And hey Presto: Week 6!, which recounts the pleasing commentary laced upon these light beams by varied marchers and the squires of same.
Nearly 300 pages in now. Lots and lots and lots to go, and yet…we’re too far from shore to easily swim back. I’ll confess to finding “the two friends” a tad tedious. They sorta deserve each other, at least in terms of their tediousness. And then, wouldn’t ya know it, the week ends just as the madcap misadventures of the man who was recklessly curious finally start get interesting. Ah well. Reason enough to chug on…..
Next Wednesday: A few marchers errant have fallen a tad behind, so what say we go for a slightly smaller than usual leap and meet up again at the end of of Chapter XXXVI, “where all the misfortunes on earth reach their conclusion and end.” I like the sound of that….
I find myself focusing somewhat on the priest denunciation of chivalric fiction around page 270. “…it is all fiction made by idle minds, composed to create the effect you mentioned, to while away the time, just as harvesters amuse themselves…”
Is Cervantes satirizing the priest for denouncing fiction, himself for writing it, or the reader for enjoying it?
For some odd reason that reminds me of Frank Zappa’s immortal quote about rock journalism:
“Rock journalism is written by people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”
Is there a Quixote Curse? Liz Taylor’s husband Mike Todd “was preparing a lavish film version of Don Quixote at the time of his death,” according to IMDB. Todd died in a plane crash in 1958.
re the curse, I don’t know, but I do know that last week, I sort of dinged up the little toe on my left foot. I mean, nothing serious. But still: you draw your own conclusions.
-Cecil
Computilo’s question and Cecil’s answer last week addressed my own confusion as well regarding where to post comments about each week’s marching orders. Week 5 assigned reading up to the end of Chapter XXXIII (p. 288). So I posted comments on things up to p. 288 under week 5. Apparently I should have posted comments on things up to Chapter XXVII (p. 226) under week 5, and up to p. 288 under this week, week 6.
With each week’s marching orders, might Cecil add something like “Please post comments here through Chapter______or page_____” to help us keep straight what to post where?
Mr. Magoo’s comment on the “un PC parts” in DQ, including “old” vs. “new” Christians deserves some explication. You may recall something called The Inquisition took place in Spain in the centuries preceding Cervantes time. During the Inquisition, it became extremely un PC not to be a baptised Catholic in Spain. Failure to be Catholic could result in torture, death, or expulsion from the country. So many Jews and other religious minorities opted to accept baptism and became “new” Christians. But they were viewed with suspicion by “old” Christians, that is those whose Catholicism could be traced back through anscestors prior to the Inquisition. So it was considered a mark of virtue to call oneself an “old Christian” in Cervantes’ Spain.
Hi TOMiKS,
I can add a “this week” note to help clear that up a bit. Truth is, though, people understandably like to post about what they read that day, so we’ve grayed the line a little.
It’s really just about being how vague or specific you want to be in your posts. You can post on everything up to any week’s target (chapter 33 in this case) in as much detail as ya like, figuring people have read that far. If you want to post about the upcoming target in the course of the week, (chapters 34-36), you can do that too — you just want to be a little more vague so you don’t accidentally spoil anything for people who aren’t quite there yet.
In practice, people tend to talk about the previous week’s reading in the first few days after a new thread goes up. And the current reading in the last few days…..
Hope that helps,
-Cecil
Curses and puzzlement:
Curses: Glad to hear that the curses seem to be minor these days with DQ. I dropped a curtain rod on a newly crowned front tooth yesterday. (Yes, it was a freak accident involving poor balance on a stepstool.) I’m throbbing a bit, but perhaps it will be like Cecil’s stubbed toe and go away soon.
Puzzlement: What with all these people meeting up at inns, forest glades, dipping alabaster toes into clear streams, and DQ hanging his armor on tress as if they were closets, doesn’t the landscape and countryside seem kinda small in acreage? I know Sancho is always moaning and groaning about walking vs. riding, but I’m starting to get a bit claustrophobic about the closeness of the landscape. Is it just me?
Finally, I was very glad that when Dorotea and her new band of brothers finally found DQ, he was no longer “naked except for his shirt.” Not sure I could have taken that image again.
hey cecil–in the real world, i’m on the road, borrowing someone else’s technology to make the obligatory post. in the deathmarch world, i’ve fallen into a ditch and you all are too far ahead to hear my curses.
I couldn’t help but be reminded of DQ while watching “The Sopranos” last night. (Warning: spoiler ahead.) Tony’s son AJ unilaterally decides to take revenge on Tony’s uncle who shot him, even though the uncle is senile. Because he’s not much of a gangster, AJ blows it and gets arrested. When Tony comes to get him and lectures him about what a stupid move that was, AJ tearfully says that he was imitating the scene in “The Godfather” where Michael Corleone takes revenge on the men who tried to kill his father–a scene Tony had always said was his favorite. Tony gets a very solemn look and says, “But that’s just a movie.”
