Quote:
Originally Posted by Dondilion
My character in the novel is Sancho Panza who tries to keep his master 'grounded'.
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I just finished it...the sort of book where you wish it would not end. The Knight Of The Sorrowful Face and Sancho seem so real.
It is not really a spoof of 15th Century romances about knights but rather a more subtle, existential view of reality itself. To me it is more about a 50 year old man who wants to simply exist, and if he calls himself a knight and goes on "adventures" (whether or not he believes he is a knight or just putting us on) what matters is that he doing something. Sancho knows this too, but he still loves Don Quixote anyway and will follow him to the end of time.
There is famous scene in American literature when Mark Twain has Huck decide he must rescue his friend Jim, even if it means that by breaking the law he will go to hell. Huck does the right thing eternal damnation notwithstanding, and to me this is the creation of the modern American anti-hero and to some extent American literature itself. I think Cervantes was saying the same in his novel, but in Catholic Spain at the time he could not directly come out and say this.
There are some digs at the Church. Quitoxe's friend the Priest (a major character in book one) has most of DQ's library of not so kosher knight adventure novels burnt in his yard, only saving the well written ones....odd that the curate is such an expert on all of these "dangerous" books. Later on DQ sees a priest on horseback and attacks him with is weapons, causing said priest's horse to fall on the friar and breaking his leg. To Don Quixote it was not a priest but in his mind a dangerous brigand or kidnapper...but maybe Quixote knows all along it is a priest. DQ gets excommunicated attacking a priest lol.
I think Cervantes was saying that if you can believe Jesus is the Son of God, then why can't Don Quixote believe those windmills are actually giants? In other words are we as crazy as DQ by having faith in religion as he is by believing in knights errant?
In popular culture before I read it the term Quixotic had a sort of dreamy and optimistic connotation, as in someone trying to perform an admirable but impossible task. Read the book and the whole thing is totally the opposite...a "madman" who acts without thinking about the consequences.