El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha

Bouncing back to book reviews, I will be discussing Don Quixote and how it is the best novel that has ever been written and likely will be the best novel ever written for quite some time (as it takes hundreds of years to earn that kind of reverence anyways). The book, published in 1605, can be read on Project Gutenberg in several formats.

Plot (Actual) Summary

The story starts off with the interesting storytelling mode of metafiction. The author heard the story from a guy who heard the story from a guy who translated a story from a guy who heard a story from a guy. This indicated the ridiculous story that will follow, as well as gives room for Miguel de Cervantes to express his incredible authorial voice.

In Spain’s region of La Mancha there exists a fifty year-old man of low-nobility named Alonso Quijano. He lives with his niece and housekeeper and spends most of his time reading books of old chivalry. Eventually these stories completely fill his head, leaving no room for rational thought. He seeks to become a knight-errant himself, and dons the name Don Quixote de La Mancha. He invents a world around himself that supplants reality, but is distorted enough to support his delusions. A local farmhand he is aware of but has never seen named Aldonza Lorenzo becomes the Dulcinea del Toboso; his old horse becomes Rocinante; the world is inhabited by giants and other creatures.

Part One

He equips a set of ragged armor and sets of on adventure (or the remarkable lack thereof). Everything he sees is grounded in reality but takes a whimsical disguise: an inn a castle, windmills as giants, and so on. The only matter nearly completely of his imagination is the giant he fought in his sleep. During these adventures he strives to live exactly as a knight-errant in the stories did. This means that he should not eat except at lavish feasts in castles; he should not sleep and only pine for Dulcinea instead; he should have a quiet and simple squire. Of course, all these qualities were only due to brevity of the original authors of old chivalric tales - but that thought would never rise in Don Quixote’s head.

He finds in a neighbor the most perfect squire there ever was: Sancho Panza. Promising Sancho no pay but an eventual governorship of an island or similarly-sized land, he convinced Sancho (who truly believed in Don Quixote) to come with him on his journeys. Despite Sancho’s inability to see entirely through Don Quixote’s madness, he still has a sharp and witty tongue that makes his monologues a joy to read.

At the same time as Don Quixote and Sancho adventure, the barber and priest of Quixote’s town work together to attempt to reel Quixote back in - both to his home and reality. This leads to adventures by itself, and had Quixote a full understanding of what was going on in his surroundings he might very well have thought he truly was in a chivalric romance.

In order to avoid bloating this summary like I have done in the past, I will simply list and briefly describe the adventures to the best of my memory (which has never been particularly strong, so I will skim as well).

