Cervantes: Don Quixote

[Loki]

I think that this masterpiece well deserves a thread on its own, since it is one of the most known works in the Spanish language and since its protagonist has become the sterotype of the person who mistakes fiction for reality.

Although mad, Don Quijote is considered to be intelligent by the other characters in the story, unless he talks about errant chivalry! He indeed shows to be quite intelligent, his speeches are amazing and striking for their depth. But they are also amazingly and strikingly funny, like his interminable fantasies (like the one in which he imagines a knight welcomed by a king).

And of course we must consider the importance of Sancho. The rapport between the two is one of the major elements of the story and their reciprocal influence is what makes them change a little: Quijote has sometimes to accept the reality (represented basically by Sancho) and Sancho, simpleton as he is, accepts his master's fantasies. Their dialogues is one of the best and funniest parts of the whole work (like the episode in the Sierra Morena).

An interesting approach to this novel has been the one by Unamuno, who wrote La vida de don Quijote y Sancho Panza. He sometimes exaggerates in his interpretation, but it still remain quite interesting. For example he constantly draws a parallel bewteen Quijote's madness and the faith in God: they are both without reason: if you can demonstrate by reason the existance in God, he says, you wouldn't have to believe, and you wouldn't have faith. In the same way, Quijote says that he is mad without any reason (see episode in the Sierra Morena).


I've found it an amazing work, and I can't wait to re-read it, this time in Spanish. I would like to hear your opinions about the book.

[Daniel del Real]

This is the most complete book I've ever read. It deals with many topics in many differente approaches that although it was written more than 400 years ago reamains actual and we will keep discussing about it for centuries to come. Philosophical, entertaining, deep, funny, beautifully written, this book has all.
I read a short version when I was 10 years old. At 13 I tackle the complete book and enjoyed immensely. 6 years ago I re-read the 400 years commemorative edition by the Real Academia de la Lengua Espa?ola.
I think it's about time to read it again.

[sirena]

I have an acquittance who is so thrilled with this book that he re-reads it each year during the Christmas holidays.

[Loki]

it seems strange to me that so few people have something to say about this work. I thought more people had read it. Spanish literature seems to be not really appreciated in the forum.

[Manuel76]

Of course I read it (many times) and I love it. For me it has been (one of) the most important reading(s) in my life. It's anyway difficult to describe or talk about it in a few lines. As Daniel says is a very complete (and complex) book.

But Loki, it's a clasical book, there's a great lack of classical books threads in the forum, and not only Spanish: Paradise Lost, Orlando Furioso, La Celestina..

[Bottle Rocket]

I think Manuel has put his finger on an important point.

Many of the greatest books are, IMHO, not so much "inaccessible" as "ineffable." Don Quijote, I suggest, is one of them; while those among us who have actually read it see it as the remarkable adventure it is, for many others it's been "Man-of-La-Mancha"-ized -- simplified, predigested, retrofitted to the popular perspective rather than taken on its own terms.

Almost anybody aware at all of European literature, after all, knows a little about the character of Quijote, if not much about the book itself. You know, the guy who tilts at windmills? Wears a chamberpot for a helmet? 'Nuff said.

Which is completely silly, at least after you've read the whole thing in its original, integral glory (in Spanish, if possible, but in any case, the whole thing). However, we don't need to look far to find similar examples: the Brothers Grimm is another such, a collection of "fairy tales" frequently dismissed as being for kids although anyone who has read the complete, unabridged version knows that a lot of it is pretty scary once you get past the sugary trappings like the witch's gingerbread house in "Hansel and Gretel," say. Nor do many people recognize that in that story, f'rinstance, there's a case for the witch, too -- the two children DO take a few bites out of her house; they owe her. Maybe not as much as the pounds of flesh she tries to collect, but in the first instance she is the wronged party, which is often overlooked in the conventional view of two innocent kids and an evil woman (not even to mention that when the Grimms were creating the general attitude towards children was a very different one from today's).

Also, back to Cervantes, unless you're familiar with the tradition of courtoisie already, a lot of the more subtle bits of humor and satire will elude you. This combination of "everybody knows" and "few really appreciate" is a one-two punch that discourages a lot of commentary, IMO.

Which is too bad, because Cervantes really is a master and the book is very, very, very much more than some funny tales about a crackpot.

BRocket

[Manuel76]

BRocket, that's true, even in Spain some people know about Don Quijote first of all because of the hundreds plays, musicals, films...and the image is clearly simplified. Of course everybody know there must be something else (otherwise the book woudn't be that important).

It happens the same with famous plays by Shakespeare, for example Hamlet. Everybody knows about the "to be or not to be" without really knowing what is it about. And there's the image of Hamlet with Yorik's skull. So finally we have Hamlet with Yorik's skull in his hands reciting "to be or not to be".

[Peeping Tom]

Moby Dick is another classic that everyone knows about, but few have read.

By the way, I read Don Quijote a long time ago. Loved it, especially the second half.

