Welcome to Week 12, which recounts what will soon be commented.
I read 80 pages in the last two days, and I’m still a week behind. Not sure exactly how that happened. I blame a vile enchanter. But on the upside, I’ve gotten to really roll around in the first several chapters of Part II, which I think we’ll all agree is filled with glorious stuff. And speaking of glorious stuff — 18 comments in Week 11?! Gadzooks!
Meanwhile, as we mourn the loss of e and the good Captain, I’m hearing rumors that there are two or three folks racing through Part I at this very moment, in a zany, madcap effort to meet us at the finish line. Sort of like The Gumball Rally of literary deathmarches. Or mebbe The Cannonball Run of online reading groups? Either way, keep an eye on that rearview mirror….
Next Wednesday: Destination — page 641 (Grossman) and the end of Chapter XXVIII, where, in a bit of eerie foreshadowing, we find ourselves “in that place [where] they would have raised a [mugnet] to their victory.”
I really enjoyed the “deathbed” marriage. That was some dramatic stuff–it felt almost gothic with the blood in the tube and the bride’s pallor. So I googled Don Quixote and Marriage to see if anything interesting came up and found this kind of strange article by a reverend who uses Don Quixote in his ‘Marriage Encounters’ workshop.
http://www3.telus.net/st_simons/cr9608.htm
I’m thinking Kim is a little ahead in her discussion (or I’ve lost track – but I read that part this morning thinking I was starting next week.
There is something wonderful about the fact that DQ is now being encouraged to stay true to his course of knight errantry by the folk around him. And he is living the dream by fighting lions. I was recently skimming Ian Watt’s The Rise of the Novel in which he presents the elemental case for the works of Defoe, Richardson and Fielding as the birth of the novel form. I’d remembered it as the start of the British novel, but Watt’s definition turns of realism as the vital trait of the novel. He specifically groups DQ with works like Faust as western myths. Reading DQ, I’m less convinced – this is highly unlikely stuff, but it is not fantasy.
I really liked page 584, when DQ accuses Sancho of expounding too much, and Sancho says that DQ ought to remember that one of the conditions of his squiring this timing is being allowed to talk. DQ responds “I do not remember, Sancho, any such provision, and since that is so, I want you to b quiet.� Is that Cervantes justifying his mistakes (the stolen donkey and such) by saying if he forgets a detail he should not be held to it? Of course, I’m increasingly convinced that Cervantes is trying to do away with the concept of author in part II.
“I really liked page 584, when DQ accuses Sancho of expounding too much, and Sancho says that DQ ought to remember that one of the conditions of his squiring this timing is being allowed to talk.�
The whole Sancho/DQ relationship is making a sea change in Part II as far as I can tell, and I think I just spotted a tsunami: p.611-612 (Grossman), where Sancho recognizes “beyond the shadow of a doubt that his master was out of his mind and completely mad.� He celebrates by getting sassier than ever. Curious to see how this unfolds. Came for the insula, stayed for the eloquence? Is Sancho sort of *becoming* the Don, more interested in words than what we mere mortals call “reality�?
“You reader, since you are a discerning person, must judge it according to your own lights, for I must not and I cannot do more.� (614)
I hereby drop out of the March. Y’all have an excellent, weary time, and I will observe the rest from the cheap seats.
Rest. Yeah, that’s the word. Rest.
Jinkies! The Raptor rests! Unexpected and dramatic. I thought it was The Gumball Rally, but suddenly it’s more like Murder by Death. Or mebbe Murder by Deathmarch.
Who…will…survive?
-Cecil
How timely, with Father’s Day upon us, that we’ve come to chapters 26-28 where a lot of attention is given to the father & son relationship of Don Diego & Don Lorenzo. When DQ asks how many children Diego has (p. 555), the father’s reply summarizes the heavy burden carried by an only child: “I…have a son, and if I didn’t have him, perhaps I would consider myself more fortunate than I do, and not because he’s bad, but because he isn’t as good as I would like him to be.”
He goes on to explain why, concluding “his thoughts are now turned entirely to writing a gloss on four lines…for a literary competition.” Hmm…. I guess if Diego were speaking today it might read “for his blog.” Hmm….
Hmmm. What with the decline in deathmarch members as well as my own inability to pick up the book in about 8 days, might I humbly propose…a week catchup/sabbatical? Give people a chance to regroup and possibly jump back aboard? Or is it full speed ahead? I can live if Senior Management says no. But that is my humble proposal
The sabbatical has backfired on us the last few times — seems like most of us end up just getting farther behind. I’m gonna say…let’s charge on. We’re so close now. So close!
