NP: Don Quixote

[The Great Quail]

Jbor,

> The digressions and tediousness are a deliberate part of the point of
> course,

With due respect, I can't imagine that Cervantes would agree that his book
is deliberately *tedious.* He may have anticipated much of our current
modern literature, but I don't think he had Alain Robbe-Grillet in mind! ;)
In Book II, he references contemporary critics who found Book I somewhat
repetitive and digressive, but I don't think he would have admitted to
actual tedium. 

In my opinion, much of DQ is the same thing over again: the Don appears at
an inn, meets some annoying and shallow people, they tell a story, the Don
does something foolish,  mayhem ensues, everyone makes peace, and the story
is resolved in some utterly improbable way. It was just too little variation
for my taste -- not to mention the fact that Cervantes repeats many of his
points over and over again. I know this may also sound a bit PC of me, but
the book's racism, sexism, and classism got to me, too. Though I recognize
that Cervantes was actually subversive on a few of these points, and that he
didn't have the artistic freedom of, say, Shakespeare; I found the constant
medieval mind-set to be grating.

Now, don't get me wrong, I admire Cervantes' achievement. There are many
great aspects to "Don Quixote," and it would be foolish not to respect them.
However, I found the work something of a slog to get through -- and not
because of the digressions, the metafictional aspects, the in-jokes, and so
on; those are just fine. My argument is not that "Don Quixote" is a bad
book, an unimportant book, or not deserving of its status as a classic. I
just found it tedious and annoying at times.

Davemarc,

> A full decade passed between Book One and Book Two. During that time,
> another writer knocked out a "sequel" to Don Quixote, possibly "inspiring"
> Cervantes to buckle down and complete his own sequel. I got a kick out of
> how Cervantes deals with the "fake book" in Book Two.

While I think it's interesting that Cervantes uses Book II to respond to the
"false" Quixote, after awhile, I felt like he was overdoing that, too --
Cervantes hammers that poor guy over and over again! The Don couldn't meet a
freaking goatherd without hearing how much the  "other book" was a piece of
trash. It seemed a bit in bad taste after awhile; a more witty dismissal
would have been better than a constant barrage of invective.

--Quail