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Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

#82: April - May 2010 (Fiction)
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Suzanne

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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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I have been reading "Don Quixote" for what seems like months now, actually, I think it has been months. Although I do enjoy it, it does not hold my attention, it does not call out to me, "read me, read me" like many other novels. I think I have read about six other books while keeping a place mark in DQ.
bleachededen wrote:It's interesting to note that Don Quixote's most famous adventure (the adventure of the windmills) is the shortest adventure in the entire book.
I also found this interesting. I have browsed art work depicting DQ and most of it features the windmills. Picaso features the horse, which is another wonderful visual. But I do think the windmills make for a strong impression, where some other adventures are more subtle, and don't really lend themselves to a visual picture. "Fighting windmills", that makes a strong impact, and a great old cliche.
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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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Suzanne wrote:
bleachededen wrote: It's interesting to note that Don Quixote's most famous adventure (the adventure of the windmills) is the shortest adventure in the entire book.
I also found this interesting. I have browsed art work depicting DQ and most of it features the windmills. Picaso features the horse, which is another wonderful visual. But I do think the windmills make for a strong impression, where some other adventures are more subtle, and don't really lend themselves to a visual picture. "Fighting windmills", that makes a strong impact, and a great old cliche.
It kind of makes me think that many people only read that first section and then gave up, and that is how Don Quixote became such a classic -- because the first few adventures were enough to sate the reader and give them the full meaning of the book in that small, early section.

This is only speculation, of course, but it does warrant a bit of questioning.

Does it also bother anyone else that Don Quixote never actually even saw Aldonza Lorenzo (the Lady Dulcinea), but spends the entire book pining for her and desperate to disenchant her after being tricked by Sancho? Seriously, doesn't anyone else find that really weird??
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Suzanne

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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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The Lady Dulcinea may be just a living character for him, a lady worthy of courtly love like so many others he has read about. He may feel as if he knows her very well because he has read all those books and has a picture in his mind of how she should look and the qualities she would possess. It could be possible this is how he sees himself as well, he may not realize that he is fifty some years old and feeble. He has certainly imersed himself in these books of chivalry. Women that he does know, in his home villiage probably do not meet his expectations.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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Suzanne wrote:The Lady Dulcinea may be just a living character for him, a lady worthy of courtly love like so many others he has read about. He may feel as if he knows her very well because he has read all those books and has a picture in his mind of how she should look and the qualities she would possess. It could be possible this is how he sees himself as well, he may not realize that he is fifty some years old and feeble. He has certainly imersed himself in these books of chivalry. Women that he does know, in his home villiage probably do not meet his expectations.
The peerless and beauteous Lady Dulcinea of Toboso, the great love of Don Quixote, is Cervantes' gentle way of mocking the Blessed Virgin Mary, a nonexistent icon of the imagination.
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Suzanne

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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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Robert Tulip wrote:The peerless and beauteous Lady Dulcinea of Toboso, the great love of Don Quixote, is Cervantes' gentle way of mocking the Blessed Virgin Mary, a nonexistent icon of the imagination.
Interesting.

Now, if you put your comment together with mine, how would Cervantes view the Bible? Since Don has an image of a fictional woman, a fictional woman based on nonexistent female characters from his books of chivalry, and these books were all burned, burned by a priest no less . . .
Hmmm?

Maybe this has already been discussed, sorry teacher, coming in late for class. I am starting to see a new layer to DQ.
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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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Suzanne wrote:
Robert Tulip wrote:The peerless and beauteous Lady Dulcinea of Toboso, the great love of Don Quixote, is Cervantes' gentle way of mocking the Blessed Virgin Mary, a nonexistent icon of the imagination.
Interesting. Now, if you put your comment together with mine, how would Cervantes view the Bible? Since Don has an image of a fictional woman, a fictional woman based on nonexistent female characters from his books of chivalry, and these books were all burned, burned by a priest no less . . .Hmmm? Maybe this has already been discussed, sorry teacher, coming in late for class. I am starting to see a new layer to DQ.
Hi Suzanne, yes we have started to talk about religion in DQ a bit in other threads. I see Don Quixote as a satire of Christendom, while DWill argues it is light entertainment. On my reading, Cervantes sails as close to the wind as he can to mock the church by proxy. His overall goal is to support modern rational philosophy against the dreamy speculative dogma of earlier times, with chivalry a proxy for theology. The Inquisition was still burning heretics such as Giordano Bruno at the stake (in 1600), and they edited DQ to delete a comment seen as critical of Catholic dogma. However, Cervantes was too brilliant for them, using the form of popular fiction to conceal a savage attack on the entire magical outlook of traditional religion.
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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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jan wrote:I liked Randy's reminder about the philosophical part of the book. I read the older translation 30 years ago and it is the overarching philosophies and principles presented in DQ that I remember all these years later. I am still at the beginning of this newer one and hope to knock off a bit today.

I certainly do not feel either translation is unreadable. I does not read like a Michael Crichton, but certainly holds my attention. I would be curious to compare the 2 translations. I may dig my old one out and compare a few passages. Has anyone done this?
jan
Thanks. When you get to the philosophical parts, you might write a post, because I'm interested in talking about these. I noted someone's remark that in the second half, Don Q. sounds like Montaigne. I didn't have this impression of Don's disquisitions myself, but maybe I'm missing something. Don Q. impressed me as a man a good sense when he spoke on topics outside of knight errantry, but I wouldn't call his thoughts particularly philosophical. Perhaps it's in how you define that word. When he gives his views on a variety of subjects, invariably somebody comments with wonder how a man can be so crazy-sounding on the subject of knight-errantry, yet so reasonable when speaking of anything else. To me, Cervantes very purposefully does this to make it clear that the knight-errantry ideals themselves aren't what we should be admiring in Don Q.

The "unreadable" label (which I now regret having started) didn't have to do with any translator's handling of the language, but rather the accumulation of episodes of basically the same nature, the digressive stories, and the lack of character development in a very long book. These things could be a barrier regardless of who translated.
Last edited by DWill on Fri May 21, 2010 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Suzanne

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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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This one has gotten the better of me. I have tried. I believe I read "War and Peace" twice in a shorter period of time than it has taken me to read 400 pages of DQ.

I feel as though I am reading the same thing over and over again. DQ sees an opportunity, seizes it, gets beaten up, everyone calls him crazy, Sancho gets frustrated. Then, the cycle repeats. "Wash, rinse, repeat". I find myself reading the words, just to get through it, not good. But I know, if I put it down, I will never pick it up again. What a dilemma!

I just can't make myself take my place mark out of this book. The comments from everyone, especially Robert and DWill are great, I should be enjoying this book, but it just ain't happenin. I really don't want to banish it to the "don't want to read it, but want to finish it" pile, which needs dusting, but I am very close to doing it.

Alas, for me, Don Qioxote may be unreadable.
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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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Alas, for me, Don Qioxote may be unreadable.
I understand, Suzanne. I like Don Quixote but my unreadable book was the Odyssey. I swear, that story was never going to end!
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Is Don Quixote Unreadable?

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Hi, I finished Don Quixote last week and loved it.
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