• The first sally: Quixote travels alone to an inn on a road while seeking adventure. He believes it to be a castle and the inhabitants of it to be denizens of one. The innkeeper, who Quixote believes to be a lord, plays along with Quixote’s madness (as most characters that notice it tend to do) and allows Quixote to hold a vigil. Setting his equipment on a horse trough, newcomers come to water their horses and end up fighting with Quixote. The innkeeper angrily sends Quixote off, still playing into his insanity.
• On his return: Quixote finds a servant-boy being beaten by his master and tells the master to be good to the boy and give him what was deserved. Without witnessing a resolution, Quixote rides off and the master, angered by the boy and Quixote, beats the boy nearly to death. Quixote is beaten by traders he challenges on the road, and is carted home by a neighbor who recognized him sometime later.
• The second sally and on: Quixote picks up Sancho as his squire and goes off again, aimlessly seeking adventure. Seeing windmills near the road as being giants, he attacks them (and somehow loses).
• The Basque: Travelers carrying a lady unfortunately encounter Quixote, and one of them (the Basque) challenges Quixote to combat. Both the Basque and Quixote get beaten fairly badly.
• Ponies: Sancho and Quixote seek to set down for a bit and let Rocinante and Dapple (Sancho’s donkey) eat and rest. However, there is a herded group of ponies nearby and Rocinante cannot resist. Those caring for the ponies beat up Rocinante to stop him, and Quixote is enraged and similarly gets beaten by them. Sancho suffers a similar fate (the first of many such occurrences).
• Another Inn: A girl in the inn (castle) they end up in intends to sleep with a man in the same room as Quixote and Sancho. Unfortunately for her, Quixote does not sleep and notices her, and interprets her as having been looking for him. This results in a fistfight of nearly everyone in the inn through a ridiculous chain of events. Quixote leaves the inn without paying (as he had never seen a knight-errant pay in the “histories” of knight-errants).
• The Blanketification of Sancho: Before Sancho can escape the inn with his master for not paying, guests at the inn capture him and wrap him in a blanket and begin tossing him in the air.
• Dead Man: On the road Sancho and Quixote come across a group at night carrying a body to its burial place, and Quixote gets in a brief fight wanting to know the story of the body. He hopes there is vengeance he must undertake, but he is deprived of this as the man died of sickness.
• Mambrino’s Helmet: Seeing a barber on the road using a golden(-colored) basin as a hat to shelter from the sun, Quixote takes it to be an artifact known as Mambrino’s Helmet. Wanting to possess it, he makes to attack the barber and takes it from him when he flees.
• The Galley Slaves: They come across a group of criminals being escorted by officers. Quixote sees an opportunity for adventure, hears their stories, and (unreasonably) decides their imprisonment is unjust and starts a rebellion, allowing them to be freed. A particularly devilish man named Gines de Pasamonte got the formerly-imprisoned to attack Quixote, and they all left.
• Sierra Morena They enter a mountain range and encounter the beginning of their first true great adventure. They find a pouch of money left that Sancho takes (as he feels he should deserve payment and has no moral obligation). While they rest, Gines comes across them and steals Dapple from under Sancho (perhaps the beginning of Sancho’s Quixotification) which bewilders Sancho when he wakes up on nothing. They find a man named Cardenio who left home because his love was taken by a close friend. Quixote decides to dive into madness, as knights in tales have done in deep despair, and sends Sancho to send to word to Dulcinea to pull him from his madness in the mountains. On his way home, Sancho comes across the priest and barber from their town and they devise a method to get Quixote back.
• Return to Sierra Morena: The trio of the barber, priest, and Sancho make for the mountains with the priest and barber in disguise. They come across a lady named Dorotea who, like Cardenio, left home cause her love was taken by another. Her love was the close friend of Cardenio, by wild coincidence. With this their plan evolves and she becomes part of it, posing as a princess who needs a giant slain. Making Quixote pledge to her to follow her, they intend to begin coming home. With them they bring Cardenio and Dorotea.
• The Ill-Paid Inn: They return to an inn on the way back, and it so happens to be the one Quixote did not pay for. The priest promises to make things right, which appeases the innkeeper. At the inn they encounter many people, and multiple stories coalesce at this point. Unfortunately for Quixote, he sleeps through them all or is unaware at other parts. During his sleep, he slashes wine containers and believes he killed the giant Dorotea wished him to kill. A Spanish man and a Moorish woman arrive at the inn and they tell their story. A judge on his way to the highest court arrives who turns out to be the brother of the Spanish man, and he is reunited with his family after so long away. Don Fernando (the love of Dorotea) and Luscinda (the love of Cardenio) arrive and by some miraculous circumstance each party ends up with the one they love. Officers also arrive with a warrant for Quixote’s arrest for the freeing of the galley slaves. While the priest tries to hold them off, showing them his insanity, the barber Quixote stole Mambrino’s helmet from arrives. Eventually, a brawl starts and there are two camps: Quixote’s and the officers’. In compromise to the officers, the priest hatches a plan to put Quixote in a cage and carry him off home.
• Quixote’s Enchantment: Everyone dons a disguise at night and puts Quixote in a cage, making him believe this to be another case of enchantment. The groups splinter off, and Quixote is begun to be carted home. Eventually, he is let out of the cage while everyone eats, and he finds a fight with self-flagellating pilgrims. He loses, and is finally brought home, utterly exhausted with the frequent and great beatings he has taken in his journey.

