Welcome to the Don Quixote Deathmarch, Week 1. This is our fourth ‘march, and I’m so excited, well, I honestly just can’t hide it. So I won’t even try.
We’ve got a potentially huge crew along for the ride, including some first-timers from around the country. We may even have a few high schoolers amongst us. To all of youse newcomers, let me encourage you to dive right into the comment-stream. (Just hit the “Whaddya think?” link on the lower-right of each entry — any questions on that, drop me a line at vortex@mediajunkie.com.)
Other words of wisdom? Well, don’t sweat it too much if you fall behind. Everyone does at one point or another. And of course, if you’ve read the book before, be kind to the rest of the crew by focusing comments on what we’ve read to-date. Sure, you say. That’s all fine and good. But what about…
…prizes?
Excellent question! On the very first Deathmarch, we tantalized weary wanderers with visions of “I Survived the Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch” mugs. And at this very moment, said mugs are winding their way through the countryside, en route to the lucky winners. OK, so it took me a year. But these are fabulous mugs.
This go-around, we’re offering genuine 2.25″ “I Survived the Don Quixote Deathmarch” magnets for folks who make it through and comment every week. No need to write essays to qualify — any old shout out will do.
UPDATE: Amazingly, two patrons of the arts have appeared and offered to help underwrite prizes. So we’re upgrading those magnets to genuine DQDM mugs [capped at, let’s say, 30 winners] for folks who finish the book during the DM and post on every entry, every week!
Thanks a lot for coming along. Have fun out there. Stay frosty. And I’ll see ya at the next bend in the road.
Next Wednesday: Let’s meet up at the end of Chapter VI, just before “the second sally.”
"…something like the supervisor of an entire team of political agents…"
Ah, the second sally. See – I like the book already. The big, heavy, daunting, old, Spanish book. . .
i haven’t even bought the book yet! now that’s falling behind, despite that, i’m in.
…the comment has been made through back-channels that the drop off from mugs to magnets is quite steep. And while I’ll cop to that, consider this: the unit of measure for magnets is the “tesla.” And really, who’s cooler than Tesla?
-Cecil
i find the prize attractive.
Since this is my first time marching, I must note that I am actually delighted with the magnet prize. I’ve never received a prize before in any other bookclub. Now Don Quixote on the other hand. The lengthy tome has been resting on my bedside table, on the dining room table, in my carryall satchel and even ferried around in the car while I was a passenger. It stares at me, talks to me, taunts me, telling me it feels neglect since I rushed out to Borders to adopt it but have not done anything but carry it to various locations. I made a promise to it that I would begin reading it tonight. We’ll see if I keep the promise.
um, which version or edition of Don Quixote are we supposed to be reading again…? i seem to have misplaced that memo.
I grew up listening to the Broadway soundtrack of Man of La Mancha, and to this day belt out any section of any song. (…for the Lord protects his barbers, and he makes the stubble grow.) Many of my firends know what kind of person is molded by this influence on a child.
I’ve attempted this book twice, spurred on by Borges’s constant allusions to it, and never got too far. The old Penguin editions always made these things seem like they were only to be read by Spanish majors. But I’ve refused to let the possibility of romance die, and so charge forth into this book with banners unfurling in the wind. Ho! We charge forth!
“And the wild winds of fortune will carry me onwards,
O whithersoever they blow.
Whithersoever they blow,
Onward to Glory I go!”
Hi Pecheresse,
Most folks will be reading the Edith Grossman translation. Feel free to read another if you already have one onhand. But if you’re picking up a new copy, the word on the street is that EG’s work is “truly masterly…a major literary achievment.”
-Cecil
The magnets are all well and good, but don’t lose sight of the fact that one or more of us could become the next big D (Dickens, Dosteovsky, or Dumas) after reading DQ! I like to think big.
http://www.embaspain.com/bookFare.html
I do not need another magnet.
I am, however, commenting solely to earn one.
The magnets have got me jazzed. Will we get a pix of cecil wearing the helmet?? Anyway, I’ve never read DQ or seen the play/movie etc….but I was intrigued at the theory that it is the first ‘modern novel’ ever written. I’ll be looking for plot twists…..
So wait… did Slothrop ever find Rocket 00000? Aww crap, I’ll never catch up! Time to move on to DQ.
I’m just now starting to read the book, which I bought a few hours ago…eeep!
May I begin with a digression? (Be forewarned: digression should be my middle name.) It has been a long time since I purchased a new hardback. Both impecunious and raised by Scots, I tend toward used paperbacks.
What a profound pleasure to heft the volume, smell the new book smell, and hear that crackle as I carefully open the book for the first time. I discovered a pleasure I have not known since I began the last “new-to-me” Dickens novel I found: that sense of entering into a new world. The more pages the better! Even reading the table of contents with the chapter titles was delightful: very Dickensian or rather, Dickens was very much the child of Cervantes.
Grossman’s obvious love for the project gleams from her forward: “his writing is a marvel: it gives off sparks and flows like honey.”
