for your reply which I appreciated when I received it but have found to be invaluable perspective the more I’ve looked into it over a couple of days!

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