Subj : DECAMERON (was: When reality is surreal, only fiction can make sense of
To   : August Abolins
From : George Pope
Date : Sun Apr 24 2022 13:15:58

> Hi All...
> When reality is surreal, only fiction can make sense of it...
>In 1353, Giovanni Boccaccio wrote The Decameron: one hundred nested tales told
>by a group of young men and women passing the time at a villa outside Florence
> while waiting out the gruesome Black Death, a plague that killed more than 25
> million people. Some of the stories are silly, some are bawdy, some are like
> fables.

Hmm, any idea why it's called the "Decameron"(based on Grrco-Roman root for  "ten")?

Your original subject is correct -- I love reading fiction to learn of a  subject, place, era, or event.. . it makes it more real to me, t lidsten in on  the thoughhts of those who were there.

Along with your orighinal subject, above, goes the line: "Every book is an  autobiography."; I fully believe this, & have learned much of authors by  reading their oeuvre from starty to current (or end, if deceased, discarding  those ghost-written because,. . greedy publishers. . )

Like I recognize Stephen King in my own childhood experiences; I fully believe  he experienced cruel(way beyond normal grade school hijinks) bullying.

I wrote a story at 10yo that in retrospect was so very King-esque & I'd never  heard of him (this was 3 years before "Carrie") - creepy/freaky. . .

Inew was far mnore grasphic in its violence & gore, but then I was only ten,  with zxero formal trainng in writing. (we might say I was introduced to it the  year before, & took to it like a dry fish to water, but subsequent events in my life distrated me from this hobby, & it seems it's been lost (I know, deep  down, this isn't truye-- but I think my tiome to reconnect with it is for  later, in retirement, when I actually know some stuff worthy of writing partial autobiographies(novels)) using.




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