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Book Burning in Don Quixote

#82: April - May 2010 (Fiction)
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Saffron

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Re: Book Burning in Don Quixote

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bleachededen wrote: Not to nitpick your assessment, which is fairly accurate, as far as I'm reading it, but I don't think even the most manic of bipolar patients would display the kind of blind fantasy Don Quixote has applied to his world. . . .As someone with bipolar disorder, albeit a mild form, I know that even the manic states of others I have known or read about do not reach this heightened level of reality loss. Bipolar disorder is more a mood disorder than a psychosis, so it seems highly unlikely that anyone with this diagnosis would go this far off the deep end.
Acutally, I work with a client who is bipolar and who has become psychotic. I do not think that psychosis is very common during a manic episode, but it does happen. I remember the first time I came across the story of DQ, I thought that he seemed almost as if he were delirious. I remember linking his state of mind to his aged failing body -- these impressions were mine at about age 16, so for give me if I am way off.
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Saffron

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Re: Book Burning in Don Quixote

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bleachededen wrote: That's not always accurate. Schizophrenia can be devastating to the mind, but not always, and since they are prone to delusions, it seems more likely that he was schizophrenic or at least schizoaffective moreso than bipolar. But since it's not something that can be deduced with any accuracy, all we can really do is speculate. He does show attributes of both, as you are right about the grandiosity that can be felt during a manic episode, but he is definitely completely delusional, which is more indicative of schizophrenia.
We need to remember this is fiction. As for schizophrenia, I work in the field, am very familiar with the DSM-4, and many living breathing schizophrenics. One of the features of schizophrenia is that it intefers with, even reduces a persons cognitive abilities. A person with schizophrenia is often (not always)fairly flat emotionally and shows a strong preference for isolating. This does not sound like our man, DQ.
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Re: Book Burning in Don Quixote

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Thank you, Saffron, both for your professional wisdom and your personal insights. I'm only somewhat familiar with the DSM-IV and have only known a few schizophrenics personally, and while I do know my own diagnosis in extreme detail, I don't necessarily know how others with bipolar disorder react to their disorder. I know that I am a rare case, as I have a ridiculous amount of insight into my own inner workings, which, I suppose benefits the psychologists who work with me, but doesn't necessarily allow me to make the changes I know to be beneficial. My illness, like schizophrenia, does interfere with my ability to function on a daily basis because I also have an immense amount of anxiety and OCD. It very rarely impairs my cognitive functions, however, to the contrary, I think one of the most detrimental attribute I have is that I think far too much. I, too, tend to isolate, from a fear of people and judgment and feel uncomfortable in situations that are outside of my general routine.

That may have been too much information, but I just mean to say that I am familiar with mental illness on a personal level and tend to feel empathy for others with similar conditions, but Don Quixote's madness is out of my scope of understanding, and I just wanted to see what others thought, and I thank you and DWill for your input and apologize for any narrow-minded views that I may have put forth here.

Saffron, I do like your 16 year old view of seeing that Quixote's madness came from his aging body. It is quite possible that we are also looking at someone with some sort of dementia, possibly like Alzheimer's but with a more peculiar deterioration. But you are also right to insist that it is impossible to diagnose a fictional character, especially one written at a time when madness was just madness no matter what words we use for it now.
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Re: Book Burning in Don Quixote

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I think Robert pretty much nailed the analysis of this particular feature of the story. Everything is ironic. SP is writing a "biography" of a man he thinks to be mad. It is fun for the reader to occasionally bring to the front of mind that this is SP's version. Something like remembering, while you are reading it, Boswell, not Johnson, wrote The Life of Samuel Johnson.
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DWill

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Re: Book Burning in Don Quixote

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GaryG48 wrote:I think Robert pretty much nailed the analysis of this particular feature of the story. Everything is ironic. SP is writing a "biography" of a man he thinks to be mad. It is fun for the reader to occasionally bring to the front of mind that this is SP's version. Something like remembering, while you are reading it, Boswell, not Johnson, wrote The Life of Samuel Johnson.
SP (Sancho Panza) is writing a biography? It's the Arabic historian Cide Hamete Benengeli who is the author of the biography. The narrator appears to be more of a presenter of the manuscript, which he had another guy translate. The narrator first presents a few adventures from one source, it runs out, and he happens to find the rest of the story written on scrolls in Arabic. It's kind of a puzzling narrative device without a clear purpose to me other than to be amusing.

