End of Quixote

He dies.  This is weird.  The last chapter heading of Book 2 (which I read in Special Collections, where I accidentally broke the ribbon and picked hairs out of the binding) announces it: "Chapter LXXIV: Giving an Account of Don Quixote's Last Illness and Death."  He's come home with Sancho, both of them talking about how they're going to become shepherds and re-create Arcadia and sing a lot of sonnets to Dulcinea and Teresa—and they're even thinking about buying some sheep to start with.  But Quixote doesn't feel good all of a sudden.  He asks to be carried to his bed, lingers a couple days, and then calls for the priest and the notary one day.  As he's dying, he renounces chivalry and goes back to his old name, Quixana.  And then he dies.  

It's over.

Quixote dies because Cervantes doesn't want more pirated fan-fiction being written about his hero.  Earlier in the novel, there have been various issues about the unauthorized sequel by whoever it is from Tordesillas (who, Smollett's notes tell us, really did exist, and really was written by that whoever it was).  Occasionally, characters will talk to Quixote about that "Don Quixote fellow," not knowing it's him—or describing some other character, the guy from the pirated sequel, who seems to be impersonating him.  (Quixote is understandably a little pissed about this.)  He died for the first time at the end of Book I, but this time Quixote is good and dead, really dead, AND has given up chivalry, so even if a pirate-author managed to resurrect him, Quixana wouldn't go questing again.  

Although Cervantes had good reasons to want to secure his franchise, that's not all that's going on.  For one thing, Quixana may be dead—but Quixote isn't, at least not in the pirated sequels.  The part of Quixote that was Quixana died, but that wasn't very much, because that part had already renounced Quixote.  The non-Quixana part, though, is still wandering around in the Tordesillan's novel—and he seems to have had some good fun, judging from the stories that other characters tell about him.  Cervantes' Quixote sees the difference between himself and the character he is in the fiction, too, when he goes to the print shop and watches people creating him out of type and paper and ink.  So maybe in a way Quixana's death means that Quixote can't die, ever, because he's just a textual thing now, a fictional wandering phenomenon that other characters keep alive by reading and talking about him.  

Cervantes seems to know this, even if Quixote doesn't.  A couple dozen pages before Quixote's death, he and Sancho witness the faux-resurrection of Altisadora, the lady's-maid who pretends to be in love with Quixote at the Duke and Duchess' court, and who gives Sancho three of her nightcaps.  She was pretending to be dead, but really wasn't.  And there's an earlier wedding/suicide where the disappointed suitor pretends to kill himself and then jumps up with happiness when the bride agrees to marry him instead.  So death itself is indefinite and porous—and besides, Quixote has already pretended to narrate the underworld that he found in that one cave he claimed to have explored, so there's no real reason why his story should stop now that he's dead.

The novel does stop, though.  Killing Quixana was probably the best way to get the novel to end, but in a weird way that the novel seems actually to be conscious of, killing Quixana doesn't stop Quixote, and doesn't stop the story.

Don Quixote on FICTIONALITY

The traveller laughed heartily at this account of such an extraordinary trial, saying, that notwithstanding what he had advanced to the disadvantage of such books, there was one thing in them which he could not but approve; namely, the subject they presented for a good genius to display itself, opening a large and ample field in which the pen might, at leisure, expatiate, in the description of shipwrecks, tempests, battles and encounters; painting a valiant general with all his necessary accomplishments, sage and penetrating into the enemy's designs; eloquent and effectual, either in persuading or dissuading his sholdiers, ripe in council, prompt in execution, and equally brave in standing or in giving an assault. One while, recounting a piteous, tragical story; at another time, describing a joyful and unexpected event; here, a most beautiful lady endowed with virtue, discretion and reserve; there, a Christian knight possessed of courtesy and valour; in a third place, an outrageous boasting barbarian; and in a fourht, a polite considerate gallant prince; not forgetting to describe the faith and loyalty of vassals, together with the grandeur and generosity of great men. The author may also reveal himself to be an astrologer, geographer, musician, and well skilled in state-affairs; nay, if he be so minded, he will sometimes have an opportunity of manifesting his skill in magic...and finally, all those qualifications which constitute the perfection of an illustrious hero; sometimes, uniting them in one, sometimes dividing them into several characters; and the whole being expressed in an agreeable style and ingenious invention, that borders as near as possible, upon the truth, will, doubtless, produce a web of such various and beautiful texture, as when finished, to display that perfection which will attain the chief end and scope of such writings, which, as I have already observed, is to convey instruction mingled with delight. Besides, the unlimited composition of such books gives the author opportunities of exhibiting his talents in epic, lyric, tragedy and comedy, and all the different branches of the delicious and agreeable arts of poetry and rhetoric: for, epics may be written in prose as well as verse.
from Don Quixote, Part I, Chapter XLVII, final paragraph, page 403.

