Don Quixote Part 2

More plot!
Less slapstick!
More Sancho!
NO LONGER SORROWFUL FACE!

I think I liked part one better.  

Closing out Don Quixote Book 1

I'm just going to close this out. Chapter by chapter is too slow for the style of commentary I do on this blog, and my reading pacing was a mess on this. I was enjoying it, but I wound up rushing it to finish a reading challenge, and got kind of skimmy. Now I've been done most of it for over a month, so I'm trying to blog it from rushed notes. So, DQ Book 1:

1. Is super episodic. More so than some actual serial novels. They just do random stuff for a chapter and it may or may not have any baring on what comes next.

2. Is a Tom and Jerry cartoon. It's just weird slapstick of them getting beat up (usually by goat herds) for like half the book.

3. The only parts anyone every remembers are in the first 50 pages. I dunno, everyone just loses interest after the windmills, I guess.

Overall, I enjoyed it. Doesn't feel fair to give it a numerical rating. Part 2 tomorrow!

Don Quixote Chapter 17

 Bonus:

It's over!

Summary: DQ charges sheep, gets beat by shepherds, and does the list of warriors thing from the Illiad.

Commentary: I really need to start batching these, or this will take forever.

Don Quixote Chapter 16

 Bonus: 

I think I may have missed a song or two.

Summary: How many times does this guy mistake inns for castles? Slap Stick!

Commentary: This is a terrible way to do this book.

The Art of Don Quixote

Gustave Doré illustrated an 1863 edition of Don Quixote and, much like the Inferno, they promptly became accepted as the "canonical" versions. There's a couple hundred across the two books, and it's interesting to see the different styles, etc. I had some time today, so I went through the whole thing on Gutenberg edition and checked them all out. It's a little messy, since it looks like they pulled them from multiple sources, rescaled them, etc. Anybody got a nice copy lying around, you could totally give them a hand with scanning them, etc. (Honestly, the wikimedia set looks better.) 

 

The first illustration in Chapter 1 is one of a dozen or so that depicts Don Quixote's fantasies swirling around him. It's a cool effect.

Most of the illustrations lean into the absurdity, but he occasionally gives into DQ's imagined dignity. This one, of him at the castle/inn in Chapter 3, is sombre and beautiful.

 

Some of them are kind of gory, like this one from Chapter 32, "read of Felixmarte of Hircania, how with one single backstroke he cleft five giants asunder through the middle as if they had been made of bean-pods"

 I see three main styles across Doré's illustrations, all of which show up in Chapter 43

Cartoony, used most often for comic/slapstick scenes:

Dark and textured, mostly for the serious ones and the heavy fantasy:

 

 

And an in-between, which is the overall default:

 I'm not sure why DQ hanging around rated a full 3 illustrations, compared to some chapters that get none.

The internet tells me this goes with Chapter 44:

With this the love-smitten youth was silent, while the Judge, after hearing him, was astonished, perplexed, and surprised, as well at the manner and intelligence with which Don Luis had confessed the secret of his heart, as at the position in which he found himself, not knowing what course to take in a matter so sudden and unexpected. All the answer, therefore, he gave him was to bid him to make his mind easy for the present, and arrange with his servants not to take him back that day, so that there might be time to consider what was best for all parties. Don Luis kissed his hands by force, nay, bathed them with his tears, in a way that would have touched a heart of marble, not to say that of the Judge, who, as a shrewd man, had already perceived how advantageous the marriage would be to his daughter; though, were it possible, he would have preferred that it should be brought about with the consent of the father of Don Luis, who he knew looked for a title for his son.

But...

 

In Chapter 47, he visits a steampunk convention:

 I haven't gotten to Chapter 40 of Volume 2 yet, but I love the whole set with this wooden horse.

 

In a handful of spots, he slips into a hyper-realistic mode (Volume 2, Chap 48)

 It's a great collection to take an hour and look through.

Don Quixote Chapter 15

Bonus: 

Everybody always talks shit about Don Quixote

Summary: DQ and SP get beat up/

Commentary: That's really the summary for the whole book. This is just a Tom & Jerry cartoon.

Don Quixote Chapter 14

 Bonus: 

It's Dulcinea's real name!

Summary: A villain song from Gristomo. And more chiv parody. Marcela's origin story! DQ (probably doesn't) save her. Then follows her. The end of part 2.

Commentary: Why didn't this make it into the musical?

Don Quixote Chapter 13

 Bonus:

Summary: Is this DQ's future? Parody of chivalry.

Commentary: Don Quixote does the Starship Troopers speech. The knight errant takes personal responsibility for the well being of the body politic. Other than that, basically a summary of a chivalric romance.

Don Quixote Chapter 12

 Bonus: 

It's the song!

Summary: Fucking Romantics

Commentary: Some fun word play. Some of which is even doubled by making sense with both the original and mispronunciation.

Don Quixote Chapter 11

 Bonus: 

Who/what is your Dulcinea? 

Summary: DQ rants about the good ol' days, and hears a song about unrequited love.