I wonder if we might explore this question of irony a bit. We could start with a short definition from dictionary.com. It isn't all-inclusive but it's a place to start.

The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs. In the figure of speech, emphasis is placed on the opposition between the literal and intended meaning of a statement; one thing is said and its opposite implied, as in the comment, “Beautiful weather, isn't it?” made when it is raining or nasty. Ironic literature exploits, in addition to the rhetorical figure, such devices as character development, situation, and plot to stress the paradoxical nature of reality or the contrast between an ideal and actual condition, set of circumstances, etc., frequently in such a way as to stress the absurdity present in the contradiction between substance and form. Irony differs from sarcasm in greater subtlety and wit.

I don't immediately see irony in DQ, but am interested in getting some specfics from others. I see spoofing of chivalric literature and broad comedy, but nothing mordant or subversive as would be the case with irony. In the narrative format I don't see a distancing of the narrator from the story or a take on the characters that diverges from the characters' take on themselves. Everyone, except DQ and possibly Sancha, knows DQ is looney, but that is hardly subtle. Irony also needs to be a within-the-book thing, not something imported from outside, involving contemporary society, religion, or politics.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Book Burning in Don Quixote

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DWill wrote:I wonder if we might explore this question of irony a bit. We could start with a short definition from dictionary.com. It isn't all-inclusive but it's a place to start.
The essential feature of irony is the indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs. In the figure of speech, emphasis is placed on the opposition between the literal and intended meaning of a statement; one thing is said and its opposite implied, as in the comment, “Beautiful weather, isn't it?” made when it is raining or nasty. Ironic literature exploits, in addition to the rhetorical figure, such devices as character development, situation, and plot to stress the paradoxical nature of reality or the contrast between an ideal and actual condition, set of circumstances, etc., frequently in such a way as to stress the absurdity present in the contradiction between substance and form. Irony differs from sarcasm in greater subtlety and wit.
I don't immediately see irony in DQ, but am interested in getting some specfics from others. I see spoofing of chivalric literature and broad comedy, but nothing mordant or subversive as would be the case with irony. In the narrative format I don't see a distancing of the narrator from the story or a take on the characters that diverges from the characters' take on themselves. Everyone, except DQ and possibly Sancha, knows DQ is looney, but that is hardly subtle. Irony also needs to be a within-the-book thing, not something imported from outside, involving contemporary society, religion, or politics.
The overt message of the book-burning is that Don Quixote has sent himself mad by reading rubbishy fiction books and believing they are factual, therefore any sensible person will avoid reading entirely and will stick to practical activity. However, Cervantes himself is obviously steeped in this chivalric tradition that he affects to despise, and seems to think people can learn something from tales of knight errantry, perhaps rather like the popular pulp romances of today which may give psychological insights for all their formulaic wish fulfillment. So the irony is that the surface language of the book-burning episode presents the consignment to the flames as a necessary and ethical task, while just below the surface is the disturbing sense that here we see wanton vandalism and loss of values that the destroyers (except the priest) are unable to comprehend.

The deeper irony is the critique of Christian theology. Christians have been among the greatest book-burners in history, largely responsible for the amnesia of the dark ages which set the scene for knight errantry, such as the legendary burning of the great classical library of Alexandria in Egypt. Cervantes is reconstructing a continuity with classical civilization. Stories from Homer and Ovid were common coin among the literary elite of his day but are now forgotten by our contemporary equivalents of book burners. Christians, by believing in miracles, are just like Don Quixote, and deserve the same level of incredulity about their insanity as his amazed onlookers give to DQ. But the Bible was off limits for mockery. DQ himself later says he would like to burn at the stake anyone who suggests that chivalric literature is not 100% factual. So the surface message is that Christian civilization can mock the fantasy world of chivalry, but the irony is that Christianity is just as fantastic as the delusions it mocks.
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Re: Book Burning in Don Quixote

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Well said, Robert, and I completely agree.

