!: The Life of Courage: The notorious Thief, Whore and Vagabond

!1: Now is the time The Life of Courage: The notorious Thief, Whore and Vagabond Order Today!

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$11.99
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Sep 21, 2010 15:51:05

A companion volume to Simplicissimus: the story of young girl named Courage, caught up in the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War, who survives, even prospers, by the use of her native cunning and sexual attraction. Completely amoral, she flits through a succession of husbands and lovers and ends her life with a band of Gypsies. The conceit here is that Courage supposedly tells her story to get back at Simplicissimus, who treats her dismissively in his own memoirs. This is a remorseless tale of lechery, knavery and trickery.

!1: Best Buy If you can read German, chances are that you've already taken a look at "Simplicius Simplicissimus", the exuberant picaresque novel of the Thirty Years War by Johann Grimmelshausen. It's THE great classic of German baroque literature -- IMHO the only one that's really fun to read out of school -- a book that rivals Don Quixote or Tom Jones in the genre of 'rogues on the rise'. You should certainly read Simplicius before "The Life of Courage" in whatever language. I've started Mike Mitchell's translations of Grimmelshausen backwards, with "Tearaway" and "Courage", simply because I've read Simplicius in the original. But Mitchell's translations are so accurate, both in content and in tone, that I may reread Simplicius very soon. I'm planning a visit to Berlin in November, to help celebrate the Fall of the Wall anniversary. What could be better for that airplane ordeal than Grimmelshausen's sardonic depiction of the triumph of wits and wiles over pomp and power?

The etymology of the word 'WH0RE' suggests that it derives from an old Germanic word for an army and was first applied to "camp followers". The woman narrator of "The Life of Courage" is a beautiful, fearless, clever, indomitable, unrepentant camp follower! and she follows the imperial armies across middle Europe from Prague to Mantua to Hamburg through thirty years of rapine, slaughter, plunder, and frolicksome fornication. Even the pious Protestants of Heinrich Schuetz's Germany couldn't resist the zesty bawd; both Courage and Tearaway were written under pseudonyms as sequels to the wildly popular Simplicius. Both are shorter, less profound, less multifaceted than Simplicius, but well worth reading for their earthy humor.

Bertholt Brecht's 20th C play "Mother Courage" was based very freely on one episode from Grimmelshausen's novel. Brecht's political 'lesson', that capitalism stacks the odds against even the brashest upstarts, has nothing to do with any morality or immorality expressed by Courage herself or implied by her first creator. Courage got her name, by the way, from one of her first amorous misadventures. Escaping from certain rape and death at the hands of the Catholic invaders of Bohemia, she successfully masqueraded as a boy and became the valet of an officer. One day she got trapped in horsepaly with other valets and grooms, one of whom thrust his hand into her breeches and discovered her "courage". Turning to her officer for protection, she confessed her secret, yielded her 'honor' to him, and became his wife. He was fond of teasing her with the pet name "Courage". When he was killed, the nickname stuck and she was launched on her notorious career. She had seven more husbands and scores of 'lovers' in store for her. Harry Flashman wouldn't have stood a chance against Courage! She'd have eaten him alive. on Sale!

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