Part Two

At this point the first part of Quixote’s story has ended. Between this part and the second part in this fictional world meant to resemble reality the history of Don Quixote is published. Eventually learned men and women will have read about Don Quixote, leading to his future and far more realistic but less-adventurous adventures.

While Quixote eventually is seen to descend from his pure madness in future adventures (evidenced by small and large actions, such as paying those for wrongs he accidentally committed trying to do good), Sancho is seen to rise to madness. He has every reason to know and believe that nothing his master has promised him is possible nor real, but he is dogmatic in his beliefs that they must be. He fakes enchantment on Dulcinea but still believes it can afflict his master in reality. In the second-part of the history of Don Quixote, Sancho can be seen to shift to having a much more wet tongue, which even the author admits seems apocryphal in nature.

Like in first part, the adventures will be listed.

• Journey to El Toboso: Quixote, refreshed in his madness, picks up Sancho yet again to journey outward. First, he wants to go to El Toboso to see Dulcinea. Sancho ensures this does not happen, as his master would find an old lie if they were to meet her. Instead, he convinces Quixote that a rude group of girls contains Dulcinea among them, making Quixote believe her to be enchanted.
• Those of the Grove: Samson, a scholar who knew of Quixote and met him in his town works with the priest to get Quixote to return home and abandon his delusions forever. Samson takes a neighbor and they themselves pretend to be knight and squire. They find Quixote at night in the woods. Samson gets Quixote to challenge him and hopes that by winning he will break Quixote’s spirit at having lost to another knight-errant. Unfortunately for their plan, Quixote wins and his ego skyrockets.
• Knight of Lions: With his newfound pride, Quixote encounters a man carting lions for the king. He forces him to stop and wishes to fight the beasts. The man is forced to open the cage but the lion refuses to leave it. Quixote takes this as a victory and takes on the name the Knight of Lions.
• Camacho’s Wedding: On the road Sancho and Quixote are invited to attend a wedding held by a very rich man. The rich man had supposedly stolen the love of a women from poor Basilio. At the wedding, in pretend, Basilio stabs himself. Thinking him to be dying, Camacho allows his to-be wife to briefly marry Basilio to make his last moments happy. Upon marriage, he shows that he had never stabbed himself, leading to a brief brawl where Quixote takes the side of Basilio. They leave the wedding, following Basilio’s party.
• The Cave of Montesinos: Quixote is brought to a well-known deep cave known as Montesinos. He is lowered by rope in the cave, but ends up finding himself in a hole in the wall and falls asleep. He dreams of fantastic circumstances, meeting a mythical Montesinos himself and conjures a rich story involving himself and Dulcinea there. He awakes and believes his dreams to be real.
• Pedro’s Puppet Show: They find themselves at an inn (which Quixote does not see as a castle!) and Master Pedro, a well-known entertainer arrives. He has an “ape” who he has trained to sit on his shoulders and whisper into his ear. He sells the ape as an oracle of what has already happened or is happening, and makes decent coin this way. Upon seeing Quixote, he says the ape tells him who he is to the amazement of all those at the inn. During a puppet-play held by Pedro, Quixote is enraged and slashes the puppets. He restitutes Pedro. After he leaves, the author reveals Pedro to be Gines de Pasamonte, now in permanent disguise.
• Fisherman’s Boat: Coming across a boat by the shore, Quixote gets Sancho to come with him to cross water. However, they are going straight for waterwheels which would crush them. Those working at the mills use long sticks to save them, much to Quixote’s ire seeing them as attacking him. They sink in the water but are saved by the mill workers. While he believes the mills to be enchanted castles holding a knight hostage, he does not do anything else to try to save the imaginary knight. Quixote repays them for their boat being destroyed.
• The Duke and Duchess: The pair come across a Duchess who immediately recognizes them as she read the history of Don Quixote and loved the story. She invites them in to their castle and intends to antagonize them for her own immense enjoyment. They first give Sancho and Quixote lavish treatment, and then perform increasingly cruel pranks on them. Sancho is promised governorship. One such prank convinces Quixote to free Dulcinea from enchantment Sancho must suffer hundreds of lashes. This was done with an incredibly elaborate play. However, all pranks turned out to be wholly lies. Most of the story is spent here engaging in the plays and whims of the duke and duchess.
• The Knight of the White Moon: Challenged once again to knightly combat, this time Quixote loses. The terms of his loss is the abandonment of his chivalry for a full year. This knight is seen to be the same as in the grove much earlier, Samson.
• The Return to Home: Following the trends of others who have lost their way, Quixote intends to become a shepherd like so many seen in part one of the history. However, he falls ill in his old age. He finds sudden complete sanity and lucidity in his proximity to death. Don Quixote has died, and Alonso Quijano closely follows.