I'm actually finding Don Quixote to be far more compelling than I ever imagined. I am getting a little tired of all the grandiose speeches, however. I have a feeling I would not be fond of chivalric literature (actually I know so, because when reading The Song of Roland in high school, I was bored to tears and barely managed to skim through it enough to fulfill the exam requirements).

I also watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail again recently, and couldn't help but hear our mad knight in Graham Chapman (King Arthur)'s conversations (but not so much in everyone else's speech, further parodying Don Quixote). It adds even more to the hilarity of the movie, which is already pretty high, because I love Monty Python and the movie that it is most obviously mocking, Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (which is not obvious if you haven't seen it, but once you have, you cannot help but know that that is one of the biggest ideas being mocked in the Holy Grail).

I'm looking forward to where our Dulcinea of Toboso, Aldonza Lorenzo will make her appearance. Her character in the musical Man of La Mancha is one I find interesting, especially in her interactions with Don Quixote and Sancho, so I am curious to see what she is actually like in Cervantes' narrative.
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Re: Book Burning in Don Quixote

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Robert Tulip wrote:The overt message of the book-burning is that Don Quixote has sent himself mad by reading rubbishy fiction books and believing they are factual, therefore any sensible person will avoid reading entirely and will stick to practical activity. However, Cervantes himself is obviously steeped in this chivalric tradition that he affects to despise, and seems to think people can learn something from tales of knight errantry, perhaps rather like the popular pulp romances of today which may give psychological insights for all their formulaic wish fulfillment. So the irony is that the surface language of the book-burning episode presents the consignment to the flames as a necessary and ethical task, while just below the surface is the disturbing sense that here we see wanton vandalism and loss of values that the destroyers (except the priest) are unable to comprehend.
I haven't read far enough, perhaps, to judge with certainty Cervantes' view of the value of knight errantry. So far I have no reason to think he's doing anything but spoofing. I think the convention of the shepherd's tale, in which the exquisitely sensitive, eloquent, and lovestruck shepherd pours out his heart exhaustively, is a different matter. Cervantes apparently finds these vapid tales to be affecting. I know you're in some good company, Robert, in seeing all kinds of irony in DQ, but to me your examples here aren't exactly within-the-book. They are drawing conclusions from material, but I don't see authorial intent, which is an important element in irony. I do admit there is a very obvious dramatic irony in the book--the reader and most of the other characters knowing the Don is nuts while he has no insight--and there may yet be other examples. The apearance of an author as a member of the chain gang going to the galleys (a Cervantes stand-in?) has potential, but there may also be a better way to describe this device.
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Re: Book Burning in Don Quixote

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Reflecting back on the book burning scene and thinking about all the disasters that befall Don Q because he is a 'by the book' knight, a fact he lords over poor Sancho with terrible consequences for both of them, leaves me with the impression that Cervantes is a playing out or paralleling the book burning scene in painful and repetitive detail as Don Quixote seeks and finds chivalric adventure only to see his delusions of (textbook) chivalry go up in smoke.
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giselle wrote:Reflecting back on the book burning scene and thinking about all the disasters that befall Don Q because he is a 'by the book' knight, a fact he lords over poor Sancho with terrible consequences for both of them, leaves me with the impression that Cervantes is a playing out or paralleling the book burning scene in painful and repetitive detail as Don Quixote seeks and finds chivalric adventure only to see his delusions of (textbook) chivalry go up in smoke.
That sums up well the plot driver in the book. The amazing thing about Don Q, of course, is that he never lets on to any disappointment of his aspirations; in fact the more his adventures fizzle, the more sure he becomes. He doesn't learn, or he is unbelievably steadfast, whichever way you want to see it. It's also clever of Cervantes to have other people reinforcing Don's delusions, as Don's exploits become well-known through the publication of the very book we are reading, in addition to a rip-off by another author. All these people familiar with what a hoot Don Q is are trying to see him in action by egging him on.
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