@ignatius , many thanks. I’m halfway through and just confirmed that my Kindle edition includes the glossary, too!
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I start tonight. I have to finish before our Viking cruise in 2 weeks.
Glossary?! Dang, there is a disadvantage to the audiobook, if there was a glossary, it was too late to help…I mean, I grasped all the words from context, but there are some I’d like to see spelled.
I found the glossary when done. For this book, most terms were understandable. (For “All the Painted Horses”, there were very many Spanish phrases … had to download and print an online resource for that). If I pick this The Good Wife of Bath for my book club, I’ll mention the glossary before we start.
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It’s October 1st! Welcome to our discussion of The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks.
This was a fun, female-centric romp and I enjoyed the creative backstory for Chaucer’s character. Probably my biggest beef was with the length: 560 pages was at least 160 pages too long, and a lot of Eleanor’s musings (and her mistakes) seemed repetitive. Karen Brooks needed a better editor.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any discussion questions for the book, but here are 20 questions that an interviewer asked Karen Brooks:
I’m a little disturbed by the fact that Love Actually is her favorite movie, but I’m trying not to hold it against her.
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I read the book early and liked it enough to select as the title for our book club discussion this month. It is a bit long but at least was quick reading.
Knowing very little about Chaucer works, I thought it would be helpful to read The Good Wife Prologue/Tale before book club meets. I may still do that. In the meantime I found this 7 minute video a helpful intro The Wife of Bath’s Tale Video Summary - YouTube
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I really enjoyed the book and agree that it was overlong. While I was glad Karen Brooks had done her homework, I thought we ended up hearing a little bit too much about it. The fifth husband in Chaucer’s version vs the reality were pretty big deviations, but I thought it was a very interesting take on Chaucer.
There’s apparently a pretty big disagreement in academia about whether Chaucer is presenting the Wife of Bath as a horrific example of womanhood gone bad, or if he’s sympathic to her point of view. I tend to think the latter.
I read the Norton Anthology version (cleaned up spelling, but original with lots of footnotes and hard to enjoy) and some of Mary’s version. I just got the version Karen Brooks recommends, which I think is going to be a lot easier to read.
I’m quite fond of Love Actually and Hugh Grant comedies in general - so I definitely won’t hold that against the author!
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I read this quite a while ago so have few specific memories. I do remember loving it at first and speeding through. There was such a rich detail of life and the main character was intriguing. But the further I got into it, the less I liked it. Whether that was because the book might be too long, or I didn’t like the way the plot was going. I’m not sure. But my positive reaction did shift downward. My opinion of the wife shifted from support for making the best of bad situations and playing those who played her, to a vindictive victim who was only out for herself.
I’m finding that true with other books, though - loved The Lincoln Highway at first but became much less enamored as it went on. The writers are excellent and paint vivid pictures of characters and locations, but for me the plot doesn’t deliver on its early promise. Of course with The Good Wife of Bath, there’s a framework built in from Chaucer, which if I ever read I don’t remember.
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I read the book more than a month ago so it’s hard to remember specific points. I also forgot to note down points to help refresh my memory this time.
My general impressions:
I like Karen Brook’s writing. I’m impressed by her research and that made the book more interesting to me.
But, it started slow and while it captured my interest solidly in the middle, the end dragged. It was too long and Eleanor’s character rapidly lost my sympathies as she went from one bad decision to another.
It’s a bawdy tale but it showcases excellently the hurdles that women in those times had to deal with. Eleanor goes through a lot of adversity but manages to keep her head above water at all times. She is resilient and capable, unlike the typical woman of the times who slides into prostitution because she has no other recourse and eventually meets an untimely and horrible death. Even when Eleanor does embrace a life of ‘sin’, she does it on her own terms.
So, yes, I would agree that it is a positive, woman centric tale, a story of a strong and capable woman making the best of the cards she has been dealt with and not that of a fallen woman who is a disgrace to womanhood.
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As I read this book, I went back and forth between liking, and not liking, the story. It felt long. Over and over Eleanor gets a new husband and goes about making the same, or at least similar, mistakes. Her inablilty to comprehend the possible consequences of her actions, even though she went through similar things before, became tiresome. I did like the ending where Chaucer’s backstory and writings were clarified. I just really wish we had arrived there faster. Overall, I feel pretty indifferent about the book. I didn’t love it and I didn’t hate it. I’m sure I will appreciate the book more once our discussion gets going. Our discussions always allow me to see and appreciate more than I did on my own.
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I like the book and give it an overall thumbs up. I plan to recommend to friends.
That said, I plan to do so with disclaimers. I still have three chapters plus the author’s note to read mainly because my interest has waned. I still like the book and want to finish, so it’s not that so much as that I don’t feel the pull to pick it up whenever time to read presents itself.
