Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Discussion - Don Quixote
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Week 1 - Prologue through Chapter 17
I started my reading in the Raffel edition, which has almost no notes, and was wondering as I read whether the books the priest and barber were going through were actual books or whether Cervantes had made them up. But I just got the Grossman translation from the library, which has much more extensive notes, and while I haven't checked every one, it appears that most if not all of them were indeed actual published works. Which in a way, for me, makes the whole concept of a person's mind being overwhelmed by these books more reasonable.
So far it seems to be a book about books, doesn't it?I love the way DQ and Sancho play off each other.
Why would one translation include sonnets and others not? I looked up Ormsby's translation, online, (http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/old/cervante...)
and it includes the sonnets although the Grossman translation differs greatly from the Ormsby.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ormsby
It amazes me that there can be so many varied translations. Are some translators simply following the advice of Clifton Fadiman, the man you mentioned on another thread, and ignoring the verses?
Patrice wrote: "I thought that the burning of the books was a metaphor for the inquisition. Didn't someone once say that people who burn books will one day burn people?Yes, indeed. I believe it was Heine (Hendrick my mind wants to say, but I'm not sure that's right) more than 100 years before the Nazi burnings and before Farenheit 451.
According to one site, he was actually excommunicated by the Spanish Inquisition. So he presumably was fairly careful not to incur any further attention from them.
I also loved the way the priest, though highly critical of the books, was very, very familiar with them."
Yes, wasn't that delicious? And his thinking some were worth saving from the flames And the barber! Why a barber? We don't think today of barbers being particularly literate or educated people, but wasn't it the case then that barbers were also the surgeons and perhaps therefore more literate than the average person of the time? I did (and do) wonder whether there is anything special about a barber being the other book evaluator. Anybody have any insights here?
Patrice wrote: "Cervantes father was a barber/surgeon and I think that was a Jewish profession."Ah, interesting. Homage to his father, perhaps, then, presenting him as equal in learning and knowledge to the priest?
Patrice wrote: "Another interesting comment from the inquisition (you can tell I love this chapter) is his comment that a certain book should be spared because it is great "in and of itself" but also because it wa..."Was Cervantes a Morisco or a Marrano? Is there any hard evidence about him being one of those?
I read DQ (translated by Grossman) last year, and one of the most fascinating story in it for me is the account of the Christian captive in part 4 of the first book. I understand that this story is widely considered as semi-autobigraphical, based on his own experience as a captive of the Moors in Algiers. If Cervantes had been a Morisco it would have added an extra layer of personal meaning to that episode.
Patrice wrote: "Did the priest remind anyone of Plato? The ultimate idealist who both adores and bans the poets?"I made a marginal note as I was reading that passage which said "Plato - banish books - role of books in madness." I have been thinking of a more extensive comment on this question which may or may not develop shortly.
Patrice wrote: "In re-reading the inquisition of the books a few ideas came up and I thought I'd throw them out there for reactions..."Wow, lots of great thoughts in there!
Yes, printed books were fairly recent, but also (as we can see from Cervantes's library) already quite available.
But the power of the book goes back long before the printing press; I think the difference is the accessibility of books to the general public (as you point out, particularly the Bible). But Homer was extraordinarily influential in classical Greek culture, even though he was only known through recitation and hand copied copies of his books.
In some ways -- this thought just came to me so it's really unformed -- printing may have both enhanced and diminished the importance of literature in an odd way. Enhanced obviously by making literature available (and giving much more scope for authors -- imagine how many of the books we read today would actually be in our libraries if every copy had to be hand copied. Only the best would make it. And that would be bad because......? [g:])
But diminished because there is much less shared experience. When recitation is the primary way in which literature is known, and when there are many fewer works copied and recopied, those works which do flourish become much better known. Virtually all of Athens (or at least all the male citizens; we aren't so sure about women or slaves) went to the Greek theater, so these works, legends, concepts, etc. were universally known by all the citizens of the city. Imagine if everybody in New York went to the same productions of the same plays year after year, and that's the only drama (plays or movies) they saw all year. Wouldn't there be a much more cohesive sense of shared literary experience? But there are so many theaters in NYC, so many plays and movies shown, that each one individually loses the impact on the society it could have if everybody experienced it together. Or suppose our whole country all read Don Quixote this summer, and that was all we read and had to talk about.