[Manuel76]

And of course Don Quijote is a masterpiece of spanish prose and is better enjoyed in spanish. The prose can be delicate and "dolce" as an Egloga from Garcilaso when describing Dorotea's feet, or hurried and very visual when narrating the complex and fast actions when the four young lovers meet at the "venta" in the First Part, or slowly-paced and discursive following the digressive dialogues between Don Quijote and Sancho while travelling all over La Mancha. It can be parodic, poetic others, comic or definitely moving.

And of course the text is full of popular sayings. Not only Sancho's talking, but even Don Quijote's dreams (perhaps too much time together), when he finds his enchanted heroes in the Cave of Montesinos. One of my favorite and funnier is when dead Durandante doubts about Quijote's being the selected heroe for liberating them all and cure him (he's dead!): and says "paciencia y barajar" (something like "be patient and shuffle(the cards)").

[Manuel76]

Moby Dick is another classic that everyone knows about, but few have read.

By the way, I read Don Quijote a long time ago. Loved it, especially the second half.

First part is the one which establishes what most people consider Don Quijote to be. Don Quijote see things differently to everybody else. Giants instead of mills and Palaces instead of Ventas. The main idea is there. Second part is a miracle because of its many variations and developments. The book goes on better and better from the beggining till the last page. And like the plot itself, the characters develope in some unthinkable ways till that very last page, when a terribly human detail about Sancho's personality is revealed.

[Bottle Rocket]

One of my favorite and funnier is when dead Durandante doubts about Quijote's being the selected heroe for liberating them all and cure him (he's dead!): and says "paciencia y barajar" (something like "be patient and shuffle(the cards)").

FTR, the classic formulation in English is: "Shut up and deal."


BRocket

I'm interested by "of course the text is full of popular sayings;" did Cervantes borrow them or make them up? There's an old joke about a theatre-going philistine remarking about Hamlet, "What's the big fuss about Shakespeare? All he ever does is take cliches and stick them together."

[Manuel76]

It's difficult to say, the popular sayings are, I suppose, most of them borrowed and (sometimes wrongly) used by Sancho Panza. Don Quijote even forbids him to talk because he doesn't think it's knight-like to hear them. Later on he enjoys Sancho using them, whether correctly or not.

Other modern sayings comes directly from simple sentences from Don Quijote, some of them wrongly used too, or giving them a sense which was probably not in the original, as the famous "con la Iglesia hemos topado" , something like "to come across the church" but giving the original text an anticlerical sense it probably didn't have.

I love that "paciencia y barajar" moment in Quijote, because in this dream from Don Quijote, all out of his fantasy, some mundane elements appear when less expected, and as the knight Montesinos speaks more or less noble sentences, directly from the Amadis or Palmer?n or that kind of novels, suddenly the dying-died Durandarte (a knight from Spanish romancero, supposed to be in the Roncesvalles battle) wakes up and says this wise but prosaic and very castilian words.

Later on when he is telling the story, another character is very impressed with those words which can date the appearance of card-playing in Spain to the VIII century!!

By the way I like that "Shut up and deal", has it that resigned tone as in spanish?. In spanish it would be said with a kind of deep sigh.

[Bottle Rocket]

Moby Dick is another classic that everyone knows about, but few have read.

And even when you winkle those few out, it turns out that many of them poke their toes in the dust and then fess up that "well, I skipped all those boring parts that were just about whaling."

Which is sort of like reading Proust but skipping all that speculative stuff about memory and musical composition.


BRocket

[Bottle Rocket]

It's difficult to say, the popular sayings are, I suppose, most of them borrowed and (sometimes wrongly) used by Sancho Panza. Don Quijote even forbids him to talk because he doesn't think it's knight-like to hear them. Later on he enjoys Sancho using them, whether correctly or not.

That's one of the most exhilarating things about Cervantes ... the way he tweaks the solemn, stiff things that make life more formal and less alive, especially when it comes to high-flown cultural notions like knee-jerk Chivalry. I think we often have a tendency to forget that while Absurdity may be a "modern" idea it's not a recent one at all. Also, the fact that Cervantes grants Quijote the development of learning to enjoy Sancho right or wrong is to me a very generous authorial gesture, entirely in keeping with the spirit at the heart of his novel, even though he remains a realist to the last in awakening Quijote from madness to the truth, which is a sad end but I don't think gratuitously cruel.

Other modern sayings comes directly from simple sentences from Don Quijote, some of them wrongly used too, or giving them a sense which was probably not in the original, as the famous "con la Iglesia hemos topado" , something like "to come across the church" but giving the original text an anticlerical sense it probably didn't have.

That happens a lot, I suspect, when a saying becomes common enough to lose its original specific association and context. Especially if the original context was ironic or in some way meta-

I love that "paciencia y barajar" moment in Quijote, because in this dream from Don Quijote, all out of his fantasy, some mundane elements appear when less expected, and as the knight Montesinos speaks more or less noble sentences, directly from the Amadis or Palmer?n or that kind of novels, suddenly the dying-died Durandarte (a knight from Spanish romancero, supposed to be in the Roncesvalles battle) wakes up and says this wise but prosaic and very castilian words.

