Concerning what befell the marchers on their way to Week 16. As ever, I’m one week behind. Good meaty section, I thought. And there’s the thrill of holding a thin slice of a big book in your right hand, which never gets old.
Hit one of my most favoritist moments in the book so far on page 726, whence Sancho regales the Duchess and co. thusly:
“Without saying anything to anybody, not even my master, very quietly and gently I got down from Clavileno and I played with the nanny goats, and they’re as sweet as gilly flowers, for almost three-quarters of an hour….”
What’s better than Sancho letting himself pretend that he stopped time and played with nanny goats in the sky?
Other miscellaneous notes:
(1) When it comes to the whole proverb thing, I’m pretty sure Sancho has a medical condition.
(2) I was struck by Cervantes prophetic vision on 716 — after all, here in the 21st century, you can’t throw a rock without hitting an air-propelled wooden horse controlled by forehead pegs. How could he have known that? How?!
(3) A dozen bearded duennas? I will admit, that twist took me by surprise.
(4) A trio of favorite DQ lines: “God endures the wicked, but not forever.” “I won’t remember them any more than I do yesterday’s clouds.” “…the first thing I recommend is that you keep clean, and that you trim your nails and not allow them to grow, as some men do whose ignorance has led them to believe that long nails beautify their hands, as if those superfluous growths that they refuse to cut were nails, when they are actually the claws of a lizard-eating kestrel: a filthy and extraordinary abuse.”
Next Wednesday: Catch ya at the end of Chapter LVIII (842 Grossman), whence someone’s experiencing “more shame than pleasure.”
"…something like the supervisor of an entire team of political agents…"
So on page 767, when Don Quixote says:
“And who knows whether this solitude, this opportunity, this silence, will awaken my sleeping desires and cause me, at this advanced age, to fall where I never have stumbled?”
do we take that to mean that he’s a 60-Year-Old Virgin (or however old he’s supposed to be)? No wonder he’s crazy.
Re Sancho’s proverb disease: it’s contagious. Here’s the duchess responding to Sancho’s letter to Teresa on page 699: “…he (Sancho) shows himself to be very greedy, and I wouldn’t want it to be oregano [footnoted allusion to a proverb]; greed rips the sack, and a greedy governor dispenses unjust justice.” I like that “greed rips the sack”–says it pretty succinctly, doesn’t it?
The part where Sancho finally gets (or at least thinks he gets) his governorship is just about my favorite part of the whole book.
Sancho’s method for determining the truth regarding the woman who claimed she was raped (chap. 45) could be used to determine the truth of the matter currently being litigated about the stripper & the Duke lacrosse team.
And Dr. Pedro (chap. 47) is clearly the inspiration for today’s Center for Science in the Public Interest which is continually finding new foods that are bad for us (Chinese food, hot dogs, KFC, etc.).
Speaking of food, I notice acorns repeatedly mentioned as something good to eat. Does this refer to those things squirrels eat, or did acorn refer to something else in DQ’s day? I certainly never thought of acorns as edible!
The Duke & Duchess and the citizens of Sancho’s insula must really be committed to their joke. They live it constantly. But DQ is the fool…right?
The whole thing is a little like the Renaissance version of “The Truman Show.”
FTR – you can eat acorns, but there is some serious work involved. You have to leech out some fairly unpleasant stuff before they become safe. I’m not sure they ever become palatable.
I like how there is a chapter about Sancho, followed by a chapter about DQ. And even when they are separated by geography, and chapters, the two are still intertwined.
Sancho does a pretty good job of governing, remembering DQ’s admonition to be merciful. DQ writes to Sancho with additional words of wisdom and care. And Sancho’s letter in response has less the feel of servant writing to master as it does two equals communicating, especially when Sancho urges DQ to show gratitude to the duke and duchess. The letter for some reason also reminded me of a letter sent home from sleepaway camp: The food is bad, we took a field trip to the square today, my butler fell in love with the pretty girl dressed as a boy, say hi to the family, see you on visiting day. P.S. Please send escudos.
I’ve decided that Cervantes should be working for a card company that creates offbeat card sentiments (probably not Hallmark). Here’s a good one, from Altisidora’s Lament on page 744: O, if I were but in your arms,/or at least beside your bed,/where I could scratch your dear head/and shake dandruff from your hair!