But the printing press has meant that each of us reads very different books, there are very few books that one can count on almost all the population to have read (and less so than fifty years ago when the school curricula were more uniform). No single book can have the impact on our culture that Oedipus Rex could have on Athenian culture. So in that way, the printing press has diminished the literary impact of books.
Sorry for this diversion, but your point made me think about it this way.
A slightly different approach to Patrice's favorite chapter [g:].One underlying assumption behind DQ is that books have great power to define how we perceive ourselves and life (and our relationship to life). Plato, as Patrice also noted, also held this view. And the view is still current. Many feminist critics argue that a fetish for pornography is not just a private matter but can cause serious antisocial behaviors, and there are a number of people who try to ban certain books from our schools on the grounds that they will damage children or cause them to have bad thoughts and behaviors.
Cervantes and Plato were both concerned with the negative aspects of literature. But many of us who read the classics hold the same view in the opposite direction -- that reading certain books can make one a better person. (You do believe this in your heart of hearts, don't you?) This is also the underlying principle behind the Harvard Five Foot Shelf of Books and its fifteen minutes a day plan, Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan, the Great Books series, and all those college programs based on reading the great books, including my own college. The theory is that reading and thinking about these books will make us better humans.
Isn't this just the precise flip side of Don Quixote?
thewanderingjew noted in the Oedipus Rex discussion that we are responsible for our own actions, and that we cannot blame fate or others for what we are or do. But isn't DQ somewhat arguing against this principle? Yes, Don Q chose to read all those books. He didn't have to. But once he became addicted to them (I don't think addicted is too strong a term) didn't they cause him to lose his sanity and go out attacking innocent people (and windmills!)? In what sense was he really responsible for his actions, and in what sense were the books really responsible for what he became?
I guess the ultimate questions is this: are Cervantes and Plato right, and do books really have the power to make us into people that we would not, in our rational moments, choose to have become?
Patrice wrote: "I don't think that Cervantes is quite so anti-book! ..."I didn't mean to imply that he was anti-book -- after all, he (like Plato) wrote them, so he must have thought they had some value.
But was he anti-book addiction? Isn't he saying that there are two sides to books, a good side (presumably he thought reading his books was a good thing) and a bad side? That there is such a thing as to much reading, or too much believing what you read?
Faust comes to mind here, doesn't he?
Everyman wrote: "Patrice wrote: "I don't think that Cervantes is quite so anti-book! ..."I didn't mean to imply that he was anti-book -- after all, he (like Plato) wrote them, so he must have thought they had som..."
IMHO, Cervantes seems to say that the danger comes when we abandon our critical faculties in reading. The chivalry books that Quixote read would have been quite harmless had he considered them nothing but mere entertainment. Once he lost sight of their proper place in the scheme of things he becomes certifiably insane.
So, there are bad books, but they are only harmful when they are read without any critical judgment.
There was another interesting remark at the author discussion I attended. She said readers often ask her how she got the idea to write the book and is it based on anyone she knows? She said it was interesting that readers always ask that. They want some kind of facts to base the book on and they forget if it is fiction, it is purely the creation of the author. She said she bases her novels on nothing but her imagination.Often, we study authors who are no longer with us, ascribing rationales to them that may or may not exist.
Sandybanks wrote: "IMHO, Cervantes seems to say that the danger comes when we abandon our critical faculties in reading. The chivalry books that Quixote read would have been quite harmless had he considered them nothing but mere entertainment. Once he lost sight of their proper place in the scheme of things he becomes certifiably insane."That's a good point -- lots of people read the same books without going crazy.