Yes, it's very skillful how Cervantes deflates puffed-up, artificial manners and attitudes without ranting and railing -- then you'd start to think he was a cuckoo Don Quijote himself. Instead he just lets the stuffed shirts hold forth and then undercuts them with a common-sense, plain-spoken phrase

Later on when he is telling the story, another character is very impressed with those words which can date the appearance of card-playing in Spain to the VIII century!!

IMO another very modern touch, in that a late 16th- early 17th century novelist has a character in the past refer to the even further past ... a conversation easy to imagine overhearing in real life but all but impossible to imagine in another book from Cervantes era.

By the way I like that "Shut up and deal", has it that resigned tone as in spanish?. In spanish it would be said with a kind of deep sigh.

Generally speaking, I think. Sort of "can we please get back to the business at hand now?"


BRocket

[Daniel del Real]

I think Manuel has put his finger on an important point.

Many of the greatest books are, IMHO, not so much "inaccessible" as "ineffable." Don Quijote, I suggest, is one of them; while those among us who have actually read it see it as the remarkable adventure it is, for many others it's been "Man-of-La-Mancha"-ized -- simplified, predigested, retrofitted to the popular perspective rather than taken on its own terms.

Almost anybody aware at all of European literature, after all, knows a little about the character of Quijote, if not much about the book itself. You know, the guy who tilts at windmills? Wears a chamberpot for a helmet? 'Nuff said.

Which is completely silly, at least after you've read the whole thing in its original, integral glory (in Spanish, if possible, but in any case, the whole thing). However, we don't need to look far to find similar examples: the Brothers Grimm is another such, a collection of "fairy tales" frequently dismissed as being for kids although anyone who has read the complete, unabridged version knows that a lot of it is pretty scary once you get past the sugary trappings like the witch's gingerbread house in "Hansel and Gretel," say. Nor do many people recognize that in that story, f'rinstance, there's a case for the witch, too -- the two children DO take a few bites out of her house; they owe her. Maybe not as much as the pounds of flesh she tries to collect, but in the first instance she is the wronged party, which is often overlooked in the conventional view of two innocent kids and an evil woman (not even to mention that when the Grimms were creating the general attitude towards children was a very different one from today's).

Also, back to Cervantes, unless you're familiar with the tradition of courtoisie already, a lot of the more subtle bits of humor and satire will elude you. This combination of "everybody knows" and "few really appreciate" is a one-two punch that discourages a lot of commentary, IMO.

Which is too bad, because Cervantes really is a master and the book is very, very, very much more than some funny tales about a crackpot.

BRocket

I had the same impression when I read Gulliver's Travels. Many film adaptations, specially for kids only taking the first part and sometimes the second. However this books is way more than that and it goes beyond a fantastic tale about adventures and travels. There's a whole political sphere involving all the text, with a strong political and sociological criticism to many countries in Europe, about their territories, their habits, kingdoms, tyrannies etc.
Again, everybody knows who is Gulliver but a few people care about reading the whole book, which is supreme.

Moby Dick is another classic that everyone knows about, but few have read.

I'm a sinner on this one, but I swear I'll read it this year

[Manuel76]

I'm a sinner on this one, but I swear I'll read it this year

Me too. I've already bought a new Penguin Edition. But I know its language is very difficult. I tried some years ago and failed.

And talking about books which are supposed to be for children: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I read it a couple of months ago and loved it. One of those books I want to remember ever.

[Stiffelio]

The problem with Classics in general is that, if and when we read them, we did so at school; we were not mature enough to grasp the whole meaning of these works and we hated them because we had to read them, not because we liked them. The result is that, in most cases, we never looked forward to going back to them when we became adults. Of course there are exceptions.

[sirena]

The problem with Classics in general is that, if and when we read them, we did so at school; we were not mature enough to grasp the whole meaning of these works and we hated them because we had to read them, not because we liked them. The result is that, in most cases, we never looked forward to going back to them when we became adults. Of course there are exceptions.

My sentiment, exactly!

[learna]

However, we don't need to look far to find similar examples: the Brothers Grimm is another such, a collection of "fairy tales" frequently dismissed as being for kids although anyone who has read the complete, unabridged version knows that a lot of it is pretty scary once you get past the sugary trappings like the witch's gingerbread house in "Hansel and Gretel," say.


BRocket

Just yesterday I was at my friends' and we say about it a little and read a small scary "fairy tale" by the Brothers Grimm. It was quite horible, I have to say.
The fact is that in those times fairy tales ware written for adults and there were any children's ones, as a rule, in our modern understandinding.

[learna]

"Don Quixote" is, no doubt, is a very profound work which can not be discussed briefly. I would mark only that it was a parody on tales of chivalry, as well. Cervantes carried all to the point of absurdity dismounting a chivalry from the pedestal. That was an innovation for those times.