It became my goal back in 2019 to review every book by Jean Ray that was translated into English and published by Wakefield Press, and so I am doing the same with The Last Canterbury Tales, its seventh Ray installment, and this may be his weirdest book yet. Let me provide a little background to fully appreciate what Ray had put together. In the late 1300s, Geoffrey Chaucer began composing his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales, a group of narrative poems told by a group of travelers on a pilgrimage. These stories consisted of morality tales, as well as those of sex and murder. Chaucer would become known as the first great poet to write in English (vernacular rather than in an educated language like Latin). Chaucer never completed his work, and we are left only a portion of his tales. It’s notable that the characters of the main story were having a story-telling contest, and the winner would be decided once they returned to the Tabard Inn from their journey.
In 1944, Jean Ray wrote The Last Canterbury Tales to provide his version of how the tales would have ended with the travelers returning to the Tabard Inn, this time in the modern day where they meet a group of wannabe writers, including Tobias Weep (Ray admired Charles Dickens and you can see the influence on the names he came up with) and his friend Reid Unthank. What follows is a new group of tales, being directed by E.T.A. Hoffman’s character, a talking cat named Tomcat Murr. Here’s some details about some of the stories:
“Irish Stew” feels like a takeoff from Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” in a subtle narrative about cannibalism.
“Miss Bonvoisin’s Wedding” is about an old maid who falls in love with a talking parrot and leads to horrifying and freakish results.
“Mr. Gallagher Went Home” is about a man’s family disappearing from his home and of the demented circumstances of their equally inexplicable reappearance.
“I am Looking for Herr Hasenfraz!” is about a scholarly woman who worships the Old Testament gods Moloch and Baal and commits several atrocities as she tries to find Herr Hasenfraz, a fellow scholar who may be a kindred spirit.
“The Pink Terror” is about the horrible infection that takes over a sailor’s body.
“The Uhu” is about a man’s death being caused by mysterious beings for simply saying their name.
“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” is about the criminal lengths that a man will go to keep his promise to his daughter and ends with bitter irony.
I can appreciate what Ray was going for, being a fan of The Canterbury Tales, but several of the stories in this book are unsatisfying. As much as I admire Ray’s work, I’ve come to hold him to a higher standard than a lot of other writers, and there is much less payoff in most of these stories than in any other short fiction from his previous collections. Still, there are a few gems in this book. I like the frame that Ray built that brought the storytellers together, and his prose is as strong as ever. This comes across to me as a middling effort. All things considered, I give this one a B-
Written by Nick Montelongo
In 1944, Jean Ray wrote The Last Canterbury Tales to provide his version of how the tales would have ended with the travelers returning to the Tabard Inn, this time in the modern day where they meet a group of wannabe writers, including Tobias Weep (Ray admired Charles Dickens and you can see the influence on the names he came up with) and his friend Reid Unthank. What follows is a new group of tales, being directed by E.T.A. Hoffman’s character, a talking cat named Tomcat Murr. Here’s some details about some of the stories:“Irish Stew” feels like a takeoff from Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” in a subtle narrative about cannibalism.
“Miss Bonvoisin’s Wedding” is about an old maid who falls in love with a talking parrot and leads to horrifying and freakish results.
“Mr. Gallagher Went Home” is about a man’s family disappearing from his home and of the demented circumstances of their equally inexplicable reappearance.
“I am Looking for Herr Hasenfraz!” is about a scholarly woman who worships the Old Testament gods Moloch and Baal and commits several atrocities as she tries to find Herr Hasenfraz, a fellow scholar who may be a kindred spirit.
“The Pink Terror” is about the horrible infection that takes over a sailor’s body.
“The Uhu” is about a man’s death being caused by mysterious beings for simply saying their name.
“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” is about the criminal lengths that a man will go to keep his promise to his daughter and ends with bitter irony.
I can appreciate what Ray was going for, being a fan of The Canterbury Tales, but several of the stories in this book are unsatisfying. As much as I admire Ray’s work, I’ve come to hold him to a higher standard than a lot of other writers, and there is much less payoff in most of these stories than in any other short fiction from his previous collections. Still, there are a few gems in this book. I like the frame that Ray built that brought the storytellers together, and his prose is as strong as ever. This comes across to me as a middling effort. All things considered, I give this one a B-
Written by Nick Montelongo
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