"Don Quixote" - Cervantes

[p.falk]

I've just started this book. In the prologue Cervantes is mocking notions of chivalry. Saying how this type of literature led to young men and women being more harmed than helped.

Then he goes on to say how writing this prologue is actually harder than writing the actual story. He says he received advice from a friend who advises him to just use a few canned Latin quotes and make up some sonnets (while falsely attributing them to other poets) and voila... you have yourself a prologue that looks scholarly.

Funnily enough, Cervantes THEN says that this was such great advice that he decided to put the whole quote from his friend in the prologue. Followed by a bunch of sonnets falsely attributed to other poets

I had never read this book before and certainly did not expect that much humor in the prologue.


So it had me wondering - is Cervantes really being critical of chivalry? It seems like the effect all of the books have on Don Quixote make him want to be a better person.

[Highlander]

Good for you.

I've had a copy of DQ sitting around since I was 18. I've started it about once a decade and never gotten past page two. Maybe the size and language are just too daunting.

Your initial reaction is interesting. I cast one vote that you keep us posted.

[anawim]

I had to read it in high school, but I honestly don't remember much.

[p.falk]

Good for you.

I've had a copy of DQ sitting around since I was 18. I've started it about once a decade and never gotten past page two. Maybe the size and language are just too daunting.

Your initial reaction is interesting. I cast one vote that you keep us posted.

Thanks Highlander. I'll do that.

I had no idea what to expect when I started the book. I was thinking this book is going to be a pretty serious work. I read that prologue and I'm like, "What is this? PG Wodehouse?"... but in a good way. The prologue is so brief but you don't go many sentences without laughing.

[Doom]

The degree to which Cervantes was genuinely critical of chivalry, rather than merely making fun of the cliches of chivalric literature, is debated.

In the first chapter, when describing Don Quixote's library, several real books are mentioned, which Cervantes himself had read. Cervantes quotes from an authentic passage of one of those books, "The reason of my unreason... etc.," and makes the point that it is all nonsense which "Aristotle himself could not figure out, even if he were resurrected for the sole purpose."

In presenting Don Quxote as trying to follow the model of chivalry, in the 16th century, would be roughly analogous to seeing someone in 2026 walking around in boots, stirrups, a 10-gallon hat, dressed as a cowboy with a six-shooter on his hip and speaking in cliched cowboy talk. It is inherently ridiculous.

But Don Quixote is more than just a buffoon. I don't want to give too much away, but I think you will enjoy the scene in part 2 where Don Quixote meets a peddler who is selling Don Quixote part 1. When Quixote asks how the story ends, the peddler replies "I don't know an ending hasn't been written yet"

[p.falk]

The degree to which Cervantes was genuinely critical of chivalry, rather than merely making fun of the cliches of chivalric literature, is debated.

In the first chapter, when describing Don Quixote's library, several real books are mentioned, which Cervantes himself had read. Cervantes quotes from an authentic passage of one of those books, "The reason of my unreason... etc.," and makes the point that it is all nonsense which "Aristotle himself could not figure out, even if he were resurrected for the sole purpose."

In presenting Don Quxote as trying to follow the model of chivalry, in the 16th century, would be roughly analogous to seeing someone in 2026 walking around in boots, stirrups, a 10-gallon hat, dressed as a cowboy with a six-shooter on his hip and speaking in cliched cowboy talk. It is inherently ridiculous.

But Don Quixote is more than just a buffoon. I don't want to give too much away, but I think you will enjoy the scene in part 2 where Don Quixote meets a peddler who is selling Don Quixote part 1. When Quixote asks how the story ends, the peddler replies "I don't know an ending hasn't been written yet"

That was an actual quote? That makes the passage even funnier. I just assumed it was a lark, because who would actually write like that?

The part where he notices that his armor only involves a steel cap without a face visor... he goes on to make a visor out of cardboard. Tests it against his sword and states roughly "that which took weeks to make was destroyed with one stroke".

He remakes the visor but this time reinforcing it with bars on the visor's interior and states that there's no need to test the visor's strength again because.... because...

[Doom]

The novel is a comedy, but if you expect the jokes to come rapid fire for the entire novel as it does in the early chapters, you will be disappointed. The novel alternates between comedy and tragedy in nearly equal measure.

And yes, that is an authentic quotation, and Cervantes names both the author and the book he got it from.

[Riverboat]

I own an antique copy of this book - in Spanish.

I tried reading it in English years ago. I may attempt to tackle it again someday, but I'm pretty sure it won't be in Spanish. My skill is just not up to it.

[Highlander]

...seeing someone in 2026 walking around in boots, stirrups, a 10-gallon hat, dressed as a cowboy with a six-shooter on his hip and speaking in cliched cowboy talk. It is inherently ridiculous. ...

