Don Quixote, Book I, chs. 32-36

[bdNM]

Here we have Don Quixote back at the inn, the scene of earlier adventures.  As the innkeeper is assured that payment will be forthcoming, he is quite ready to welcome the Don and company.  We learn that the innkeeper is also a fan of stories of knight errantry, but is too practical a man to enact such foolishness in his life -- knight errantry is out of fashion.  We also have the servant girl, Maritornes, who loves these stories too, but realizes that she cannot be like the ladies of such stories, who are so unapproachable. 

We have the reading of a story left at the inn, which the priest reads, "The Tale of Inappropriate Curiosity."  This story runs for three chapters -- does it seem to fit with the book as a whole?  It seems a rather curious piece, not in keeping with the story of the Don's adventures.  Does this story reflect on the Don's situation?  Some have pointed to the Don's madness, and the contrast between madness and sanity, as a theme -- is it reflected here in that Anselmo's obsession with testing his wife's virtue seems insane.  Is this a pleasant digression, a sidebar in the work's story arc?  In some ways, this story reminds me of the story of "Cupid and Psyche," which seems a digression in Apuleius' romance: Lucius, or the Golden Ass.  Thematically, the stories are quite different, but in the sense of a pleasant story which seems a digression, there is a similarity.  Is this story a digression, or a reflection on the larger tale of Don Quixote?  Does it break the illusion that we have here a "history" of the Don, composed by Cide Hamete Benengeli?  In a history of someone, a digression of some story s/he might have heard seems out of place.

Finally, we have, in chapter 36, the adventure of Don Quixote and the wineskins.  The Don, apparently startled in his rest, and perhaps dreaming of giants, attacks wineskins around him, thinking they are giants.  When he cuts the skins, the wine pours forth, which he thinks of as the giants' blood.  Does this episode have a lesson?  Is it just entertainment?  Do we have this rather comical episode here as an antidote to the rather serious story of the "Tale of Inappropriate Curiosity?"

[rbehr]

I just listened to an ITunesU discussion of DQ.  This discussion mentions:
- one of the issues addressed by Cervantes in DQ is writing and reading a book.  It said that the characters in the traditional chivalric/romance of the times were predictable and straightforward.
- One of the supposed "groundbreaking" aspects of the DQ novel was the new form of writing and engaging the reader. 

After reading "The Tale of Inappropriate Curiosity" novella, I'd certainly agree that the style of this novella contrasts dramatically with the rest of the novel.  The characters in the novella are very "predictable and straightforward" and the rest of the DQ novel, thus far, is filled with unpredictable and complex characters. 

The discussion is in ITunesU Podcasts.  It's titled "Don Quixote and his Legacy" and is by Dr. Kevin Gaugler.  The podcast consists of a recorded discussion about DQ between a professor and his teleconferenced class.  I'll warn you that it contains spoilers and moves very slowly when compared to a Teaching Company Lecture (but it is no-charge!).  The class discussions are about an hour each (One of the times was listed at 2 hours on the ITunes menu, but it concluded at about 40 minutes.) 

[dulcinea3]

I will probably have more to say about this later, when I finally get to this novel sometime next month, but I thought I would jump in here and give my own theory, which is that this story stuck into the novel was meant by Cervantes to be a sort of advertisement for his collection of Novelas Ejemplares, which he had started to write well before the publication of Don Quixote, and which was published in 1613, between the publication of the first and second parts of el Quijote.  He was hoping that readers who enjoyed this tale would be encouraged to obtain the other book when it came out.  If I remember correctly, there is some reference to the author of this story having also written another called Rinconete y Cortadillo, which is in the collection.

I actually wrote a paper on this topic when I studied el Qujote in college.  I was familiar with the Novelas, having studied them during a summer abroad session I had done the previous summer through another college.  I don't think anybody else in my class had read or studied them.

The translation of the title is interesting.  It sounds a bit awkward in English, but I would translate it (El Curioso Impertinente) more accurately as The Curious Impertinent Fellow.  Curioso is an adjective, not the noun 'curiosity' (curiosidad), and I don't quite see how 'impertinent' changes to 'inappropriate'.