And Bloom is, well, typically, Bloomsian, with his Shakespeare references and slightly dense text. I look forward to Cervantes holding the mirror up to us as readers (xxvi).
Here we go…
Bloom’s references and density? You should have attended his classes!
Speaking of digression and magnets–I’m all for both. In fact, perhaps digressors can be rewarded with both mug and magnet! CV’s mention of the tesla sent me down a path to Nikola T., who was inspired to an extraordinary episode of invention as he recited poetry during a sunset walk. All of which to say–there’s a lot to be found on a meandering walk in the company of good writing, and some of it’s off the path.
Bonus–Tesla’s inspiring bit of poetry (by Goethe) is suitable for the beginning of any adventure:
The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;
It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil
Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!
I totally wanna join in on the Deathmarch, but have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing — Are there deadlines and stuff? I want a magnet!
green LA Girl: Welcome aboard! All you gotta do is pick up a copy of the book in the next few days (Grossman translation recommended), read the first 50 pages or so, come on back next Wednesday and drop a comment. Rinse and repeat….
(btw, if there’s a pro-magnet groundswell, we may try to give people a choice tween mug or magnet. All hail Cafe Press!)
-Cecil
Can do! See you next Wed 🙂
Hi. The book was a gift with the prerequisite that I actually read it. Otherwise I have to pay for it. So I’m in. With any luck, I’ll finish reading it before Terry Gilliam finishes filming it.
I loved the documentary about Gilliam not managing to make the movie! While the movie was a loss for us all, the documentary was a lesson in artistic madness and the importance of tilting at windmills, no matter what the result!
Double checking- I’ve got the Hefty paperback version of Grossman’s. Page 52 is the end of Chapter VI. Pg 53 is Chapter VII. Just curious, as there isn’t a Chapter refferent in the goalpost.
CM — that’s it — we’re aiming to read through Chapter VI this week…. Good call re chap references — I’ll add one later today (and gowin’ forward) for folks reading other editions. -Cecil
On the very day my print copy arrived, I stumbled across the unabridged Recorded Books version of the Grossman translation. It’s superbly narrated by George Guidall on a mere 35 CDs.
Since I spend many hours in my car, I’ve already gone far beyond our first week goal. But I feel I need a judge’s ruling whether listening qualifies as reading. Maybe I could get myself declared legally blind?
Which brings me to the first question about Don Q. Since he keeps mis-perceiving what he sees, is he actually nuts, or was he just unfortunate to live before Ben Franklin invented spectacles & so he can’t see things clearly?
I like the way the author sneaks in his opinions of the literature of his time in Chapter VI, through the device of the priest & barber deciding which books to destroy & which to save. And, in particular, I chuckled at his self-reference to his first book as having “a certain creativity; it proposes something and concludes nothing.”
The Old Man in Kansas
Judge’s ruling: use of your sight, hearing, and touch to “read” this book are all encouraged and each of these senses is considered of equal worth. But any efforts to bring Don Quixote into your brain using your sense of smell will result in immediate disqualification.
-Cecil
Early first observation from me.
I’m loving the fact that the first reaction to his madness from those around him was to destroy the media source perceived as (or in this case, the actual) cause of that madness. 400 years before videogames (and TV and movies and comic books), popular entertainment was ruining peoples’ brains!
Yay!
on a related everything old-is-new-again note, when I was in high school, one of my favorite comics was Bob Burden’s Flaming Carrot, about a guy who read so many comics it melted his brain, so he put a big carrot on his head and went off to perform quasi-heroic deeds. And really, it wasn’t till this week that I realized FC must have been at least partly a send up of DQ…..
-Cecil
Oh my yes. Hadn’t thought of that, but it’s so obvious it must be true. FC = DQ. Makes me want to go back through early issues of Flaming Carrot to see if there are any direct references….
–Jeff
hey can i get on board?
i’m not even happily lost
but don’t want to miss out.
Clara: not only can you get on board, but you’ve got a first-class seat! Welcome….
-Cecil
I am so excited to join this group…I never thought I’d be able to “dream the impossible dream” again. And get a magnet to boot. (What happened to the mug?)
For me, the romantic yet daunting quest has been to access this website. Ive been trying for the last several days. Ive read the first week’s assignment no problem, but only now am throwing my helmet in the ring, ex post facto. If I succeed with all the required posts, can I get an I survived the Internet DM mug and/or magnet? Is there a call-in line?
The prior post on DQ’s poor vision v. madness made me think of that earlier grand DQ performance, about which I cant remember enough to help me with the novel, and yet which remains vividly in my thoughts of an earlier and simpler time, and which inspires me to press on,
So, you know you’re in for in when, on the second page of the narrative (p.22, Grossman) you’re told that in the telling of this story, there is “absolutely no deviation from the truth.” Two pages later (23)we are told that the authors (please note: how hard is it for more than one person to agree on what actually happened?) of this “absolutely true history determined that he undoubtedly must have been named Quixada and not Quexada, as others have claimed.” Here, assertion of absolute truth and the difficulty capturing it exist within the same sentence. From the get go we are already having trouble ascertaining what is truth, and we’re talking about a question as simple as “What was his name?”
