/lit/ - Literature

chapters 16 and 17 have been my favorite ones so far. I loved the bit in the inn

>DQ tries to rape a girl
>its somehow still funny

Marcela is best girl. Robots and nice guys BTFO by a 400 years old book.

>"I would speak more politely if I were you", replied DQ:
>"is it the way of this countenance to address knights-errant in that style, you booby?"
>booby
>mfw

lmao I laughed so fucking hard at that and I dont I've ever laughed that hard at a book before. But it wasnt even clever lol

>Sancho drinks the "potion"
>vomits and shits himself simultaneously
>later, DQ drinks the potion and vomits on Sancho's face
>Sancho then retaliates by vomitting on DQ
>this is high-brow literature

/lit/ lied to me

The book isn't really doing it for me. On some level I can appreciate the deconstruction of the chivalry story, but I would probably have enjoyed it more if I read the book when it was written, not hundreds of years later. And it's same for the supposed wit, fart jokes is only so amusing. Sure there are some good wordplay and I assume some got lost in translation but I just can't see the masterpiece some people apparently see.

>>11337179
I should add that I do not hate it either, I don't feel like stopping reading but I'm glad we're going at a slow pace because I would probably become bored if I tried to read it cover to cover.

>>11336929

Yeah it’s really not that bad a book. The protagonist struck me as retarded at first but the more i read the more i came to appreciate don quixote. He is undeniably one of the stupidest characters ive read about in a book and to be honest lacks charm but there is something redeeming about his idealism.

>>11337179
I feel the same way. It's great but a bit overrated.

this thread is goodreads tier. read below the absolute surface come on fellas

>>11336977
fuck, now i wish i had read the book in english instead of my native language

>>11336977
Anyone else get an Iliad vibe from the monologue DQ delivered where he describes all the knights and their armour and their crest and their hometowns and their wives and the rivers that run beside their hometowns? Cervantes was definitely channeling his inner Homer with that chapter.

> Sancho slowly realizing what a mistake he's made, sticking around because of sunk costs
> Literally lost his ass because DQ thought freeing a chain gang of criminals would befit a knight-errant

How many blows to the pate will Sancho endure before taking his revenge on the Knight of the Ill Favored Face? I would say this might wind up like all those other buddy comedies where there's some falling out in act II that needs to be resolved in act III, but they haven't even seemed to form any connection yet. Sancho actually thinks he's going to get a small nation for his troubles. How this is, after watching his master go apeshit on a flock of sheep, I don't know.

Sancho's gullibility takes more suspension of disbelief than any tale of Amadis de Gaul.

>>11337695
It's not about Sancho's gullibility, it's about the virulent nature of DQ's madness. How could you not root for a man like that? Even us as readers gain a strange faith for his successes even though he is literally tilting with windmills and the like.

>>11337714
If I were a bored, illiterate farm dude I might follow him, and I like the mad poetic nature of DQ, but I think the best success he can hope for is to not be killed or jailed.

Hoping for a grand happy ending, but not expecting one.

>>11337664
Mind finding the excerpt? I don't remember the part you're talking about.

is there any good secondary lit on DQ?

>>11337664
Yeah it's directly a reference to the Epic style according to Grossman

>>11337220
> He is undeniably one of the stupidest characters

He's high IQ as hell, at least verbally. But being smart doesn't serve you as well as being "comely."

>Quixote beats the shit out of a man of the clergy
>"Oh by the way you're excommunicated [Latin Chanting Intensifies]
>"Whatever, I don't even speak Latin"
Laughed harder than I should have

>>11337819
>He's high IQ as hell, at least verbally
One of the first passages of the first chapter tells us that Don Quixote went retarded trying to follow the sophistic prose of the romance writers, though

>>11337786
As per Homerian prose, that paragraph stretches on for like 3 full pages without breaks.

>>11337814
nice. I am reading the Ornsby translation so mine ddnt include a note about this but I'm glad I picked this up then!

>Sancho gets beat up by a girl
>"it must have been no less tht 400 Moors (niggers)

sancho cracks me up

>>11337835
>tht = than

>>11337835
>Inspector of the Holy Order comes in
>ARE YOU THAT MAGIC NIGGER THEN SIR?
>smacks him in the face with the fucking lamp and leaves to light it again

It seems to me that Sancho is the device that ties together the story as a narrative rather than a sequence of disparate events. DQ remains the same, but Sancho is the seat of development.