I read Chaucer’s Good Wife of Bath Prologue and Tale first. I then thoroughly enjoyed reading Eleanor’s story with Chaucer’s framework in mind. I found the first three husbands well-done. Different from one another with each having a logical reason to want to marry the young girl. Simon is a cad but I expected that from the original. However, regarding fifth husband Jankin, Chaucer never explains what happens to him: we only know our “good wife of Bath” is again a widow and open to marry once again. And here’s where author Brooks slowly loses me … particularly with Jankin’s resurrections: the first when Chaucer delivers the news Jankin lives and second when he shows up in London and kills Lowdy. (Tis where I am in the book at the moment.) In my oh-so-humble opinion, the book would have been stronger minus much of what happens after Jankin’s death. So many options, since Chaucer himself leaves it open-ended. Jankin somehow dies; Eleanor/Alyson heads off another pilgrimage. 160+ pages gone.
Now to the good stuff, I learned more about Chaucer himself and thought the historical details smoothly written into the narrative pulled me into the time period. I actually liked Eleanor and many of the secondary characters, particularly Alyson. As I already mentioned, I thought the first three husbands well-written. (Is Chaucer only relegated to secondary-character status here? Certainly he’s an ubiquitous presence.)
Most of all, I enjoyed the journey back to the 1300s - a time period neglected in my reading.
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Actually very helpful video above.
I thought the book dragged way too long, but I am strangely glad that she became a madam and took care of prostitutes. It really was the most logical way out of her living situation.
I think that the diseases and death of all ages was realistic. I would think it would make you more self centered and not get too attached to any one including your children.
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The video was excellent. I found the book very engaging and read it all in 2 days.
I know that the main character was very young when she 1st married but I’m sad she made so many horrible choices in husbands and seemed so impulsive in jumping into destructive relationships. She was an awful judge of potential husbands.
It’s too bad she couldn’t trust Allyson & herself more and take more time before rushing into marriages.
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Yes, Eleanor spent a lot of time beating herself up about how her poor choices harmed those she loved — only to go one and make those same choices over and over.
I will say it was quite a feat on the part of Brooks to have Eleanor keep up a monologue for 500 + pages. Because really that’s what it is. There is no intricate plotting or significant character development (to be honest, I mixed up the names of the men and the hounds more than once). Eleanor is just a sassy dynamo who manages to keep our attention for a tremendously long time.
I agree – I also didn’t care for the violence in all the encounters with Ordric, although I get her point about the vulnerability of women.
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I really enjoyed this book and found it historically accurate while also having undercurrents to the struggles of impoverished women even today.
I was really really hoping that she could find a way to make a living with her woolens and not having to resort to being a madame. Again, probably more accurate but I was rooting for her to be successful.
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Yes, I was really hoping she had the skill to make a wonderful living for her and others via her weaving skill. It’s very unfortunate so few options were available to females, especially when they were poor, even if they were very talented and bright.
She was a very talented woman in many ways but sadly a very poor judge of prospective spouses. Her 3rd marriage seems to have been the best considered arrangement, that worked the best and been mostly happiest for her and her husband. (After a fashion her 1st marriage was better than she had expected and she and her H seemed pretty content.)
It was sad how frequently and casually violence and illness snuffed out lives and affected lives. It did seem many in the book were quite violent.
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Here’s a video summary of the Canterbury Tales “Good Wife of Bath.” The Canterbury Tales | The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale Summary & Analysis | Geoffrey Chaucer - YouTube
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At first, I thought that the way the women jointly discussed and chose that path, and trained themselves to be higher class sex workers, seemed almost too “woke” for the 14th century. But in reading various historical accounts, it seems that some women in Medieval England did turn to prostitution to supplement income, while simultaneously working more wholesome jobs (e.g., weaver). Not a happy choice by any means, but at least they didn’t all end up like Fantine in Les Mis.
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In some ways, it feels like Dobbs and other recent actions are moving women back toward dark times and bleak choices like those in the book.
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There were two situations in the book where the strong feminist in Eleanor seemed to be buried. One was staying (and sleeping) with Jankin after the first time he beat her so badly, and then living with his abuse for a while – until her buried rage exploded in that violent free-for-all.
I know that women do stay in abusive relationships because they have no other options. And Eleanor’s reasoning was essentially the same, and valid in that respect. But it seemed out of character because she didn’t have a history of considering consequences. I expected her to give him the medieval middle finger, peppered with some colorful curses, and then find a way to protect herself and her household.
The second situation was the “raptus” accusation against Geoffrey. There was not even a moment where she reflected on whether the woman could be telling the truth. On the contrary, she called her a “loathsome serpent,” a “little b**ch,” etc.
There are shifting views on the Chaucer incident, with the possibility that it was more likely to have been abduction, not rape. Here’s a fairly recent article (2019) that tells how a newly discovered document shed more light on the case. It always amazes me in these types of stories that after 700 years, anything new could show up.
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