And perhaps he's saying it's not just books. Grisostomo's death also attributable to obsessive madness, in this case caused not by books but by beauty?
And is Marcela's defense of herself and disavowment of any responsibility for his death in some way a stand-in for the books defense of themselves that it's not their fault that DQ went mad over them? Or is that imposing a reading that isn't reasonably there?
thewanderingjew wrote: "There was another interesting remark at the author discussion I attended....She said she bases her novels on nothing but her imagination..."Well, yes, but her imagination is based on her experiences, isn't it? If you have never seen or read about or seen pictures of an iceberg, can you really imagine one just out of thin air? I think imagination has to grow out of experiences, so whether or not one recognizes those experiences and their impact on imagination, aren't they really there?
So we can disagree about whether Cervantes consciously modeled certain aspects of his book on certain experiences, but don't we have to accept that his life and life experiences (including vicarious experiences through reading, looking at pictures, talking with other people, etc.) really the basis for his imagination, and therefore fair game for talking about?
Patrice wrote: "Does everyone agree that he's mad?"In one sense, yes.
But what book or movie was it where the protagonist contended that it was more sane to be in the asylum than out of it? (And of course there's Thoreau's famous quip to Emerson when E asked T why he was in jail for, as I recall, non payment of taxes: The question isn't why I'm in here, the question is why you're out there.
Patrice wrote: "Does everyone agree that he's mad?"And of course there's the matter that real truths in Shakespeare are oftenest told by the Fools, not the purported sages.
Is Don Quixote a Shakespearean Fool? Maybe something to think about as we progress. (Don Quixote and King Lear????)
Patrice wrote: "Funny coincidence. No sooner had I asked about Faust than I went for a drive and put in Volume 3 of The western canon in context. First lesson, Faust! He even mentioned the Poetics. Have you heard that yet eman?"Haven't gotten to that set yet, still finishing up one or two other things, but will.
Meanwhile, for everybody's benefit, what did he say about Faust that might be relevant here?
Eman, is it Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest?
thewanderingjew wrote: "Eman, is it Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest?"
Maybe, but if so I'm not remembering it from the book but from comments about the book, since I've never read it. (It's too modern for me!)
In the Grossman translation, on p. 36, the servant is supposed to be entitled to 7 reales per month for 9 months. The calculation is incorrect. It is 73 instead of 63. There is a footnote that speculates it is a deliberate mistake because of Cervante's several imprisonments for faulty accounts.Couldn't it just have been an error which was perpetuated once made, in all subsequent copies of the book? Correcting the error in those days would not have been as easy as it is today.
Also, when DQ insists that this same servant return with the farmer to collect his wages, he is then severely beaten by him.
I was reminded of a much more extreme error in judgment. One of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims had escaped. He was discovered wandering, naked and confused, by two women who called the police. The rescue was foiled when the police returned him to Jeffrey Dahmer because they believed Dahmer's story that he was his lover and they had argued. He was later murdered.
DQ thought he was performing a righteous act. I imagine the policeman thought they were doing the right thing as well yet one was considered delusional and the other considered perfectly sane.
Both came to false conclusions via different paths with unintended consequences.
In Grossman's translation, she goes from chapter 5 to chapter 6, mid sentence. I have never seen that done before. Is it in any other translation? I checked Ormsby and it is not.My other computer just up and quit in mid sentence, it went into hibernation and won't wake up. Perhaps it is going mad! So,...since this computer is old and ornery, if I am not around for awhile, be patient, i am in repair!
Everyman wrote:thewanderingjew noted in the Oedipus Rex discussion that we are responsible for our own actions, and that we cannot blame fate or others for what we are or do. But isn't DQ somewhat arguing against this principle? Yes, Don Q chose to read all those books. He didn't have to. But once he became addicted to them (I don't think addicted is too strong a term) didn't they cause him to lose his sanity and go out attacking innocent people (and windmills!)? In what sense was he really responsible for his actions, and in what sense were the books really responsible for what he became?