Cervantes loves announcing his work's fictionality. Why? When Bunyan does this sort of thing, at the beginning of Pilgrim's Progress, it feels like he wants to acknowledge that he might be doing something naughty in telling a story that isn't factual, and that he should apologize for this. Like Bunyan, Cervantes is quick to stress that, although his story never really happened, it still "borders as near as possible, upon the truth." And Shakespeare is also obsessed with the same issue, constantly emphasizing the theatricality of his theatrical fictions (think of Lear, complaining that life is a "broad stage of fools"). I suspect that, for this part of the seventeenth century (and I'm counting Bunyan, too, as early seventeenth-century, although his novel is published closer to 1700), announcing fiction as fictional is part of what makes it true. But I'm not sure why it needs to do this.

Cervantes, day three

Yesterday's reading of Quixote ended, I think, with Cardenio's story of how Don Fernando had stolen Luscinda's love from him.  Today's began with the licenciate, the barber and Cardenio all discovering Dorotea on the mountain and eventually hearing her story of betrayal by the same Don Fernando.  Before they make her acquaintance, they spy on her as she bathes in the stream.  But she's dressed as a boy at this time, so the men who find her are initially surprised when they figure out her real gender.  It seems they're most surprised, though, at initially finding this boy really hot --

Having washed his delicate feet, he wiped them with an handkerchief, which he took out of his cap, and in so doing, lifted up his head, showing to the bystanders, a face of such exquisite beauty, that Cardenio said in a whisper to the curate, "Since that is not Luscinda, it can be no earthly, but some celestial being!"  (Part I, Chapter XXVIII, paragraph 3, 229)

The narrator of course knows that the boy is a girl -- so it's supposed to be funny when Cardenio finds this boy hotter than his lost lady-love?  I'm at least persuaded to think so by the fact that Cardenio completely doesn't notice the boy's maleness.  Or does he?  It seems significant that he calls the boy a "that," an "it," instead of a "he."  

Cardenio's mistake then makes the revelation that the boy is a girl all the funnier:

The youth taking off his cap, and shaking his head, a large quantity of hair, that Apollo himself might envy, flowed down upon his shoulders and discovered to the spectators, that the supposed peasant was no other than a woman, the most delicate and handsome that the curate and barber had ever beheld; or even Cardenio, had he not seen and been acquainted with Luscinda, who alone, as he afterwards owned, could contend with her in beauty.  Her golden locks fell down in such length and quantity, as not only covered her shoulders, but also concealed every other part of her body except her feet: and, instead of a comb, she made use of her hands, which if her feet looked like crystal in the brook, her hands appeared like a comb of molded snow sifting thorough her hair. (immediately after the last quote)

Still, her hair "not only covered her shoulders, but also concealed every other part of her body except her feet."  Why is the naked girl they see in the stream not allowed to be visibly naked?  Maybe it's because they have the licenciate with them, and Cervantes doesn't want to write about a priest who's a Peeping Tom.  Or maybe it's because they're really more chivalrous than I give them credit for.  But it seems equally likely, right now that Dorotea is covered with her own impossibly long (impossibly clean) hair because the men who watch her really wish she were a boy.  They're also glad that she's a girl, because they understand that finding a boy this pretty might be problematic for their self-constructed masculinities.  So the narrator compromises, and gives them a girl covered in hair, so that only her head, hands, and feet stick out -- a girl that allows them to imagine, privately, that she's really a boy after all.  The hair (like the joke the narrator makes very early: "Under my cloak, the king is a joke!") allows a fantasy so private that those who enjoy it don't have to confront any of the inconsistencies that such a fantasy entails.  

But Cardenio and his companions don't seem to get that their heterosexuality might now be in question -- rather like Sancho takes a long time to figure out that Quixote is unreliable (and Cervantes takes forever to remember what's happened to Sancho's donkey at any particular moment in the narrative).  Still, I keep enjoying these queered moments.  Today, the novel reads like Quixote is in love with Sancho; Cardenio and Don Fernando were certainly in love with each other; and in the story that the innkeepers have someone (I don't remember whom read), Lotario and Anselmo would much rather have sex with each other, at least at the beginning of their tricky trial of Camila's virtue (whom they seem to be using as a proxy for having sex together), than with Anselmo's poor wife they end up unknowingly trading back and forth.  Sancho doesn't want Quixote to show him his penis, though -- when Quixote says he'll see Sancho off from the mountain by removing his pants and taking a half-air-bath, Sancho says