BTW, the form of the novelas, which were a type of long short story, had originated in Italy, but Cervantes was (according to him, anyway) the first Spaniard to write in such a form.  Other than as an ad for his own work, the inclusion seems to go along with Cervantes' apparent intention to include as many popular literary genres as he could.

[bdNM]

Thanks for the heads up about the ITunesU discussion.  As I was reading the Tale of Inappropriate Curiosity, I was reminded of some of the stories in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, some of which are of less quality than the other tales.  Chaucer includes himself as one of the tellers and tells the two worst tales in the collection.  Perhaps there story here is presented as a "typical story," and the originality of Don Quixote is so much greater (not just because of its length). 

---

rbehr wrote:

I just listened to an ITunesU discussion of DQ.  This discussion mentions:
- one of the issues addressed by Cervantes in DQ is writing and reading a book.  It said that the characters in the traditional chivalric/romance of the times were predictable and straightforward.
- One of the supposed "groundbreaking" aspects of the DQ novel was the new form of writing and engaging the reader. 

After reading "The Tale of Inappropriate Curiosity" novella, I'd certainly agree that the style of this novella contrasts dramatically with the rest of the novel.  The characters in the novella are very "predictable and straightforward" and the rest of the DQ novel, thus far, is filled with unpredictable and complex characters. 

The discussion is in ITunesU Podcasts.  It's titled "Don Quixote and his Legacy" and is by Dr. Kevin Gaugler.  The podcast consists of a recorded discussion about DQ between a professor and his teleconferenced class.  I'll warn you that it contains spoilers and moves very slowly when compared to a Teaching Company Lecture (but it is no-charge!).  The class discussions are about an hour each (One of the times was listed at 2 hours on the ITunes menu, but it concluded at about 40 minutes.) 

---

[bdNM]

Good to hear from you again -- thanks for the information about Cervantes' collection of stories -- it is not unheard of authors making reference to other works by themselves as an incentive to readers to check out the other works.  A lot of series fiction works that way. 

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dulcinea3 wrote:

I will probably have more to say about this later, when I finally get to this novel sometime next month, but I thought I would jump in here and give my own theory, which is that this story stuck into the novel was meant by Cervantes to be a sort of advertisement for his collection of Novelas Ejemplares, which he had started to write well before the publication of Don Quixote, and which was published in 1613, between the publication of the first and second parts of el Quijote.  He was hoping that readers who enjoyed this tale would be encouraged to obtain the other book when it came out.  If I remember correctly, there is some reference to the author of this story having also written another called Rinconete y Cortadillo, which is in the collection.

I actually wrote a paper on this topic when I studied el Qujote in college.  I was familiar with the Novelas, having studied them during a summer abroad session I had done the previous summer through another college.  I don't think anybody else in my class had read or studied them.

The translation of the title is interesting.  It sounds a bit awkward in English, but I would translate it (El Curioso Impertinente) more accurately as The Curious Impertinent Fellow.  Curioso is an adjective, not the noun 'curiosity' (curiosidad), and I don't quite see how 'impertinent' changes to 'inappropriate'.

BTW, the form of the novelas, which were a type of long short story, had originated in Italy, but Cervantes was (according to him, anyway) the first Spaniard to write in such a form.  Other than as an ad for his own work, the inclusion seems to go along with Cervantes' apparent intention to include as many popular literary genres as he could.

---

[Peppermill]

We have the reading of a story left at the inn, which the priest reads, "The Tale of Inappropriate Curiosity."  This story runs for three chapters -- does it seem to fit with the book as a whole?

I haven't figured out the structure of this book nor thought a lot about what is in it and why.  Many times it just seems a rambling potpourri.  But as a stand-alone piece, I rather enjoyed this episode.  It's like a little morality play -- and what a sweet, sad moral about trust it is!  (Like so much of my one-time reactions to DQ, I believe my original view was how ridiculous, nobody would do anything like that.  Today I say, maybe not often to that extent, but certainly variations on the theme, and the story itself recognizes a lot of those variations, it just kind of stacks them up to absurdity.)

Pepper

[Peppermill]

Comment on the "Story of the One Who Was Too Curious for His Own Good," from Nabokov's Lectures On Don Quixote 

"The intrigue follows its tricky trail.  It is all incredible nonsense, deceit and eavesdropping being the usual bedsprings of the thing." p. 143.