I guess the ultimate questions is this: are Cervantes and Plato right, and do books really have the power to make us into people that we would not, in our rational moments, choose to have become?
Everyman, I find it hard to blame the books for DQ's madness. Perhaps his obsession with the books began because he was already going mad and the obsession was only one symptom or one result of his decline.
If he was going mad before he read them, then they only accompanied him down the path of madness.
OTH, there have been occasions when a crime committed has been blamed on video games, movies and other external sources. I just believe that the seed to the aberrant behavior is there first and perhaps, secondarily, it is nurtured by the external stimulous. Without that seed, I think the books would have had no effect on DQ other than entertainment or intellectual stimulation etc.
thewanderingjew wrote: "In Grossman's translation, she goes from chapter 5 to chapter 6, mid sentence. I have never seen that done before. Is it in any other translation? I checked Ormsby and it is not.My other computer ..."
The footnote to the first sentence of chapter 6 in my Easton Press edition of Ormsby says this: "In the original the passage runs, 'Who was even still sleeping. He asked the niece for the keys,' &c. It is a minor instance of Cervantes' disregard of the ordinary laws of composition, and also a proof that at this stage of the work he had not originally contemplated a division into chapters."
My take on Chapter VI: the priest is not an inquisitor or a censor necessarily (though the niece and the housekeeper may be.) The priest is a literary critic, and as such, a buffoon. He even offers a short, lukewarm review of Cervantes' previous book, La Galatea. I wonder if Cervantes isn't putting a sock in the critic's mouth as a precautionary measure.
That's fascinating, Patrice. I'll check out your entry in the reference section. From the little that I know about this period in Spanish history, Marranos were under active surveillance by the Inquisition and many were punished/ killed for clinging to their old beliefs. If Cervantes was a Marrano and put all sorts of double entendres connected to Judaism in DQ, he must have been playing with fire!
Patrice wrote: " About the books causing "madness", perhaps just the act of reading removed him from real life? He was not a practical man to begin with or he would have spent his time doing more practical things. Just a thought..."I like this thought. I think the danger of the chivalric books in DQ and even modern entertainment media is that they create a fantasy world. It's why they're entertaining we can escape for a little while into someone else's world and forget our own problems exist. This in and of itself isn't a problem but in the case of DQ he takes up permanent residence in the fantasy world and leaves reality behind. Some of my favorite parts of the book are the passages where he explains his fantasies to Sancho who sees only sheep or windmills. There is a strange logic to his madness that i find intriguing.
Patrice wrote: "Does everyone agree that he's mad?"If you take him to see a psychologist, I think that he would be most likely to be certified as insane, or at least delusional or megalomaniacal. He does see things that do not exist in reality. However, we must also remember that Q lived in 16th century Spain, where innocent people could be tortured and killed by the Inquisition for the flimsiest reason, where inhumane punishments were meted out for trivial transgressions, and where many lives were routinely lost in religious pogroms. When Q liberates a gang of prisoners in his guise as the champion of truth and justice, who is to say that he acts like a madman ?
In his 'madness' Q sometimes acts like the child who shouted the truth about the emperor's new clothes.
Patrice wrote: "Thomas, I think that is a great observation! Cervantes does seem to be mocking the priest and I think yours is a great explanation that I'd missed. "Thanks for that interesting information. There are so many things to discover in DQ.
Patrice wrote: "Message l3Sandybanks, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that Cervantes was a "new christian" ie a Jew who was forced to convert. I posted some of the evidence in the reference section. ..."
Thanks for that interesting information. There are so many discoveries to be made from this book.
