The Decameron
Another in my series of the Corona Files The Decameron seems like the right book for the right time. Composed in 1348 the premise involves a group of young people who have fled the Black Death to a secluded villa outside of Florence. They’re bored; they’ve eaten through their quarantine snacks; they’ve binge-watched the latest Netflix. And, because they don’t know about social distancing, they sit around together and come up with a plan to entertain each other. For each of the days of lockdown one of the members will share a story. The author, Giovanni Boccaccio, is himself a young man. The plague, ravaging all of Europe and his hometown, has claimed the lives of Boccaccio’s father, step-mother, and many of his close friends. I’m wondering if he is self-soothing by writing the tales that number The Decameron (one hundred). The book is structured as a frame story—meaning that the setting, the prescribed situation of death hanging over their heads, the end of the world a...