Don Quixote: Book II, chapters 67-74 -- what a long strange trip...

[bdNM]

Here we come to the final chapters of Don Quixote -- he meets Tosilos, the young man he almost fought at the Duke's estate.  The Duke failed to keep his word and let him marry Dona Rodriguez' daughter.  Another instance of the Don's efforts going for naught. 

The Don and Sancho meet the Duke and Dona Rodriguez, and an apparently dead Altisidora -- they claim that she died of unrequited love for Don Quixote, who left.  She does "resurrect" and taunts the Don that it's all been a joke at his expense.

Sancho surprisingly gives in to the Don's request that he flog himself to free Dulcinea from her enchantment.  When he sets to the task, he begins whipping trees instead, groaning all the while to make it appear he is whipping himself.  Does he do this to help the Don out?  Or does he do it because the Don has offered to pay him?

As they get close to their village, they come across someone named Don Alvaro Tarfe, who apparently was a character in the unauthorized Don Quixote book who met and had adventures with Don Q in Saragossa.  Tarfe does not recognize the real Don Q, and Don Q assures him that, on hearing that the Don Q of that other book went to Saragossa, he and Sancho went to Barcelona instead.  What are we to make of this scene?  It's very strange.

When the Don gets home, he is very tired.  He has given up hope of seeing Dulcinea, and Sancho tries to get him to snap out of his funk, promising that other adventures await him.   This is to no avail.  The Don even puts in his will a condition that his niece marry only a man who has no interest in books of chivalry.  It seems rather sad -- the tone of this final set of chapters seems to have a very melancholy feel to it.  The Don comes out of his madness, but with it seems to lose all desire to live. 

[joplin4]

Well, I finished a week late.  Still, it was an exciting journey.  I particularly enjoyed the scenes with the duke and the duchess, even though they were terrible in their jests.  I have decided to start The Three Musketeers next.  As I read the first few pages, imagine my shock to see Don Quixote's name appear several times.  Dumas even mentions Rosinante.  I nearly died laughing.  Thanks for the amazing journey.

[bdNM]

We'd love to have you along for our venture into Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon lit.  It's short, but is chock full of stuff to talk about and wonder at.

[Peppermill]

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joplin4 wrote:

Well, I finished a week late.  Still, it was an exciting journey.  I particularly enjoyed the scenes with the duke and the duchess, even though they were terrible in their jests.  I have decided to start The Three Musketeers next.  As I read the first few pages, imagine my shock to see Don Quixote's name appear several times.  Dumas even mentions Rosinante.  I nearly died laughing.  Thanks for the amazing journey.

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Joplin -- welcome!

I finished DQ yesterday.  I was sad.

You are right, it was an amazing journey.  I'm glad this board supported me in taking it.

Pepper

[bdNM]

I found the ending sad -- yet it resonated.  In a sense, we didn't see Don Quixote through much of the work -- we saw a crazy old coot having various adventures.  There is a certain sadness that comes with the Don's sanity in Ch. 74, but I think we see him in a way we never did.  In that sense, the other characters have a different reference.  We never see Quixano the Good -- we only were introduced to him very briefly, and by the time he emerges as a character, he's Don  Quixote.  The characters in the work -- even the  Bachelor Carrasco, presumably -- all knew the old Alfonso, and their take on his condition is different than ours.  For us, in a way less cruel, perhaps, than the Duke and Duchess, he is a figure of fun.  Here we see an old man on the point of death -- not heroic, and resigned and depressed.  And yet, there is something wonderful about this closing.  All of his friends and family try to get him to embrace the old fantasy, or the newer one of being shepherds.  And it is Alfonso who must bring them back to reality, the reality of death.  I think there is something heroic in Alfonso's facing his mortality.

Of course, throughout Part II, we've had this ongoing feud between Cervantes (Benengeli) and the author of the unauthorized work.  That feud continues even here, with the suggestion that the death of Alfonso Quixano puts to a stop the work of all Don Quixote copiers.  Of course, that isn't really the case -- when characters die, they can be resurrected (cf. Sherlock Holmes, who, even before his official resurrection in "The Empty House", has other adventures told by Dr. Watson -- I think Hound of the Baskervilles is one of those extra adventures of the then assumed to be dead Holmes), and some characters survive their authors -- we still have James Bond adventures, long after Ian Fleming's death, and even now have people writing Holmes adventures (including the recent film which turns Holmes and Watson into action figures).  And there are even figures like Dr. Who, in the long-running British Sci-Fi show -- 11 actors have played the role (actually more if you include stage and comic renditions) -- of course, that particular show, where the character dies and resurrects regularly, invites a complete reworking of the character, as each actor is encouraged to enact his own (and there may be a her own some day) version of the Doctor.