Patrice wrote: "Sandybanks, your post just reminded me of a recently published book about a man who decided to live according to the bible. Literally. Most people adhere to some form of religious code but if we ..."I haven't gotten to read that book, Patrice, though it sounds interesting. Yes, would someone like him, had he done it because of a sincerely held conviction, be called "mad"?
It's interesting to learn that Spain had been in a long, slow decline by the time Cervantes wrote DQ. It was a super power country until their armada was destroyed, and now it was reduced into just another European power among many.
I imagine that Cervantes, who had been a prisoner/ slave/ hostage on various different times in his life, would strongly identify with some of Q's knightly feats, particularly with him setting free the prisoners.
Patrice, I have been looking for your post about Cervantes being a converso in the reference thread, but couldn't find it. Where is it? I'm curious to learn more about it.
In other words : his imagination allows him to perceive an alternative 'reality', which is different than what other people experience. I can think of two other books with revolves around the same theme --- the power of an overactive imagination --- Northanger Abbey by Austen and Atonement by Ian McEwan. The protagonists in those books don't go mad, but yes, they do see things differently than other people.I'll try to do a google search on Cervantes the converso later.
How about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell for books with alternate realities and madness?
Patrice wrote: "Sandybanks, your post just reminded me of a recently published book about a man who decided to live according to the bible. Literally. This book is The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, in case anyone is interested.
Thomas wrote: "My take on Chapter VI: the priest is not an inquisitor or a censor necessarily (though the niece and the housekeeper may be.) The priest is a literary critic, and as such, a buffoon. He even offers..."Great point, Thomas.
Patrice wrote: "Thomas, I'm wondering if there really is any difference between the priest as literary critic and the priest as inquisitor. An inquisitor judges whether or not a person has value based on his id..."In a sense what the priest is doing isn't much different from what we do on Goodreads when we gush about a book and give it 5 stars, or pan it and give it one. It's not as grave as religious persecution, I think.
It occurs to me that in some sense the priest is just as star-struck by literature as Quixote is -- "since Apollo was Apollo, and the muses muses, and poets poets, no book as amusing or nonsensical has ever been written... give it to me." (The footnote points out that Cervantes had actually mocked this book elsewhere.)
And then, because he is tired, he turns over the rest of the collection to the "secular arm" of the housekeeper, who we can presume is illiterate, and who blames the books themselves for Quixote's madness. This is funny stuff.
Patrice wrote: "this is a question about translations. On page 59 of the Grossman translation there is this paragraph. "Be quiet, Sancho my friend," replied Don Quixote. "Matters of war, more than any others,..."
Patrice -- that is in the Spanish. I can't imagine why a translator would leave it out -- it's perfect!
The phrase in question: "cuanto mas, que yo pienso, y es asi verdad..." (sorry about the lack of accents.) Grossman translates it literally, as far as I can tell with my high school Spanish.
thewanderingjew wrote: "In Grossman's translation, she goes from chapter 5 to chapter 6, mid sentence. I have never seen that done before. Is it in any other translation? I checked Ormsby and it is not.My other computer ..."
It is in the original Spanish. I'm beginning to appreciate Grossman's translation more and more!
Laurele wrote: "Thomas wrote: "My take on Chapter VI: the priest is not an inquisitor or a censor necessarily (though the niece and the housekeeper may be.) The priest is a literary critic, and as such, a buffoon...."I almost felt as if the priest was role playing to appease the housekeepers and the niece since he didn't even bother going through all of the books to see whether or not they were worthy of saving. It was such an arbitrary process. He quickly becomes bored so it doesn't feel as if he thought he was doing G-d's work and it feels like a foolish pursuit. (Is this a commentary on the foolishness of the book burning during the inquisition?) The dialogue between the priest and the barber really becomes funny as each finds books to salvage from the collection that they want to destroy. "One mans meat is another man's poison".
Thomas wrote: "'m beginning to appreciate Grossman's translation more and more! "Thanks for that comment, Thomas, from someone who understands the underlying Spanish (I don't). I'm close to scrapping my Raffel and going entirely with Grossman and Putnam.
