Response to Don Quixote

I still had this response to Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote saved on my computer. I emailed it to you, Wendy and Tia, what, like a year or more ago. I thought that I'd post it anyway, because I can.

I just read the end of Don Quixote.

Miguel de Cervantes has quite the clever humor. I enjoyed many laughs from his characters' "adventures", as well as their temperaments: Don Quixote's quick temper and Sancho's gullibility and naive-ness; Don Quixote's loyalty to chivalry, knight-errantry, and especially to his Lady Dulcinea del Toboso; and Sancho's loyalty as a squire to his master, the Knight of the Rueful Figure (even though he did doubt at times: "Take care, sir. Those over there are not giants but windmills (p36); "I sometimes think all you tell me of knighthood, kingdoms, empires, and islands is all windy blather and lies (p 128)."

I loved reading of Don Quixote's, however mad he was, sense of wisdom and insight. For instance, when he is dining with the goatherd and gives a speech about "happy times and fortunate ages" and that they were called those not because of the gold that they found but "because those who lived then knew not those two words 'Thine' and 'Mine'(p 51)" but worked together and shared and were simple and really enjoyed little things."

I also loved reading of Don Quixote's valor and confidence. In reference to going up against twenty plus men he calls out, "I am equal to a hundred (p 55)." What confidence! And after he made his balsam (and threw it up, was cured, gave it to Sancho who retched and "discharged so swiftly and piously at both ends (p 70)") he was ready to set off on another adventure. "He thought that every moment he delayed there meant depriving the world, and especially those in need, of his strong arm. "With his balsam in hand he felt he could conquer anything."

At the end when Don Quixote gives up his madness I know that you were disappointed Tia. I was, too. It's sad that he came out of his madness just before he died and looked back at everything with regret, that he called his once beloved books of knight-errantry detestable, and referred to his time of adventures as a dark cloud of ignorance. You wish that he could have just died still in his mad state.

It is touching though how, even to the end, Sancho was a loyal squire.

Some observations and points made by Susan Wise Bauer:
-Don Quixote is the innocent in this journey, and the people he meets (there are 669 characters) are generally hardheaded and intolerant of his fantasies.
-On the surface, Don Quixote is a contradiction, an antibook novel. Don Quixote's madness is caused by reading.
-Don Quixote, the knight created by reading and kept alive through writing, lives forever.
-Don Quixote's adventures are entertaining, but the real fascinating of Don Quixote lies in Miguel de Cervantes' constant attention to the ways in which fables become real in the imagination of the reader.

SaLLy FoRth!

(I started Huckleberry Finn over the weekend. So far, I like.)