Commentary: I took no notes on this chapter. That's unusual.

Don Quixote Chapter 10

 Bonus: 

Now the soundtrack is ahead!

Summary: DQ makes (then ignores) a vow. He tells Sancho about a balm.

Commentary: 

"Where have you ever seen or read that a knight errant has been brought before the law, no matter how many homicides he may have committed?" Don Quixote is so ahead of his time, making the murder hobo jokes. 

Don Quixote Chapter 8

 Bonus: 

They don't exactly align, but I'm several chapters ahead of the songs at this point.

Summary: DQ is a highwayman! THE WINDMILLS!

Commentary:

Ornsby: A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great sails began to move, seeing which Don Quixote exclaimed, “Though ye flourish more arms than the giant Briareus, ye have to reckon with me.” 

Laaame

Grossman: Just then a gust of wind began to blow, and the great sails began to move, and, seeing this, Don Quixote said:

"Even if you move more arms than the giant Briareus, you will answer to me."

I do like him yeeing and thouing though.

And then he attacks a group of friars to take their stuff. What a hero!

Don Quixote Chapter 7

 Bonus: 

A different playlist!

Summary: DQ wakes up and takes "holy tummy" as his squire. He ditches his wife and kids.

Commentary: Sancho Panza is about one step up from Fat Albert.

Don Quixote Chapter 6

 Bonus: 

Women just don't understand knight errantry...

Summary: Book burning! But not the ones the priest likes.

Commentary: I like the little crash course on the books Cervantes is mocking here. I'm pretty sure they'd censor the titles if you did this today. "Ah, B*tman. Burn that one." "Oh, Spydar-Ma'am. That can stay."

Don Quixote Chapter 5

 Bonus:

I was totally pronouncin it "Dull-Seen-Ah" in my head"

Summary: DQ gets found by a neighbor and goes home. Apparently he used to be smart, and his original name was Quijana.

Commentary: It's interesting to see the contrast between how little the narrators and characters have for Don Quixote, but not for Quijana, who they say was smart and respected.

Don Quixote Chapter 4

Bonus:

I think I'd heard this before, and didn't realize it was from Man of La Mancha

Summary: DQ fails to stop a beating, is bad at math, and gets beat up.

Commentary: I was mistaken, he did not murder anyone yesterday.

Holy Grail is very Don Quixote. He can't count, there's a "penalty of the penalty" joke, which is very "those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked."

Don Quixote Chapters 1-3

 Bonus: 

Late, sleepy, cop out

Summaries:

Ch 1: Don Quixote reads too many chivalric romances and ruins his brain.

Ch 2: DQ goes to an inn (which he thinks is a castle).

Ch 3: He murders a guy and gets knighted.

Commentary: The narrator has no respect. No one does.

"his brains dried up, causing him to lose his mind."

Some whores laugh at him.

Based on the footnote, Dulcinea's given name is basically Becky.

The whole thing is written very "read aloud"ily (oral traditionally?)

I learned a new word: Varlet=scoundrel. (It used to me squire.)

I love this quote (pinched the Ormsby for easier copy-pasty): 

where he had proved the nimbleness of his feet and the lightness of his fingers, doing many wrongs, cheating many widows, ruining maids and swindling minors, and, in short, bringing himself under the notice of almost every tribunal and court of justice in Spain

Such a fun book! 

Don Quixote, Prologue 2

 

I grew up vaguely near him.

Summary: A bunch of fake quotes about how awesome Don Quixote is.

Commentary: I assume this is the first of many possible firsts by DQ, the fake quote intro/praise. It's funny already. I think you see this more as a fake review snippet than as an epigraph today, but it works either way.

Notably, Grossman and Rutherford both maintain the Versos de Cabo Roto format and cut the last syllable from some of the poems, Ormsby does not. Curious if there's some wordplay missing here from the original. It'd be quite challenging to translate it, cut the syllable, have it make sense, and have there be another word that happened to end almost the same.

Don Quixote Prologue

 I decided I'm going to read DQ hard copy. Probably using Grossman as my primary, although I have the old rutherford that I may glance at. As a third option, Ormsby is on Gutenberg, I'll at least peek at the Dores. 

Bonus:

I can milk this for a while...

Summary: Doesn't matter, just make it cool.

Commentary: No didactic for Cervantes. I feel like I read a similar quote by Akira Toriyama, but I can't find it now.

First weird translation thing. Rutherford renders the proverb in the Prologue as "Under my cloak, a fig for the king." The others "kill the king." Fig kind of makes more sense (a lot more people flipping the king off than killing him), but it doesn't appear to be accurate.

It's good to be back.

Starting Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1605) translated by John Ormsby

 I'm going to use this edition on Gutenberg for my base. I like Ormsby's translation, and it Doré illustrations in already. It'll be a bear to Google Docs it, but after my experience w/ Animal Farm I think it's going to be the best combination of enjoyablity and studiability. Working my way through the front matter today. Fun fact "Saavedra" is based on the word for "one-handed" since his left arm was crippled in battle.

Already a great story, and I'm just on the about the author!