Review

Don Quixote is the greatest story I have ever read and I can harp on-and-on about it. The author has certain eccentricities in writing that some might find distasteful, but they are so well-written that I find they are an integral part of the story. This story has impacted me in such a way you can even see how it temporarily affects my writing style whenever I go back to it, becoming unnecessarily long-winded and tangent-inclined.

The translation of this book, done by John Ormsby, has perfectly captured every intention of the original author, and is perhaps one of the best translation works done - fitting for one of the greatest literary works.

Each character is remarkably distinct, and despite their exceptionally long-windedness (a seeming hallmark of Cervante’s writing) they all grip my attention. Despite the flaws of every character, Cervantes finds a way to wrangle humor from their flaws. For instance, the priest wants to help Don Quixote and feels for his abandoned niece and housekeeper, but also seems to want to find “fun” ways of doing things. This quality is unbecoming of him, and sometimes leads to more trouble. For instance, he got Samson to do the knight act to defeat Quixote. However, this led to Quixote being gone for long, and could have exacerbated the illness of Alonso. Another example being Cardenio, Luscinda, Don Fernando, and Dorotea all being entirely self-centered. For this, they all lost one-another. However, without that the ridiculous journey of Don Quixote and Princess Micomicona would never have occurred. Some circumstance like this could be described for nearly every character involved in Don Quixote’s adventures, whether they be humorous in words or actions.

The second half of the story involves less actual more adventure and more actualization of Quixote’s delusions. Faced with a reality that actually resembled his imaginings, Quixote ironically gradually descended from his madness. At the same time, Sancho’s delusion rose to incredible levels, perhaps surpassing the original delusion that gave birth to Don Quixote in the first place. This part was less gripping to read than the first part, but was much more satisfying and impactful in the end. I actually felt sad for the author, who mourned the loss of his favored subject Don Quixote.

Sancho is an incredible character who came to embody Quixotism in a way Quixote could not. His relationship with his master became beautiful, especially as Quixote started to become more like Alonso. He willingly performed acts of self-sacrifice and acted in ways to support the imaginings of Quixote, despite knowing in the back of his mind that everything they did was in the name of pure insanity. Even on the deathbed of Alonso, Sancho pleaded with him to take up arms again and go on adventures with him. However, the adventures of Don Quixote had to come to an end, and with them the excitement in Sancho’s life and the closest friendship Sancho had.

The duke and duchess were infuriating characters to read about, and I feel that in a way they characterized real people that pestered the author to come up with more adventures for Don Quixote. They existed only to drive Quixote deeper into madness, drawing pleasure from his pain, and especially the suffering of Sancho. They completely lacked empathy and viewed those around them as if they were animals at a zoo. It is unfortunate that so much of the second part was spent in their company, as they got a rise from me every chapter Quixote remained with them.

Ultimately, the story romanticizes Quixotism in a way that makes me wish I could exist in as deluded a world as Don Quixote. Where one would view the mundane, he saw excitement and adventure. His vicious and implacable curiosity were qualities made to be admirable. In the modern world where so much is explained and so much extraordinary is made to be normal (cars, space travel, shipping, medicine, etc.) such qualities would create a beautiful mind. A tinge of jealousy hits me that I can’t feel that way about anything, but it is ultimately for the best. The story aged well, and the philosophies espoused in it mean just as much, if not more, than they when the story was written. It is truly a timeless work I will never forget about.