"Don Quixote" - Cervantes

[norwegianblue]

It's all fun and games until the ship hits the iceberg.

Nobody sees it coming.

[norwegianblue]

Chocolate?

Mmmmmm...chocolate.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

It's all fun and games until the ship hits the iceberg.

Nobody sees it coming.

[Highlander]

If you guys make me try Don Quixote again, I'm gonna be miffed.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

If you guys make me try Don Quixote again, I'm gonna be miffed.

Don't make Highlander miffed. You wouldn't like him when he's miffed.

[Riverboat]

It's all fun and games until the ship hits the iceberg.

Nobody sees it coming.

That's because it's dressed up as the Spanish Inquisition.

[Doom]

If you guys make me try Don Quixote again, I'm gonna be miffed.

It is hard to read but well worth the effort.

[Highlander]

If you guys make me try Don Quixote again, I'm gonna be miffed.

Don't make Highlander miffed. You wouldn't like him when he's miffed.

You definitely won't like me if I'm vexed.

[p.falk]

So many funny moments. One of the best:

DQ is expressing his love for the beauty, grace, an undimmed femininity of Dulcinea del Toboso to Sancho. Then at one point during his speech he says her real name.

To which Sancho says something like, "oh her?! Yeah, great gal! Stronger than most of the guys... practically "one of the guys" herself. And a voice like the ocean... why once she crawled to the top of a tower and bellowed out so loudly that the boys in her father's field she was chastising ran away." (all paraphrased).

bwahahaha!!!

[Highlander]

I gotta hand it to you. You're doing what lots of folks say the intend to do. Someday soon. When the stars align. As circumstances permit. Good on ya'.

[p.falk]

Part 1 was good. Towards the end of it there were a few discursions that weren't nearly as enjoyable as the earlier side stories of failed romances. With these latter ones I found myself reading simply to get done with those sections.

It took a bit to get into Part 2. The one interesting difference is that while in Part 1 DQ was usually on the receiving end of a beating and getting shown up and humiliated in front of the uninvolved onlookers; in Part 2 he's usually winning the fights/contests with the onlookers impressed at his exploits. Now usually this is happening because his opponent isn't quite what he seems. Same went for DQ's battle with the Basque in Part 1.... DQ won, but his opponent wasn't truly some warrior. Just some man who was escorting a woman in a coach. They battle and it's an intense fight with DQ getting battered, losing his ear, but still winning.

In Part 2, similarly the opponent isn't quite what it seems (take the lion released from his cage who's too tired and disinterested to attack DQ)... still, from the vantage of others it looked like he actually scared the fight out of the lion.

Or his fight with the Knight of the Wood, who was actually a student that had befriended DQ earlier. DQ routs him (albeit due to some horse technical difficulties).

The shift in DQ's success is noticeable.

[Highlander]

Keep on keeping on.

[p.falk]

Keep on keeping on.

That's all a fella can do.

I have "Monsignor Quixote" by Graham Greene waiting in the bullpen.

[Doom]

The shift in DQ's success is noticeable.

It is not just his success that is a noticeable difference, but his entire demeanor. As I noted when you began, there is really only one way a story like Don Quixote could unfold. When the story starts, he is crazy with everyone, including Sancho Panza, merely humoring him. But he gradually regains his lucidity, and by the end, Don Quixote is the one sane person, and everyone else around him is crazy. This is, as I said, pretty much the only plot available.

Now, what you might not know is that "Don Quixote Part 2" was never supposed to exist. Part I ends with a generic statement about how "Don Quixote had many more adventures", that was supposed to be it, all she wrote, the end, forever.

But what happened is that between 1612 (the publication of the first part) and 1620 (the publication of the second part) someone (I'm not sure anyone knows for sure who it was) published a forged "Part 2.", and this inspired Cervantes to actually write a Part 2 because it allowed him to engage in some early meta storytelling where everyone in Part 2 is aware of and has read Part 1, and Quixote himself encounters a peddler selling the forged Part 2.

Cervantes wanted to respond to the forged Part 2 because in that text, the author (whoever he was) insults Cervantes and criticizes Part I for going on long diversions from the main story with secondary tales such as "The Ill Advised Curiosity", and Cervantes sarcastically says that since everyone hated those long diversions, he would not do it anymore. Apparently, it wasn't just the forged part 2, but many others told Cervantes that the long diversions were boring and distracted from the main story.

So at least part of the reason he wanted to make a part 2 was to respond to the criticism of part I.

[Highlander]

I vaguely recall this, but I appreciate the reminder.

BTW, this thread is really good.

[Riverboat]

BTW, this thread is really good.

Indeed. I'm actually tempted to have one more go at it, having failed the first two tries.