>>11337858
I'd say Cervantes as himself/the narrator is more what brings the story all together, especially as Quixote himself starts to get more self-referential.
Pancho really doesn't develop.

I'm doing both this and the IJ group
I just want to say thanks for not sperging out on the IJ group and staying on discussion

>>11337786
It's right before he charges at the flock of sheep.

>>11337827
madness and stupidity are two very different things

>>11338004
aw thanks man. That OP started it tho. He said that doing both was the patrician choice, and didnt pre-sperg on us for doing this instead. Two good groups

>>11337858
This is what I've noticed so far. Sancho i the one who grows and changes and DQ is the same lunatic as before and he never learns his lesson

>>11336991
a fetish is a fetish

>>11336934
>I think this is my new favorite chapter
>couple chapters later
>I think this is my new favorite chapter
>repeat
That was my experience car reading it

>>11337297
Post your own critique then instead of shitting up the thread even worse. I'm genuinely interested in reading it.

>tfw my e-reader can't handle the footnotes
Fugg

In the twenty-fourth chapter, what intrigues me is how the scorned lover in penance is referred to by a title — namely, The Ragged One of the Gloomy Countenance — in contrast to our Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance. This inherently sparks a comparison between the two and a preface to the question: what brings a man to denounce reality? Why would a man choose to live as a character, in a story — ignoring the meta-ness of all this — and leave real life, or reality, for this neoplatonic idealism?

In furtherance of the narrative of chivalry, Cervantes uses the romanticism of scorned love and lost Shakespearean plays to put into effect this motif.

>>11339190
>car reading it
what is my auto correct even doing

>>11336929
Finished book 1 yesterday and boy does the second half get messy and have some long, boring diatribes. Hoping book 2 makes up for that.

>>11337824
>breaks his leg so bad the clergyman says itll never be right again
>then steals all of their food
who will stop this madman

>>11336962
>tfw you get btfo at your own funeral

also
>dude is so obsessed with his false ideal of marcela that he kills himself
sounds a little like don quixote and dulcinea, hope he doesnt end up going down the same way

>>11339434
Yeah second half of part 1 is the worst part of the book. Part 2 is great again

What about Infinite Jest??

>>11339434
did you not enjoy the story about lucinda and the prisoner? those have been the best ones so far

>>11339294
>lost Shakespearean plays

What? DQ was written in the middle of Shakespeare’s career, before Shakespeare’s romances even came out.

Not that Cervantes had probably even heard of a slightly popular playwright from some backwater country.

>>11340189
The History of Cardenio is a lost 1613 play by Shakespeare that's believed to have been based off the episode from Don Quixote.

We could have been able to read a Shakespeare-Cervantes crossover but for the fickle whims of fate...

Ooh bump. I'm still catching up, only 4 chapters to go. I'll post my thoughts soon.

I have a notepad (exe on my computer) up where I write down thoughts so I can post them here.

is anyone watching that open yale course on DQ too?

can i get a quick rundown on the holy brotherhood

>>11336929
>They still think this book is fun to read.

>>11340563
nope, is it any good?

>>11340637
finished the first book (gonna start on the next one when the thread catches up) and it's one of the better books i've read

>>11340640
i think so
i've only watched the introduction so far

>>11340637
moshi moshi bait desu, its very fun, the pages seem to just fly by

Guys I have read ahead because I was reading it before this group started.

I just got to Part 2, Cervantes was a genius.

"O Love, when my thoughts turn
to the suffering, dread and fierce, you bring,
I swiftly run toward death,
hoping to end forever the pain I feel;
but when I reach that place,
the port in this rough ocean of my torments,
I feel such joy and gladness
that life grows strong and does not let me pass.
And so my living kills me,
and death insists and gives me back my life.
Mine is a novel state:
I go on living, and constantly die."

Don Quixote Part 2, Chapter 68

>>11340611
They were a band of catholic-sanctioned highway patrolmen, basically. If local authorities had an issue they couldn't handle, they would call upon the Holy Brotherhood to fuck shit up.

>>11336929
Hey anons, I'm wondering what the next book for this general will be, you will be continuing it right?

>>11340611
It's nice to get an annotated (is this the correct word?) book that has little explanations for some of the cultural and historical references that have been lost through time and language. I got my Don Quixote as a 25 cent paperback copy at a library sale. I don't know if nice hard backs would do something that pleb like that.

>>11341204
In the OP and I haven't considered it. I'll probably lurk a couple threads about future books to find out what stuff multiple people would be excited to read, although I already have a few ideas.

