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Product Description
Review
The welcome appearance of Peter Ackroyd's new prose version of The Canterbury Tales ...Ackroyd's "retelling" is compulsive, bold and rare and will surely become a vital crib for generations of students to come.
--Robert McCrum, Observer, March 30, 2009
--Robert McCrum, Observer, March 30, 2009
Review
This prose adaptation...gives the reader a chance to relish the narrative patterns that are repeated and transformed throughout the splendid patchwork. Ackroyd's stitching and unstitching do Chaucer a fine service.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Ackroyd's prose is jaunty and smooth, sweeping you along with joy while sticking close to the original. Poetry into prose isn't easy, but Ackroyd makes it look easy. This is a great improvement on Nevill Coghill's boring translation, which falls between two stools. One stool is making the work transparent and easily readable to the modern reader, while retaining most of what is important in the work. This Ackroyd achieves by stressing the "tales" aspect and using a prose that reads like that of an easy, but literate, modern novel. The other stool is keeping most of the poetry found in the original. As Ackroyd's is a prose translation he, obviously, doesn't keep poetic form, and he certainly shouldn't (and doesn't) keep any obvious rhyme! But his prose maintains as much of the aesthetic value of the original as is possible in straightforward prose. Penguin, amongst others, publish versions of the original with lots of support (it's needed!) Having given up on the Tales in the past because of the inherent difficulties of the original, and the unattractiveness of Coghill, I am grateful to Ackroyd for making this work available to me as a wonderful story.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is a fabulous translation of the Canterbury Tales. Peter Ackroyd has managed to translate this book into modern English without losing any of the characterisation of the tales. (I have read the original)
I would recommend this book, it is easy to read as you can just read individual tales. I have actually bought this for my daughter as well as myself and she too found it very entertaining.
I would recommend this book, it is easy to read as you can just read individual tales. I have actually bought this for my daughter as well as myself and she too found it very entertaining.
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you ever found Chaucer's poetry a bit difficult - esp. over 400 pages - this new prose version is for you. Peter Ackroyd, an accomplished novelist, historian and biographer of Chaucer is the perfect match for this most famous of all texts in English literature. He's produced a fluent, accessible and thoroughly enjoyable retelling of the Tales. You can tell how much fun he's had doing it, too, as the best of the stories are as ribald and laugh-out-loud as you could hope. This edition is very nicely produced, too, with a ribbon marker, newly commissioned illustrations by Nick Bantock and a full introduction by Ackroyd himself. Highly recommended.
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