I’m thinking that this, and the beard-washing segment a few chapters back, could be fodder for an entire line of un-romance cards! (I would have tried this on my husband, but he’s bald.)
Regarding the proverb discussion, I think it would be mighty handy to have such a store of proverbs memorized and ready to go at a moment’s notice. Just think of the value to politicians! I’m thinking of starting a business just creating subliminal tapes of proverbs targeted toward politicians of every ilk. If it worked for Governor of the Cheap Insula Sancho Panza, why not George Bush?
For all your Acorn Lovers, here is a good website on how to prepare acorns for eating.
http://www.grandpappy.info/racorns.htm
Once you’re done preparing your acorns, try the Acorn Pancakes recipe my Polish grandmother had in a cookbook.
ACORN PANCAKES
Break an egg into a bowl. Add:
1 teaspoon salad oil
1 teaspoon of honey or sugar
1/2 cup of ground and leached acorns
1/2 cup of corn meal
1/2 cup of whole wheat or white flour
2 teaspoons of double action baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of milk
Beak all together. If the batter is too thick to pour, thin it with milk. Pour pancakes into a hot, greased griddle and cook slowly until brown on both sides.
Serve with butter and syrup or wild blackberry jam. Delicious!!
If you’ll recall, W’s masters tried to program him with a library of aphorisms, and he proved himself incapable of saying them correctly: “”There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on… shame on you. Fool me…you can’t get fooled again.”
Poor Sancho. The “insula” (and the Duke and Duchess) didn’t deserve him. His words of wisdom still shine bright all these hundreds of years later. If only we in California could trade our own governor for Sancho. I enjoyed the intertwining chapters as well, though it’s interesting to me how Sancho’s story really seems to get the bulk of the attention, and is the better one, besides.
Sancho running the “insula� is definitely an element of the story I never would have known about if I hadn’t read Cervantes for myself. And yet now that I know it, I think I’ve seen this device like a thousand other places, just can’t think where. Aren’t there movies where the stooge is made president or King or something (King Ralph? I know there are better ones out there, though. Being There? hmm, not really) and does a better job than the proper ruler?
Thinking about how subversive this must have been in Cervantes’s time, to give a peasant access to a noble and quasi-divine office, and show him doing better than his betters. A lot better, in fact, since the duke and duchess are looking more like finks. What’s up with her shoe beating of the duenna and the Don? His neglect of the duenna’s wronged daughter? Cervantes makes it clear that we’re still in a world that needs knights, or at least the justice they’re supposed to bring. Alas that they never existed.
I liked the part on p. 737-738 where Cervantes talks structure (in the person of Cide Hamete, of course) complaining about how “dry and limited� this story is without interpolated novels, forcing the author to “speak through the mouths of so few persons.� Splitting the Don and Sancho seems like a way of countering that (classic sitcom move) and so does the “Sancho rules an insula� episode, where you get to hear all these other stories as the citizens plead for justice. Sort of an interpolated novel snuck in through the back door.
All these court cases and petitions can make for dry reading at times, but the historian in me enjoyed the picture they give of 16th century Spain. Teresa Sancha’s letters (p. 801-804) were a goldmine of daily life: dear Sancho, Sanchica is saving for her dowry, 3 village girls ran off with the army when they passed through but I won’t give you their names because they might still be able to get married, there are no olives this year, Pedro de Lobo’s son is becoming a priest, etc. Cervantes has a special ear for the “vulgar� in an age that saved its props for the flowery. Is that what puts the modern in “modern novel?� Why I’m so often thinking of TV and movies and not Henry James when I’m reading DQ?
On Rodney’s comment on TV and movies
I found myself repeatedly going “this is just like…” but I had to remind myself that the truth is all those things are like DQ. I doubt every TV writer has read Cervantes, but so many of these ideas have infused our culture that they seem commonplace now and,therefore, show up in common places.
Further on Rodney’s pointing to the squire as king scenario, I think “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” qualifies, although I haven’t read it. Sounds like a fun read, and has knight errantry to boot.
There’s something in Sancho’s attitude about his new governership that reminds me of our Fearless Leader when he first took office. That – “I’m a plain talking Panza” – quality. I’m tempted to suggest that maybe Bush read DQ, but. . .
Wonder what Sanch’s position would be on stem cell research.