Tales We Tell Ourselves: A Selection from the Decameron
Tales We Tell Ourselves: A Selection from the Decameron
by Carlo Gébler
Carlo Gébler, alongside New Island Publisher Edwin Higel, present a selection of Boccaccio’s timeless tales for a contemporary readership whose experiences of the current pandemic mirror what Boccaccio’s characters endured. Gébler’s central focus, as was Boccaccio’s before him; the fortifying and restorative powers of fiction in the face of tragedy.
C-format, paperback with french flaps | 374pp | ISBN 9781848407862 | Release Date: October 2020
In a villa high above Florence a group of seven women and three men are cocooning, seeking shelter from the epidemic, scared by reports of death coming nearer to their own doorstep by the day. Sound familiar?
It should, as the above text describes Boccaccio’s fourteenth-century masterpiece the Decameron. At once bawdy, witty, tragic and ever-topical, this selection of stories demonstrates how great literature survives a fast-forward to the twenty-first century.
Carlo Gébler has now re-imagined twenty-eight of the original stories, drawing out the essence of the tales in order to let their true genius and wit shine. Over nearly seven hundred years, the Decameron has established itself as a form of literary self-therapy. This is a text for troubled times, which will continue to resonate and provide solace for years, if not decades to come.
“Memento mori – remember that you must die – is a worthy and necessary message for ordinary times, when you might forget. Memento vivere – remember that you must live – is the message of The Decameron.”
“The majority of us don’t have a countryside villa to retreat to, but there are ways in which Boccaccio’s advice remains relevant. The Decameron reminds us that we need the support of others to make it through.”
“In this inspired retelling of tales from the Decameron, Carlo Gébler has found a subtle way of addressing our predicament in these plague years. But Tales We Tell Ourselves is more than a tract for the times - it is a wonderful work of narrative fiction in its own right.”
