It has been suggested, among other things, that I consider Chaucerin’ a recent mega-double-chocolate-bestselling novel by Hack Bro… I mean, Dan Brown: The DaVinci Code.
Or, as I term it, The DuhVinci Code.
The sins of this book — both from a writer’s perspective and an academic one — have been sufficiently catalogued elsewhere; so there’s no need to repeat them here.
There is, however, a necessity to answer the suggestion. While, as someone else noted, The DuhVinci Code has already been Chaucer’d — by the esteemed Geoffrey himself over at his strangely silent of late blog (alongside the movie Snakes on a Plane and other sundry amusements) — that’s not really what’s stopping me from doing it. No, it’s something more, something that brings to mind this delightful passage, from the famed works of Sir Thomas Malory (Works, ed. Vinaver, p. 395):
Ryght so there cam a damesell that was cousyn nyghe to the erle of Pase, and she was cousyn also unto Morgan le Fay; and by ryght that castell of La Beale Regarde sholde have bene hers by trew enherytaunce. So this damesell entyrd into this castell where lay sir Alysaundir, and there she founde hym uppon his bedde passynge hevy and all sad.
“Sir knyght,” seyde the damesell, “and ye wolde be myrry, I cowde tell you good tydyngis.”
“Well were me,” seyde sir Alysaundir, “and I myght hyre of good tydynges, for now I stonde as a presonere be my promyse.”
“Sir,” she seyde, “wyte you well that ye be a presonere and wors than ye wene, for my lady, my cousyn, quene Morgan, kepyth you here for none other entente but for to do hir plesure whan hit lykyth hir.”
“A, Jesu defende me,” seyde sir Alysaundir, “frome suche pleasure! For I had levir kut away my hangers than I wolde do her ony suche pleasure!”
I’ll not give the alternative as cutting off my hangers, but I really don’t want to read another word of the DuhVinci Code if I can help it.