Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-23
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
THE DECAMERON. Giovanni Boccac.
clio. Horace LiYeright.
I. G.. M.


THE DECAMERoN. Giovanni Boccac-
clio. Horace Liveright.
Giovanni Boccaccio. Modern as the
morning. Born 600 years ago and more
Dead and gone 600 years ago and less.
Modern nevertheless Stepping out
alive and lusty--into this new day with
you and me. And as he fares along
snatches of song and story in his native
Tuscan tongue bubble out in bits Of
music and laughter
AS for us, We are on our dusty way to
office or shop or field, treading the worn
rut of daily endeavor. But, just now,
| with this youth alongside, the usually
sagging skies appear to lift little. The
usually narrowed space roundabout
seems to widen out span. The day
brightens. And Hope capers a glad pas
seul in the part before us. Dreams, va
grant, but dear, whisper the promise to
drop In for q second Of enlivenment and
| cheer now and then In the long hours
Of toll. And all this because there is
stepping on with us gay youth of Tus-
! cany whose rich throatiness of song and
story gives assurance that the world is
| just as young as it used to be, Just as
beautiful, Just as conquerable. 49,
It is this persistent vitality-tris cur
rently partaking vitality-that, no
doubt, gave to Horace Liveright the
good determine Aon to turn this Tuscan
| Boccaccio out properly and handsomely
for new adventure into this passing
| day. So, here he Is, In the most famous
ana most enduring OF his achievements.
We are instantly reminded that no
| small element In art is its suitability, is
| its effect OF fitness to meet the end set
for 1t. And here is, without question, a
case in point. Here are richness, So
briefly and good taste to delight all. Not
| carried so far as to offer forbidding,
| touch-me-not exclusiveness. Instead, a
! happy mean between the heirloom pas
| sion Of the collector and the imper-
manent instinct of the mere trader. AS
a result you and / have in hand a
medium of meeting this old-new genius
with distinct advantage to US, and in a
gesture Of true homage to Boccaccio
himself.
THE Decameron" needs an introduce
! ton. As numbers 90 but few have read
1t. Therefore, unread, its most con-
Spicuous service has been confined to
two groups. One, the Puritan, who
edges bitter admonitions against it..
! he other that callow youth who with
! wry and knowing smile desires to seem
Waywise to erotic lore. AS matter of
| fact this one knows nothing at all, ex-
| cept that he himself has strange per-
| sonal imaginings. Even the recognized
reader of The Decameron" is likely to
forget that modes of life change-social
conventions, ways of speech and dress,
attitudes toward the various problems of
| daily life and behavior. Such forget
! ting and such ignorance are, together.
barbados against any seizure of the
| vitality and the beauty of this book.
So, here Is an introduction to The
| Decameron" by the late Sir Walter
Raleigh, gifted Oxonian, beloved by a
world Of students for profound learning
| that is shot through and through with
human sympathy and understanding,
| that is offered as well by way Of a
personality compact Of charm and
illuminating power. And Sir Walter
| tells, very companionably of this Boo
called today. Then, more or less of an
idle fellow setting down things that he
saw around him in words that had
wings and tunes to them. Then, final
ly, a man of deep learning. And this
! last stage was the worst. Within it
Boccaccio, led astray by his friend,
Petrarch, great poet and greater Latin
| ist, took to learning. Under its drive
he wrote volumes of geography and
|
body read these things. Instead, they
| f1ocked to the days when Boccaccio,
! loafing we'd call it today, wrote the
tales that make up THE Decameron."
! These you are bound to read, much in
| joy, equally much in amazement that
they are so vibrant with life today, as
| if they we're no older. certainly no
older than yesterday. Oh, yes, certain
| strange ways of doing this or that.
80, 4 xr-ita but
on the whole here is an existence that
is really completely contemporaneous.
| despite our latter-day skill in the arts
| of concealment and make-believe. A
! franker man this one. than we who have
| been bred to Silences and diSSimula-
! tions, yet a man who touches human
life in the realities that genius alone
| can command We recognize this
truth. We appreciate, in part, this
genius. For long days through, IN hours
here and there, We follow the stories OF
Boccaccio. gathered from the Tuscan
hills, a harvest rich as that CLEANED
year by year from the vineyards of
| those slopes. A self-renewing harvest
this one, needing only the honest and
understanding human to seize the fact
| that these are current tales, that they
| belong In essence to us, that in the mil
lions of years of mans growth this short
| q
| more than from yesterday into today.
! BY way of Sir Walter Raleigh we APP
| proach this Boccaccio of yesterday as If
! he were some rare and precious friend
who had been away for a week, maybe.
One astounding fact about Boccaccio
himself comes into the open here. He
loved a lady. He loved just one lady
and loved her for always. No doubt Is
| loving her at this moment. 1t was the
| charming Fiammetta, who, as the EVIL
dence goes to show, wrought so lastingly
in the heart of the great Tuscan. But
in this uneven world Fiammetta did
not love him. That is, not for long:
And so, by way of this brief span oil
ecstatic fulfillment and the long, dreary
reaches of unrequitement, Boccacclo
| genius ripened into its enduring pattern
! of the hopes and fears and promises
and denials that make up the arabesque
of every mans life. And here each
| reads his own story-a shade famter
here, a bit misshapen there, but on the
whole his own story. And it is this
quality of encompassing the life OF
every reader that has given to the tales
of 1.-THE Decameron" the shoulder
touch Of conceded worth and long
permanence.
Out Of these love tales Of Tuscany.
here is one of SURPRISING charm, of
bitter-Sweet reality as we'll. A man
loved lady, but she, provided with a
perfectly good husband of her own,
could not return love to this sutton, so
the lorn one betook himself to the deep
forests and forbidding hills. taking with
him only q falcon which he priced
above everything save the lady herself.
The husband died, as these sometimes
\ do In her grief the lady, too, sought
L Alan