Everyman wrote: "I'm close to scrapping my Raffel and going entirely with Grossman and Putnam."I knew I was not interested in Raffel's translation when I read this at the Amazon site, from Library Journal:
Raffel has junked the traditional transcription of Cide Hamete, the pseudoauthor, in favor of the less "colonialist" and more authentic Arabic, Sidi Hamid. Proper names that contain puns are explained within square brackets, and footnotes are kept to a minimum. A more vernacular style reigns: The blow on the neck and the stroke on the shoulder that dub Don Quijote a knight are, respectively, a "whack" and a "tap." The women at the inn, usually called "wenches," are "party-girls" or "whores." Sancho dreams that his "old lady" will someday be a queen and that his "kids" will be princes.
Patrice wrote: Mark Twain copied so much of Huck Finn from DQ.Interesting. I keep thinking _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ as I read DQ.
Patrice wrote: "His "song", was it me or was it really bad?"Well, Fadiman did warn you to skip all the poetry!
Patrice wrote: "Since I first read the novel months ago, I've been wondering why the phrase "strong right arm" keeps being repeated. It almost sounds biblical. Maybe it is, I'm not sure. But it just occurred to me that Cervantes had a damaged left arm. Somewhere I read that the damage only strengthened his right arm. The arm with which he writes. Cervantes, I think, is mocking himself and his own futile idealism. But he still, no matter what, has that spark in him and his strong right arm is what he's using to make the world better."
Interesting insight.
A further note on "is he or isn't he" (mad, that is). I took a note when, at the end of the windmill episode, he recognized that they were only windmills after all, though he didn't seem disturbed at all by the mistake. Then at the end of the scene in the inn/castle, he realizes that it is only an inn after all.So he is capable of recognizing reality, which suggests to me that he isn't totally mad. What he is, I'm not sure, but not simply mad. It's more complicated than that.
I'm getting interested in the way Cervantes interplays reality and fantasy. Haven't quite figured out what his "rules" are yet, but it seems clear to me that he's working with that differentiation.
Patrice wrote: "For Thomas, Elky and anyone else who knows Spanish. The name of Marcella's lover, does that mean anything in Spanish? I'd appreciate translations of any other names as well. Thanks."Grisostomo doesn't mean anything as far as I can tell, but some scholars have proposed that it comes from St. John Chrysostom, who was known for his eloquence. (Judging by his verse, Gristomo was named that in jest.)
Everyman wrote: "Patrice wrote: "Since I first read the novel months ago, I've been wondering why the phrase "strong right arm" keeps being repeated. It almost sounds biblical. Maybe it is, I'm not sure. But it jus..."I haven't checked a Spanish Bible, but Here are some of the appropriate verses in the King James:
Ps. 89:13 Thou hast a mighty arm: strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand.
Ps. 98:1 O sing unto the LORD a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.
Isa. 51:5 My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.
God's right arm is a symbol of victory, help, judgment. DQ doubtless saw himself as doing the work of God in all of these acts.
I wonder why the windmill episode has become a lightening rod for DQ for so many people. It was such a small episode. Yet today, there is an ongoing battle over would-be giants, in the form of huge windmills off the coast of Cape Cod, as alternative energy. Maybe the incident was prophetic! Both Ted Kennedy and his nephew Bobby, are adamantly against them and ready to do battle. Environmental groups are unhappy with their opposition.
the title of this news item brings to mind DQ racing toward them to do battle!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_wo...
thewanderingjew wrote: "I wonder why the windmill episode has become a lightening rod for DQ for so many people. It was such a small episode. Yet today, there is an ongoing battle over would-be giants, in the form of hug..."
Amazing! Not selfish, indeed.
This topic is for general discussion of anything in the first seventeen chapters of DQ. Have fun, and have at it!
But -- NO SPOILERS from those who have read past Chapter 17. Thanks!