And “The Sopranos” is just a TV show, of course. But with so many levels of fiction going on, it’s easy to lose track of reality. Whatever that is.
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
–Stephen Colbert
Perhaps the time has come to outlaw reality once and for all? Speaking of which–and totally off-topic–I saw a preview for “A Scanner Darkly” the other night, and I can’t decide whether to be for it or agin it.
Curses and Puzzlement II: Electric Boogaloo
Puzzlement: I havent been following exactly the clarifying comments about which week’s reading we are supposed to post comments.
Curses: I just figured out (I think), Ive been posting a week ahead (on the current week’s assignment).
On Curses, con’t:
Here’s one: On the way to Cody’s to purchase ye Ingenious Gentleman, I put my foot in a trolly track and sprained my ankle! I was on crutches for a week, which caused me such bad muscle spasms I had to take drugs and stay in bed for three days – not my idea of a vacation. And I am still not up to date in the reading!
On another track, I enormously enjoy reading everyone’s posts. This is an erudite and insightful group. Not to mention slightly absurd, which is always an asset.
Yowsa. That was one long interlude there this week. Not sure what to make of it. Or why he felt it necessary to do that, if for other reasons than pure storytelling.
I did enjoy it (“recklessly curious” is a great phrase, and I was thinking, while reading, that someone could just make a play of that story alone), but was happy when Sancho, Don and company finally returned.
Bill: Excellent Sopranos analogy. Was definitely thinking the same thing. In fact, I was wondering what *real* mobsters were thinking of that scene while watching Sopranos at home that night. Did they agree with Tony? Or did they say, “Bah, it’s just a TV show!”
Oh my god my magnet!
Thanks to the old man in Kansas for the explication of old and new Christians. It’s easier to see how modern and accessible DQ is when I think about it in the context of people still under the influence of the Inquisition.
No RaptorMages have been injured in the reading of this DeathMarch.
Yet.
Of the naming of things there is no end; there are some marvelous names, even if Cervantes can’t keep them straight (Perseus for Theseus indeed). But the worst is completely unintentional: I cannot read Senor Licentiate without hearing ‘licentious’.
I wouldn’t be bothered by the poor continuity *if the damn footnotes wouldn’t keep pointing it out to me!* I actually don’t want to know that Dapple miraculously returned or that the sword shouldn’t have showed up again; I just want the props at hand, whatever they are, to be put to good and valiant use.
My Rocinante needs some spurring, but I’m sure she’ll spurt ahead and be up to saying something DQ-related next week.
re: the Inquisition, did I read somewhere that it came into existence *after* the forced conversions of Muslims and Jews, as a way of rooting out new Christians who were suspected of practising their old religions on the sly (as many of them surely were–wouldn’t you)? Casting back to the “what’s modern about DQ” question, I think I’ve seen the Inquisition cited somewhere as a pivotal “modern” moment, paving the way for those ideological “are you or have you ever been”-type witch hunts that have played such a large part in our history ever since.
Squire, my wineskin! On to XXVI!
Z
O.K., read a little further now, and had a wacky thought. The Inquisition, and the anxiety behind it–are you really what you say you are?–finds an odd parallel in this snarl of disguises in the Cardenio/Doroteo/Luscinda episode. I’ve counted five different disguises so far:
1) the priest as a woman;
2) Dorotea as a man;
3) Dorotea as the queen of Micomicon;
4) the barber as her squire;
5) Cardenio as the priest’s servant
What’s up with Cervantes’s fascination with that theme? It all seems tangled up somehow with Dorotea and Cardenio’s sad history with Don Fernando, the man in the worst disguise of all–disguised by his rank and wealth as a noble man, when really he’s a heartless playa. Add to this DQ “disguised” as a knight, and Cervantes disguised as the Moorish historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli and … my head’s starting to hurt. Signing off till Cecil’s next post.
Well, since I’m well out of contention, and probably only Cecil is reading this, I guess it doesn’t matter. I did crack a tooth at the very beginning of this book. I never connected it to this however, as I was trying to dislodge a gourd drum I was making from a wire brush. Who thought the curse would stem from hawaiian musical instruments.
One film I’m trying to locate which was successfully done was Monsignor Quixote with Alec Guinness and Leo McKern. I saw it once years ago, and if I can find a place that rents it, I’ll mention it again.
Hey Cap’n,
Actually, I think there are still around 15-16 people on the march, we’re just in hiding this week. Great to hear from you. And hey, if you were to join back in at this point and comment from here on out, you with your OG (Original GRDM) pedigree and all, do you really think I could find it in my heart to deny you a mugnet?
-Cecil