BOOK REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

The Good Wife of Bath – A pilgrimage into the past

Do students still read The Canterbury Tales or even one of the rollicking yarns written by Geoffrey Chaucer around 1400?

Generations of English school students studied one of the ‘tamer’ tales using Neville Coghill’s modern version and then secretly read the raunchier stories while parents thought it was homework!

Chaucer’s characters, mostly inspired by people he knew, set out on pilgrimage from the Tabard Inn, Southwark travelling to the shrine of Saint Thomas a’ Becket at Canterbury. They decided to tell stories along the way with a prize for the best one.

Pilgrimages were the medieval version of modern bus tours with strangers thrown together for days, travelling across Europe, visiting various attractions and buying tea-towels and fridge magnets. Pilgrims would visit a sacred shrine where their sins were forgiven. They would buy souvenirs or ‘pardons’ such as a phial of Christ’s tears or Mary Magdalene’s toenail clipping to show off to neighbours.

The Wife of Bath boasts of her five marriages and her insatiable appetite for sex despite the harsh treatment she received in a world ruled by men. Karen Brooks brings Alyson to life, telling her own tale in her own language, expressing powerful emotions as life presents raw deals and rewards in a truly authentic medieval setting.

At just 12yo she is married to an old man and quickly realises that women have less value than a horse. Determined to control her own life she battles the whole of society, including husbands, often bringing death and disaster to those she loves.

Karen takes real people and events and entwines them into her tale just as Chaucer did. It is a long read but unforgettable. You don’t need to have read The Canterbury Tales but it made me find my Coghill version from some 65 years ago with my maiden name written inside. Eileen Walder