I’m still behind my own self, but also still really enjoying Part II…..
-Cecil
The second part continues to seem a big change from the first part – more fun to read with quirky self references to authors, narrators, translators, and mistakes in the first part.
And I dont know, but at times, DQ seems to be making more sense now, acting courageously and seeing things as they are, though I think this may change as we plough on. But if DQ seemed more bungling and crazy in part I, its these antics that somehow allow DQ’s reputation to precede him in Part II, as he meets people who have heard of him and think him a brave and noble knight. Something seems to have gotten lost, or added, in translation from his deeds in the first part to his reputation in the second.
And Sancho continues to call it like he sees it, “Youre worth what you have, and what you have is what youre worth. There are only 2 lineages in the world … the haves and the have nots… wealth is better than wisdom.”
This week was chock full of nourishing nuggets of wisdom and heartfelt passages. My favorite part – the last stanza of Don Lorenzo’s poem:
I live a life of perplexity,
torn between hoping and fear:
this is a death in life for me;
much better to end my sorrow
and die the death of the tomb.
And though my wish to end
my life, my reason tells me no,
and hands me back my gloomy life
in terror of that after time
when later is now and here.
Whoa! Gorgeous. Also – keeping in mind what Don Diego says about Don Lorenzo (see the Old Man’s comment above) makes (for me) these lines even more moving. And then Cervantes adds some bittersweet humor a few lines after the poem – a kind of writer’s inside joke about Don Lorenzo feeling happy that Don Quixote loved his poem despite the fact that DQ is mad: “Flattery, how powerful you are, how far you extend, how widespread the boundaries of your pleasant domain!”
I’d also like to throw another suggestion into the ring for a future deathmarch – and think about it a wee bit before you say yes or no: Joyce’s Ulysses. It’s an ambitious choice I know. But, Bloomsday (June 16) just passed and The New Yorker has a peice about the Shloss v. Joyce case which is fascinating (I just finished reading the complaint for work). It would add an exciting new dimension to deathmarching: wondering whether Stephen Joyce might try to shut us down. . .
I loved the puppet show bit. (Presumably Spinal Tap is up next? Somehow they would fit right in.) Seems like the whole book’s there in a nutshell:
“…it seemed to me that everything that happened here was actually happening, that Melisendra was Melisendra, Don Gaiferos Don Gaiferos, Marsilio Marsiolio, and Charlemagne Charlemagne; for that reason I was overcome by rage, and to fulfill the obligations of the knight errantry I profess, I wanted to give my help and favor to those who were fleeing, and to this worthy end I did what you have seen; if matters have turned out otherwise, the fault is not mine by lies with the wicked creatures who pursue me.”
Also, I’d like to note that in the Cohen translation, not only is Master Pedro “Master Peter,” but his monkey is an ape–the latter being no small distinction, as some of us are aware. Anybody who has any other translation, I’d be curious to hear what it says in your book.
I haven’t read the book, have been enjoying the deathmarch vicariously, holding out tiny metaphorical cups of water for the marchers as they pass, but I confess this thread is the first I’ve heard of a character in the story named Señor Management.
I must say, I’m sad when we lose someone on the march. Although I’m perpetually 50 pages behind, and thus have to read all the threads at least twice, once when they are a bit ahead of me and don’t totally connect, and again when I’ve read that far and appreciate them more, I am so enjoying the actual act of reading the words on the page. Always a delight and a surprise around the corner. For those even behinder than me, how could you give up before you get to: “What greater madness could there be than putting on a helmet full of curds and believieng that enchanters had softened one’s head? And what greater temerity and foolishness than to attempt to do battle with lions?” Or “Finally, the licentiate’s lunges accounted for all the buttons on the short cassock the bachelor was wearing and slashed its skirts into the arms of an octopus….”
Marchers: Now even COMPUTILO IS BEHIND! I’ve been on top of the readings every week, but the power of suggestion and all the whiny butts complaining about how far behind they are have made me lax in my obligations to my fellow marchers. (However, Cecil’s explanation of vile enchanters does have some appeal. Hmmm.) I have made it through the blood-tube scene and Sancho slopping up the saucy chickens. I promise to stay on task through the next week so that I can provide lucid observations henceforth. And Stella–I’ve been with you on the Ulysses suggestion especially since nobody really cared for my Proust option. What, are we crazy? We haven’t made it to the end of DQ yet!
I’ve lagged behind a sad 110 pages now, but will now adjust my helm, steady my lance, and get back on the ol’ donkey here and make an attempt to catch up since Senor Management won’t stop to let me rest. Wotta slavedriver!