Anonymous
7 books
- You get a strange, patient medieval tale in which the sheltered prince Ioasaph learns about suffering through Barlaam’s parables, including the famous story of the man fleeing a unicorn. The theology is earnest and sometimes repetitive, but the stories have an uncanny, fable-like pull, especially if you enjoy books where a journey inward matters more than adventure.
- You get a spare, strange world of boasts, loyalty, feasts, and sudden violence, where Beowulf faces Grendel and later meets a dragon as an aging king. The alliterative verse can feel austere at first, but its stark images and sense of doom stay with you.
- You get a medieval epic with sea voyages, feuds, long separations, and a heroine whose endurance never makes her passive. Gudrun can feel episodic and ceremonious, but its attention to Hilde and Gudrun gives the old heroic machinery a surprisingly human pulse.
- You get a strange, wintry adventure where Gawain’s courtesy is tested as sharply as his courage, from the Green Knight’s beheading game to the unnerving hospitality of a country castle. The alliterative verse takes a little settling into, but its mix of menace, comedy, and moral unease lingers.
- You follow Lázaro from one hungry master to another, beginning with the blind man who teaches him that survival requires brains, nerve, and a flexible conscience. The episodes are brisk, funny, and often cruel, while his supposed success quietly exposes how little dignity society leaves the poor.
- If you think medieval epics are all shining knights, wait until Kriemhild spends twenty years planning her revenge and the last third becomes a slaughter in a burning hall. It's stark and cold-blooded and strangely modern about grudges, though the formal verse takes some settling into.
- Fair warning, this is the Victorian underground erotica magazine, not the Steinbeck. It's explicit, repetitive, and often genuinely ugly by modern standards, so it's really only worth your time as a historical curiosity, a peek at what respectable Victorians read in secret.