Negative Positive
Title: precursor of de Sade
Review: I decided to read this after noting Henry Miller's enthusiasm for the book in The Tropic of Cancer (I figured if Miller liked it, it must be good). I was sorely disappointed. I have nothing against bawdy or scatological humor on principle, but I found Rabelais simply boring, tasteless, and completely bereft of genuine humor. This is the sort of thing that gets guffaws from 12-year old boys who think that simply using foul language makes them endlessly witty. If you want early novelists with a tendency toward the bawdy and/or scatological, I recommend Boccaccio, Cervantes and Sterne. And if you absolutely, positively must wallow in a cesspool of disgusting smut, go to the master - the Marquis de Sade.
Is the review positive or negative? 