Nope. You just hang out in the wrong places. Try the Wind River country when the cattle are being moved up to higher pasture. Or the Mancos River Valley in the fall.

They dress that way cause that's what they are.

[Highlander]

... I may attempt to tackle it again someday, but I'm pretty sure it won't be in Spanish....

That would be early 17th Century Spanish, specifically early Castellano. Yeah, I'm also pretty sure it won't be in Castellano. If translated into modern Spanish, you might have a chance.

Out of curiosity, I dug up:

Original (Early Modern Castilian, 1605):

En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.

Modernized Spanish (updated spelling and some vocabulary for clarity):

En un lugar de La Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no hace mucho tiempo vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en el perchero, escudo antiguo, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.

[Doom]

...seeing someone in 2026 walking around in boots, stirrups, a 10-gallon hat, dressed as a cowboy with a six-shooter on his hip and speaking in cliched cowboy talk. It is inherently ridiculous. ...

Nope. You just hang out in the wrong places. Try the Wind River country when the cattle are being moved up to higher pasture. Or the Mancos River Valley in the fall.

They dress that way cause that's what they are.

Oh really? People walk around talking in a stereotypical western accent out of some 30s western, and put a loaded gun in your face and say "I reckon this saloon isn't big enough for the two of us" while your standing in the middle of the street, and you wouldn't find that behavior odd?

[Highlander]

I don't do moving targets.

Your first example cited dress, accent, vocabulary, and armament. Your rejoinder shifted to a specific decade with a movie milieu, coupled with an assault, while impeding traffic. Most drinking establishments round here can handle more than two people.

I find that cowboys dress and talk and act like .... cowboys. Or cowgirls. T'aint odd a'tall, I reckon.

[Riverboat]

That would be early 17th Century Spanish, specifically early Castellano. Yeah, I'm also pretty sure it won't be in Castellano. If translated into modern Spanish, you might have a chance.

As fate would have it, I majored in English and Spanish education. Oddly, Cervantes wasn't on the reading list in spite of the fact we covered the Golden Age of Spanish literature.

[Doom]

It is a very difficult book to read

[p.falk]

To post some of the more hilarious moments...

Seeing the windmills, mistaking them for giants, Don Quixote says:

"Fortune is directing our affair's even better than we could have wished: for you can see over there, good friend Sancho Panza, a place where stands thirty or more monstrous giants with whom I intend to fight a battle and whose lives I intend to take; and with the booty we shall begin to prosper. For this is a just war, and it is a great service to God to wipe such a wicked breed from the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those giants that you can see over there", replied the master, "with long arms: there are giants with arms almost six miles long."

"Look you here," Sancho retorted, "those over there aren't giants, they're windmills, and what look to you like arms are sails - when the wind turns them they make the millstones go round".

Undeterred, Don Quixote charges headlong at the 'giants' and drives his lance into one of the arm's sails. The wind pushes the arm "with such violence that it smashed the lance into pieces and dragged the horse and his rider with it." Throwing Don Quixote to the ground.

"For God's sake!" said Sancho. "Didn't I tell you to be careful what you were doing, didn't I tell you they were only windmills? And only someone with windmills on the brain could have failed to see that!"

Don Quixote explains that the enchanter Freston changed them from giants to windmills as soon as he began his attack... only to deprive Don Quixote of the glory of victory.

Moments later they see two Benedictine friars on the road, and trailing behind them (though not associated with them) were 4 or 5 horsemen escorting a coach that carried a Basque lady on her way to Seville.

"Either I am much mistaken or this will be the most famous adventure ever witnessed; for those black figures over there must be and no doubt are enchanters abducting a princess in that coach, and I must redress this wrong to the utmost of my power."

I love this response from Sancho:

"This will be worse than the windmills," said Sancho. "Look here, sir, those there are Benedictine friars..."

[Doom]

Isn't the windmill incident in the first chapter? It sounds like you haven't gotten that far in it.

[p.falk]

Isn't the windmill incident in the first chapter? It sounds like you haven't gotten that far in it.

Would that bother you?

[Highlander]

Keep 'em coming. But not to the extent that I will be motivated to follow your path following DQ.

[p.falk]

Keep 'em coming. But not to the extent that I will be motivated to follow your path following DQ.

That's true. I've posted a few duds on here.


One of the main reasons for me doing this is that I want to keep track of memorable passages from books. Apparently not memorable enough that I don't need to type them down.

[Doom]

Isn't the windmill incident in the first chapter? It sounds like you haven't gotten that far in it.

Would that bother you?

As I said, it is a difficult book to read