Is that all there is?

We took a break (A***** has a real job, can you imagine?), but next week we were supposed to be back with The Monk's Tale.  Then A*****'s job popped up again, but this post was all typed & queued & I figured I would go ahead with it anyhow.  It isn't as though I have anything new to say about the Monk's Tale.

I have read the Monk's Tale.  I have read it thrice.  & all I can remember is it was quite the series of downers.  Wikipedia tells me it is "a collection of seventeen short stories, exempla, on the theme of tragedy".  I was too disheartened to count.  For me it was a waterfall of failure in which the hero's hubris did not play the pivotal role (which makes it not-tragedy in my high school but whatever), it was merely incidental.  As near as I can tell, if you are up on the wheel of fortune, you should kill yourself now because the wheel is just waiting to toss you down & grind you beneath.  Not that you can kill yourself because that is a mortal sin & you will only be making things much worse for yourself.

Did I mention this was the Monk's Tale?  This collection of famous people screwed by fate was being told by the guy you would go to for counseling if you were having some kind of crisis. The nicest thing you can say about the monk is at least he is not overtly corrupt.


As for these list of sufferers, what can I say.  He starts with Lucifer (falling from grace was not his fault - G*d made him that way), moves on through history to Nebuchadnezzar (that whole gold statue worship thing was just a misunderstanding), then Nero (matricide is good-time-party-fun, besides she had it coming) & ends with Michael Vick (those dogs wanted to kill each other).

In the end it took the Knight to say "Shut the F*CK UP you whiny baby", although he said it nicer than that.  He avoided saying what I wanted to say:  Why don't you just kill yourself & shut up about it?