Gargantua and Pantagruel

Gargantua has been in his mother’s womb for eleven months; before long, she is eating an astonishing quantity of tripe. In Rabelais’s giant-sized comedy, even birth refuses to be ordinary.

In sixteenth-century France, the enormous Gargantua grows from a prodigious child into a pupil sent to Paris, where schoolmasters, bells, and a very large mare all become occasions for mischief. His father, Grangousier, would rather keep the peace, but a quarrel between rival cake-bakers soon draws Gargantua into a war led by the hot-headed King Picrochole. Around them, learning turns to absurdity, appetite has no limits, and solemn institutions are fair game for Rabelais’s exuberant wit. Can Gargantua bring the conflict to heel—and what, exactly, will his world make of a giant’s sense of justice?

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