JF Ptak Science Books Post 1278

Rabelais may be that man who lived under/in/over the volcano.

Francois Rabelais (1490-1553, writing under the anagram Alcofribas Nasier)   was perhaps as gigantic a man in spirit, need, want and appetite as his greatest creations, Gargantua and Pantagreul, and may well be the greatest ex-monk of ex-monks, a bubbling Renaissance Humanist.  I’m not saying that Rabelais spent 11 months in the womb or smoothed his hair with a 900′ comb or drank the milk of 17,000 cows like his creation Gargantua,  but he did have a staggering appetite for life.  He ate life as Honore de Balzac ate food.  Rabelais seemed to know no boundaries, and neither did Balzac, who would typically eat a hundred oysters,  twelve lamb cutlets, a duckling, partridges, fish, fruits, assorted vegetables, coffee, liquor, liquer, wine and so on, at one sittng.  Every day. Nor did Rabelais  necessarily drink like Eugene O’Neill or F.Scott or Edgar Poe or Hart Crane or Jack London or Dylan Thomas, though he did drink beond the boundaries.Thomas, though he did drink beyond the boundaries.

One of my favorite writers–George Orwell–didn’t have much use for Rabelais, repulsed by his abuses, but that was to be expected.  So it goes.

The beginning and end of Epitaph for Rabelais, by Peirre de Ronsard:

If anything can sprout
From  a dead man  rotted out,
And  if further generation
Arises  from stagnation,
A  grapevine will  surely take birth
From  the belly and  the girth
Of  good Rabelais, who  contrived
Always  to drink while  alive…

All you who  pass his grave,
Be  you nobleman  or knave,
Hang  cups on  this, his shrine
To  vessels and sparkling wine;
Hang  sausages and ham:
For  if he  still has sensation,
His  soul prefers potation
To  lilies as a gift,
And wine  gives a better lift