"For the love of God! dear Sir, let me not see your worship naked: for, it will give me so much uneasiness, that I shall not be able to refrain from weeping; and, my head aches already, with the sorrow I felt last night, about Dapple; so, that I cannot bear to set a mourning again: wherefore, if it be your worship's pleasure, that I should see some of your mad actions, pray dispatch them in your clothes; and let them be such as will stand you in most stead: for my own part, I think there is no occasion for any such thing; and if you dispense with them, it will save time, and send me back the sooner with such news as your worship desires and deserves.  For, if my lady Dulcinea is not prepared to send a reasonable answer, I solemnly protest, I will extract a favourable reply out of her maw, by kicking and hitting."  (Part I, Chapter XXVI, paragraph 24, page 202)

As Sancho frames it, Quixote would be dishonored by showing him his penis, and this dishonor would be enough that Sancho "shall not be able to refrain from weeping."  But Sancho seems to reply in such a horrified way, in part, because he is too busy being in love with his donkey, Dapple, to notice appreciate attention from anyone else -- when he finally gets Dapple back, he "kissed and caressed [the donkey] as if it had been a Christian; while Dapple very peaceably received these demonstrations of love and kindness, without answering one word" (Part I, Chapter XXX, paragraph 16, page 255).  (I hope to god that Henry Brooke had read this novel -- Sancho's receipt of Dapple so reminds me of young Harry rescuing his pet rooster Dicky from some villagers who wanted to eat the bird that I'm convinced it's a knowing imitation.)  Being in love with Dapple doesn't make Sancho any straighter than Quixote, though -- Smollet's narrator is careful to refer to the animal most of the time as "the ass."  Sancho sure loves that ass.  

    photographed on Beta Bridge yesterday

first hundred pages of Cervantes

I'm reading Don Quixote, in Smollet's cheap translation from Barnes and Noble. (The notes are weird, and so are the illustrations. And the margins aren't big enough to write in. I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but then again $10 isn't bad.)

Right now, I'm enjoying the way the novel keeps toying with its fictionality, reminding me over and over again that it's fake. So when Quixote comes home in tatters from his first brief adventure (the first time he mistakes an inn for a castle -- this is before he has Sancho Panza with him), his niece and housekeeper are worried that reading too many novels has driven him to madness. The priest is there, too, and

desired [them] to hand him the books, one by one, that he might see of what subjects they treated, because he might possibly find some of them that did not deserve to be purged by fire.
"There is not one of them, replied the niecce, which deserves the least mercy, for they are all full of mischief and deceit. You had better, therefore, throw them out of the window into the courtyard, and there set fire to them, in a heap: or, let them be carried into the back-yard, where the bonfire may be made, and the smoke will offend nobody." (Part I, Chapter VI, second paragraph: 42)

So I'm thinking: yes, Cervantes, I get it -- novels are fictional, and potentially dangerous. They might offend uneducated women, or make old men crazy. Butof course he's also doing something smart by having the enemies of fiction respond in such an excessive way: novels suddenly look a lot better, if they're only attacked by the batshitcrazy. Now it becomes impossible for readers to sincerely share in that fear -- and in fact, we're probably supposed to feel sorry for the books being burned like this. (Do novels really need pity, though? Like Don Quixote, they keep getting attacked -- set on fire, in one case, and beat up all the time in the other. Does Quixote need pity? Or does the violence that is done to him just make him funnier -- and the novel a little bit more cruel?)

This thing about cruelty and violence is what's bothering me most, so far. Quixote constantly has vomit, shit, blood, or teeth coming out of his body. At one point, he's being pelted with stones by some shepherds whose sheep he's been killing because he's convinced himself they're enemy knights:

He received a pebble on his side, that seemed to have buried a couple of his ribs in his belly;...there came another almond, so plum upon his hand and cruet, that after having splintered the pot to pieces, it carried off in its way, three or four of his molars, and shattered two of his fingers in a grievous manner: in short, so irresistible were both the applications, that the poor knight could not help tumbling from his horse. The shepherds immediately came up, and believing him actually dead, gathered together their flock with all imaginable dispatch, and taking their dead animals, which might be about seven in number, upon their shoulders, made off without any further inquiry. (Part I, Chapter XVIII, paragraph 10, 129)

I keep wanting to pity Quixote, but there's not really anywhere to put that pity. It's like reading The Ordeal of Richard Feverel and trying to feel sorry for the boys when the squire beats them -- what happens is pitiful, but the description of it only wants you to laugh.