On Harold Bloom
Enough about Shake-
Enough about Ham-
I’m writing this po-
Because I want my mag-
Cervantes really doesn’t leave any doubt that *he* believes the Don is insane; Q is described with some variation of “insanity” or “madness” half a dozen times just in the stretch we’re reading this week.
The book burning was really disturbing. C’s point is clearly to dis the knight-errant genre and the folk of the time who disdain literature, but it’s still hard to watch people be so cavalier (hyork!) about treating books this way.
Despite the “absolute truth” claims, C gives his game away repeatedly with his geographic references. The mediocre university in Siguenza produces a man of “some learning”, the “castellano” who cites his many high adventures in places (such as the booths of Seville) that are actually quite low, the “honorable Andalusian”: these are all overt reminders that C’s main purpose is skewering and roasting. Every paragraph drips with sarcasm and jabs.
So it’s an entirely po-mo world, full of people who are beyond irony… except that Don Quixote is sincere. The only man left who truly believes that good and right are still possible.
A 16th century Bill Moyers, one might say.
Right, a bit behind here, but my book arrived today in the mail and was waiting for me on my doorstep this evening…..in the rain. I will be deathmarching with the Spanish Version. Better get started, seems I am slacking somewhat. Katy
One last thought on critics – I came upon this thought from Richard Rorty yesterday, “Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.”
I may be more in Rorty’s camp than Bloom’s.
I’ll have thoughts on the book tomorrow.
A slug from the wineskin and I’m off! Already I’m finding myself most intrigued by the “meta” moments, those points in the story where Cervantes stops to make you aware that you’re reading a story by talking about stories.
Loved that bit in the Prologue where Cervantes describes himself as the “stepfather” of Don Quixote, and goes on to show you a picture of himself sitting at his desk, head in hand, trying to figure out what to write for the Preface that you’re reading. One of those hall of mirror sort of moments that reminds me of a later Spaniard, Velasquez, in his painting Las Meninas: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/velazquez/velazquez.meninas.jpg
Completely off-topic but apparently Cecil thinks Ashton Kutcher is the next Tom Cruise. Complete vapor information.
Re Ashton, it’s true, but I didn’t mean it as a compliment.
-Cecil
In addition to this Flaming Carrot character, here’s an article about The Motorcycle Diaries being more Don Quixote than Kerouac, more old world than new world.
http://www.slate.com/id/2107100/
PS: For a while I thought Topher Grace was going to be the next Tom Cruise. I think there’s a good chance we’re both wrong.
Isn’t the next Tom Cruise still in development?
http://tinyurl.com/mgfs3
Was just chatting with a fellow marcher (yes, some of us have real life encounters with each other!!) and we both found it curious how much we already knew about Don Quixote without ever having touched the book before now or been involved in a class or discussion remotely connected with it. It’s like a police sketch absorbed through some weird cultural osmosis. That, or repeated allusions to the man of La Mancha in Saturday morning Bugs Bunny cartoons. Yibida yibida yibida–that’s all folks!!
43 comments? Goondess gracious god almighty. Do we really need another?
loved the confident, catty literary criticism and the ardent book burners. nice scene.
now what about that sentence that’s supposedly “the most obscure in the entire novel”(p50)? i thought it was clear–cervantes was making a case for his own style by referencing a book “intended to entertain and satirize [which] deserves to be reprinted in an edition that would stay in print for a long time.” maybe not his intent, but here we are, 401 years later….
We’re posting, we’re posting…now we’re stopping…posting, posting…and we’re stopped.
I heard Harold Bloom is the next Topher Grace.
I’m not participating in this DeathMarch (the imaginary world of “work” demands otherwise) but I will be happily standing along the sidelines holding little papercups filled with gatorade for you all to douse yourselves with as you pass by.
sadly, my memory of the lyrics for “The Impossible Dream” is tainted by the Mad Magazine parody of same.
Two introductions was one too many for me. The basic story is fun but the flow is interrupted for me by reading all the footnotes, so think I’ll stop. And poetry that leaves off the last syllable is stup–!
My God! I’m screwing up the commenting thing. I thought I waited until AFTER Wednesday. Gotta get this DM thing down.
My favorite scene is when he runs into the ladies of, um, upmost virture.
I skipped the intro… and am oh so glad. That’s a sure way to suck the fun out of the thing!
Dammit — Am I behind already? Please count me in the running! I’m a bit confused already, as you can prolly tell — I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be commenting about! Just anything?
So far, my fave scene’s when they’re burning up all of Don Quixote’s books, except they end up keeping a whole bunch of them. You know, the arbitrariness of censorship, people’s general love of smut, the way the content of a read’s largely the reader herself’s interpretation, etc. etc…
All books are dangerous 😉
I am listening to Don Quixote on CD now and I am loving it. George Guidall gives an excellent performance. I laughed out loud at the reference to the Cervantes title when they were deciding which books should be burned. I have tried in vain to find a way to send fan mail / email to Mr. Guidall to let him know how much I appreciate his work.