Week 7, in which our weary band of ‘marchers may or may not end up attacking some skins of red wine, and other diverting adventures. I just finished the week’s reading, with about an hour+ to spare (west coast time). And I will admit to much relief that this whole Don Fernando, Luscinda, Camila, Anselmo mishigas appears to have come to some sort of swirling resolution. Or at least a stable moment. And yes, as promised, we’ve found that place where all the misfortunes on earth reach their conclusion and we’ve got to love ourselves for that. Still, here’s hoping the next section brings back the dwarves.
Next Wednesday: now that we’ve had a moment to catch our breath, let’s pick the pace back up and aim for the end of Chapter XLII, where if you press your ear against the book, you may just hear that “the boy was singing.”
So it’s been bugging me why Cervantes inserted this novel within a novel about the curious husband.
Then my mind goes back to the discussion at the beginning of our march about what it might mean to say that this book is the first modern novel. And looking at the pattern of modern novels I realize that this part of DQ supplies the obligatory sex scenes. It’s easy to miss this, since in our day such scenes are provided with anatomical detail. But in those days, with the church censor having power to prevent publication in Spain, this part is about as spicy & titillating as a writer could get away with.
Where is everyone? Isn’t everyone perplexed by the Moorish Rumpelstilskin-like activity with damsels floating reeds out of windows with huge amounts of gold in little packets? And people picking salads in courtyards? What kind of dressing do they use? Ranch? Honey Mustard? House Special? This part is crazy! (I am, however, enjoying the sonnets.) I just want DQ to get on with the DQ action.
Speaking for myself, I misplaced my book this week, so I have to either find it tomorrow or buy a new one.
I suspect everyone else is over at the patrick swayze north and south page — they never listen to me!
-Cecil
I’m actually somewhat ahead, and with the placeholder kind of lost my place as to where the group is. In order to avoid spoiling anything, I’m trying not to say anything until there are enough comments to remember where the group is.
Well, I’m at the point where DQ met Cardenio, and is now going to bang his head on the rocks to show his love for Dulcinea. I can’t say I’m delighted to hear that there’s a totally unrelated novel ahead of me.
I can certainly see how Shakespeare could make a play out of Cardenio. It sounds right up his alley. I wonder if WS made it through the whole book. maybe he & Burbage & a few others had their own death march.
I tried to find an audio version of this book to see if I can get in some of the words while I’m working, and came across Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene. I’m already into the first chapter and find it delightful.
I’m still plodding through DQ, but I’ll try to send reports on MQ as I get through it.
The annual E3 convention made me put away the hifalutin’ old Spanish lit and pick up a thriller, albeit one featuring Ernest Hemingway as the main character, in a (fact based!) attempt to organize an amateur spy ring out of Cuba during WW2. Yay!
But now it’s back to DQ…and those freakin’ interpolated novels. Grrrrr.
i’m here too….nothing to say, though.
My DQ progress has been slowed considerably by a combination of lame computer books and the NBA playoffs. Big minutes last night from Donyell Marshall, the Cavalier of the Sorrowful Face.
There’s a saying in Texas that “there’s more men that need killin’ than horses that need stealin’.” I think, with all the brutality we had early on, that we’re actually going through a shortage. Me, I woulda killed Gines de Pasamonte, Anselmo, and Don Fernando at a minimum, with serious thought given to the peasant who whipped Andres.
Then again, there’s a shortage of sex as well. Oh, yeah, we had a maid changing clothes out in the wilderness, but even that happened off camera. The only person stripped so far is Andres to the waist.
More sex! More killing! Somebody rifle Zoraida and kill the captain, for crying out loud!
I’m thinking that now that I’m consistently fifty or so pages behind every week it’s the perfect time to consult every Deathmarcher’s best pal. . .Mr. Nabokov. I’m pretty sure he wrote criticism on DQ and perhaps even lectured on the book. I’m thinking Nabokov on Cervantes might be just the ticket to get me onto the express train.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Im still on pace and whats keeping me going is that the world of DQ is apparently filled with totally hot personages. And it does resonate with me and my life experience, as when I have the good fortune to cast eyes (and aspersions?) on Cecil, and I think his hotness is so profound and marvelous, that were it not for my also knowing the hotness of So Called Bill and Jeff, that I would think Cecil’s hotness unrivaled and would be tempted to declare before God and all that is holy that he must be the hottest creature ever to grace the isle of ‘Meda.1.
Notes:
1. This is an apparent reference to the island of Alameda, about which no interesting facts are known.
I can see we are almost all into commenting on anything besides the book, and I can see why; I’m grateful for the Deathmarch for motivating me to slog on. I did enjoy DQ’s dinnertime discourse on arms vs. letters in chapter XXXVIII. The life of the scholar and of the soldier sound equally distasteful; so far, I think the damsel in distress career is the way to go, especially if you are extremely beautiful.
Two thoughts this week driving me toward the mug:
1) I can’t keep any of the characters’ names straight, and I’m starting to think that’s purposeful. This last spate of interpolated stories are so similar to one another that you start to see the DNA of the meta-story in general while losing sight of the specific details of any single one. I’m coming to see this as part of Cervantes’s pessimism about literature as a whole, which almost matches his pessimism about a world without the imaginative escape literature offers.
2) This being so much a story about stories–what they’re good for, how to tell them, how pernicious they can be–that I can’t help chalking up any boredom or resistance I’m feeling to the growing pains of learning to read how Cervantes wants me to read. The model here seems less the contemporary novel’s steady slice forward through time, and more the Bach fugue–stories evoking past stories in slightly different keys, and setting you up for what comes in the future.
BTW, what’s Cervantes’ hangup with virginity? It’s so over-the-top I’m tempted to think he’s mocking that staple of patriarchal authority altogether.
Is it too late for me to change my comment to something about “the Renegade with Scabies”? Cause I think I could really run with that one.
Before we get on to Week 8, I just want to know whether Raptor Mage has skipped over all the naked Don Quixote parts. And I do mean parts, since it seems as if even Sancho can’t bear to see DQ’s parts hanging out all over the place. And if you want Sex, take a good long gander at Rocinante. He may seem wooden, but bring a cute mare into the picture and he perks right up.
Cecil: Did you find it?!
Kim: I did! I’m a wee bit behind still, but I think I’m gonna go ahead and post anyways so we can get the next thread a goin’…..
-Cecil