The Wannaskan Almanac Book Club is about to start on a new book. Exactly two years ago the Club embarked on an 18 month Odyssey through James Joyce's Ulysses. It's a difficult book, a crazy book, but through mutual support, the members got Joyce's number and actually enjoyed parts of the book. Now we are starting on another classic: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, which was first published on this day in 1605.
Don Quixote is a very long book, but where Ulysses was a puzzler, Don Quixote is a straightforward yarn about a guy who goes crazy from reading too many books. Let that be a warning to all book lovers. The good thing about a club is that the members can keep an eye on each other and intervene if one starts going off the deep end.
Don Quixote definitely goes off the deep end. Quixote is a member of the minor Spanish nobility. He has a tiny estate which gives him just enough of an income so he can spend all his time reading. He reads exclusively books of chivalry.
Knights used to fight for local kings, but by Don Quixote's time, the practice had died out. People loved reading about knights the way we watch shows about the old West. The books Don Quixote was reading presented an idealized version of chivalry, in which a knight would pledge himself to a Lady. This Lady might treat him coldly, so the knight would wander around the countryside doing noble deeds in hopes of impressing his designated Lady.
Don Quixote reads his books of chivalry all night which causes his brain to dry up. He goes crazy and decides to head off into the countryside to do great deeds for his Lady. Being crazy, he gets everything wrong. As his Lady, he chooses a peasant farm girl, sight unseen. He restores an old set of armor and renames his broken down horse Rocinante.
If he come across an inn, he sees it as a castle. The prostitutes at the inn, he sees as ladies in waiting to the resident princess. He tries very aggressively to rescue people who don't want rescuing. He has a lance which scares people, so he's constantly getting himself beaten up.
After his initial debacle, he returns home to recover. His friends burn his books of chivalry, but it's too late. When Quixote looks for his books, his friends tell him a wizard has stolen them. Quixote blames all his setbacks on wizards and enchantment.
The next time Quixote sets off, he takes a peasant named Sancho Panza as his squire. Sancho is not insane, but Quixote enchants him by promising to make Sancho governor of an island once Quixote becomes famous. Not far down the road, the famous tilting at windmills scene occurs. Quixote sees the windmills as evil giants. When he attacks one, his lance gets caught in the sail of the windmill and both Quixote and Rocinante take a drubbing.
I'm not sure why Don Quixote is considered one of the greatest books ever written. Does Cervantes deserve to be ranked with Homer and Joyce? The members of the Almanac Book Club will find out in the coming year.
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| Sancho and Don Quixote, on the road to adventure |
Northland Community & Technical College Thief River Falls, MN put on the play, "Man of La Mancha," in the early 1980s. In 2008, 30-some years later, I married Jackie Helms, who was "The Housekeeper," in the play, a singing role, whose superb voice I heard one evening, during play practice, when I was far down the hall in an adjoining art studio.
ReplyDeleteAsking the instructor who was about to go out the door, "WHO'S THAT?" he looked at me with some real surprise and said, "Why that's Jackie Helms, don't you know?" His confused expression was because she and I had been noticeably friendly in his class the weeks prior, and he thought I was joking. Everybody at the college -- and likely the town of Thief River at the time, knew she was a professional singer. But not me. Not me.
Don Quixote: Man of La Mancha
Wind up a Whirl Tilt a Mill Mill Wind (phew!) Whirly Tilts (remove the "L" and you have a whole new Windmill Senor Q! Dulcinea anyone?
ReplyDeleteIf Senor Q's brain dried up from reading too much chivalry, what would happen if one read too much of the "Roseau Times Region" stories? Paranoid Personality Disorder? Or just a Nyquil habit?