Sorry, JohnSweden, I didn't mean to bring up bad memories... I just love those lines so much, I couldn't resist.

The only contenders are Pantagruel wiping his ass with a live goose

You forgot an even better one from the same book: Gargantua shows his cleverness at an early age by fashioning an asswipe. I once had to translate that chapter, and as I recall, it's much ruder in the original (certainly ruder than the rather gentle translation to which I linked.) Difficult translation, too, since my Larousse didn't have all those words for "asshole". Luckily, Mr. Nadler was there to guide me.

Hey, if we're talking literary potty humor, we can't forget The Miller's Tale.

I once had to translate that chapter, and as I recall, it's much ruder in the original

Oh, man. Yes. Yes, it really is.

I sat next to my college age sister, about 9 years my senior, working toward her masters in French, as she tore out handfuls of already-fragile red hair and tried to decide whether translating Rabelais would cause her to lose more or less hair than translating Proust.

I don't remember what she decided in the end, but I do remember her reading bits of the Rabelais and muttering "Holy SHIT" under her breath repeatedly as I laughed like a loon.

Hey, if we're talking literary potty humor, we can't forget The Miller's Tale.

Absalom wiped his mouth very dry;
the night was dark as pitch or coal,
and she stuck her hole out the window,
and Absalom got neither better nor worse:
before he knew what he was doing, he passionately
kissed her naked arse with his mouth.

He jumped back and thought that something was wrong,
for he well knew that a woman doesn't have a beard;
he felt something that was all rough and long-haired,
and said, "Damn it, what have I done?"

"Teehee," she said, and slammed the window shut;
and Absalom went off with sorry steps.

(The rest of the tale can be found here.)

You forgot an even better one from the same book: Gargantua shows his cleverness at an early age by fashioning an asswipe.

Heh. No, that's the Rabelais I meant. And I had a 50/50 shot at naming the character properly!

Again I ask, how can you not love that?

Typical man. Takes 20 minutes and a whole newspaper to do his business.

I've just never gotten around to Joyce: that's all. I suppose I'll try him eventually, but I've been kinda busy with 19th C Britain and the US. 20th C Britain hasn't particularly fired my imaginatory brain cells thus far.

We had to read Portrait in high school (it was one of ten books on the summer reading list, and I only got through eight; that was one of the two I missed) and sections of Dubliners in college. I liked the parts of Dubliners that I read, but I never got more than about two pages into Portrait. I keep wanting to try Ullyses, but I haven't gotten a chance yet.

The course mainly made me a huge fan of Yeats and John Millington Synge.

SYNGE???

Oh, Ginger. You are so dead to me. t weeps.

Like Joyce, prefer Virginia. Not large with the Yeats love. Entirely lacking the Synge love.

Believe that, despite taste being subjective, some books really are better than others on an objective level. However, my Western Canon != that of Howard Bloom, because he thinks Madame Bovine belongs, to which I say, "Bitch, PLEASE."

Also, will confess, Jane Austen bores the ever loving snot out of me. I keep wishing she didn't, but there you have it.

Prefer Fyodor's shorts to his longs, and think Leo's poor wife was a saint for putting up with him, even if I do adore his work.

Oh, also: think Marlowe's writing was better, but Wm. stole better plots + was more prolific.

Thus ends my controversial views post.

The Aran Islands. Playboy of the Western World. How can you not like Synge, Plei? t throws away sodden Kleenex and picks up another to sop up the tears

I also find Austen somewhat soporific. And I've never been able to get through Madame Bovary.