The Unfortunate Traveller
I received
my copy of ”The Unfortunate Traveller” by Thomas Nashe while in the midst of
the literary purgatory which is “Gargantua and Pantagruel” and was therefore
well pleased to see that “The Unfortunate Traveller” was very thin and probably
an easy read. That was deceiving. It is printed in a very small font and
retains the original old English text complete with odd spellings and obscure
meanings. This was a very tough read indeed!
I will not
claim that I understood everything, quite the contrary. I was often left
bewildered by sentences that seemed to give key information I entirely missed.
So I am not entirely sure what is going on here, but the gist of it is thus:
The
narrator, one Jack Wilton, has ended up in Europe as part of some war involving
the English king. Jack is a prankster who pulls some stunts that backfires
badly. I am sure these shenanigans would be hugely entertaining if I had
understood what he actually did. Something about telling the cider seller that
the king was suspecting him of treason and convincing a minor officer that he
would win lots of glory if he undertook a particular suicide mission. In any
case Jack leave the army in disgrace and takes on a tour of the continent. In
Germany he gets involved in a religious raucous that end poorly and in Venice
he get arrested for another person’s crime. He escapes with a girl to Rome
where he gets into even more trouble. This involves his landlady being raped
and killed with Jack accused of the misdeed. Saved in the nick of time he
proceeds to be caught by a Jew (yes, this is highly anti-Semitic!) who sells
him to a doctor to be cut up in anatomy class and finally he becomes a sex
slave of a local noble woman (oh horror).
This is a
book that starts out as a comedy, at least that seems to be the intention, but
ends as a gruesome cautionary tale with terrible torture and villainy. Several
people are killed in the most terrible manner, described in bloody detail and
usually with a lengthy speech from the killer or the victim. I cannot say that
was amusing to read.
Thomas
Nashe has very little respect for anybody. Nobility, clergy, burhgers, and
Jews, everybody get a rap and are described as depraved and vicious. That would
probably have amused a lot of people in the late 16th century and
would certainly have been daring, but this was also a time where the English Crown
was at odds with the rest of Europe and a text that would make the English look
good and continent depraved and amoral would have been welcome. That indeed
seems to be the purpose of the text.
Even us
Danes gets a blast:
“With the
Danes and the Dutchmen I will not encounter, for they are simple honest men,
that with Danaus daughters do nothing but fill bottomles tubs, & wil be
drunk & snort in the midst of dinner”
To which my
wife said nothing has really changed…
Had “The
Unfortunate Traveller” been rewritten with modern spelling and wording I would
have enjoyed it a lot better or at least understood it. Whether I would
actually have liked it is doubtful though. It dwells far too much on human
misery and violence be an enjoyable read.