I think reading groups tend to be better with bigger books, and bigger books tend to work well for reading groups, due to the obligation to continue it.

Some ideas are The Brothers Karamazov, Gravity's Rainbow, War and Peace, etc. (although I think historical literature like Cervantes and Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy work better than modern lit for reading groups too)

I plan to finish out this one before I start another, even if everyone gives up by book three.

If you have any ideas let me hear them!

>>11341390
There was a GR reading not long ago at all, just saying.

>>11341390
Nice anon, I've already read Don Quixote, or else I'd participate more, but whatever you do next I'm in regardless of what the book is. Thanks for your effort, it is appreciated.

>>11341659
Once we get nearer to book three of DQ I'll start working on the next one

>>11341916
thanks bro. Means a lot

How do you guys feel about the pace? Should we speed it up or keep it where it is?

>>11341390
Totally needs to be Brothers K, I've been looking for an excuse to read it.

>>11341936
The pace is fine.

>>11337858
>>11338684
correct
>>11337928
>Pancho really doesn't develop.
wrong

an interesting reading framework i found in my translator's introduction:
don quixote ---> man of thought who is pushed to action
sancho ---> man of action who is pushed to thought

they 2 characters are complementary more than antagonistic

>>11337928
I love the way Cervantes incorporates the criticisms he got on part one in the second part.
The whole superhero/comic culture going on in media right now seems to be almost identitcal to the chivalry stuff in the book.

>it's a 'don quixote corrects sancho' s turn of phrase and he gets angry about it' episodehell yea

Hell yeah

i wonder if we'll ever hear the end of sanchos story and find out how many goats there were

>>11342074
>it's a sancho laughs at don quixote for being scared of fulling-hammers and quixote literally tries to kill him episode

knights errant dont fuck about

I just found this is a thing. I love you again /lit/. Keep it up, seeing this thread inspired me to pick up and finish the books once and for all.

>>11342486
Did you keep count of how many goats have already crossed? He can probably pick it up from there

>>11342766
:)

>>11341992
>man of action who is pushed to thought
Can't say we've experienced much of this yet. Outside of some complaining Sancho mostly react directly to whatever situation our dynamic duo find itself in.

>get their heads kicked in a few times
>violently vomit and shit their organs out
>go hungry and thirsty
>get beat up some more and lose a handful of teeth
>vomit again
>saddle up and continue on their journey

im starting to think don quixote could take down a giant just by wearing it down to exhaustion

>>11344173
>molars permanently knocked out on one side of his face
I really didn't expect this level of graphic detail

>>11344227
same, i guess its poking fun at stories of knights performing superhuman feats without a scratch. contrast to don quixote getting horrendously hurt in a battle against sheep and shepherds

also
>sancho feeling around quixotes bloody mouth to inspect the damage
made me cringe

>>11337695
Without making any boast of it Sancho Panza succeeded in the course of years, by feeding him a great number of romances of chivalry and adventure in the evening and night hours, in so diverting from himself his demon, whom he later called Don Quixote, that this demon thereupon set out, uninhibited, on the maddest exploits, which, however, for the lack of a preordained object, which should have been Sancho Panza himself, harmed nobody. A free man, Sancho Panza philosophically followed Don Quixote on his crusades, perhaps out of a sense of responsibility, and had of them a great and edifying entertainment to the end of his days.

>>11344280
>its as smooth as the palm of my hand

gross sancho

Are the greentext recollections fake? Like the Sam Raimi meme on /tv/? They dont really puke on wach other, right?

>>11345418
they do. before that sancho spends 2 hours vomiting and shitting in a bed and he later also tries to take a stealthy one right next to quixote because he's too scared to leave his side

>>11345440
it also said that it was so bad that sancho and everyone in the inn thought that he might actually die

http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/the-man-who-killed-don-quixote/274290/terry-gilliam-s-don-quixote-movie-curse-strikes-again

What the fuck guys

I read DQ in 2009. Rereading it now and just found this thread, my dudes. Currently at Chapter XXXVII.

I’m reading it in Spanish, my native language, in an incredible annotated edition. If any of you anons want me to transcribe the Spanish version of some specific passage, I’m here for you, my dudes.

>>11346835
welcome, amigo
maybe a couple of verses from that song that the guy who killed himself for marcela wrote, chapter XIV i think it was, whichever few you like the best. would be interesting to see some in spanish

>>11346980
There you go, my dude. Keep it up.

I'll try to catch up to you guys this week, might read the french version though