MY FAVOURITE BOOKS. – J K SIVAN
Do you know that the first modern novel is about Don Quixote, a funny characater. It was written by the spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, and is a marvellous thrilling adventure story.
The hero, Don Quixote, a noble, imagines and behaves like a knight and finds in Sancho Panza, a simpleton farmer, as his assistant. Don quixote’s fight with the windmill is an unforgettable story. The adventures of Don Quixote are very well imagined and presented in the novel.
All english dictionaries have the word ‘Quixotic ‘ as an adverb used to describe ‘un realistic idealists, utopian, foolish and impractical”action..
Briefly, let me quote a couple of adventures of Don Quixote: Remember the background of the stories are related to 17th Century European villages and life style.
Imitating the protagonists of these books, Don decides to become a knight errant in search of adventure. To these ends, he dons an old suit of armor, renames himself “Don Quixote”, names his exhausted horse “Rocinante”, and designates Aldonza Lorenzo, a neighboring farm girl, as his lady love, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso, while she knows nothing of this. Expecting to become famous quickly, he arrives at an inn, which he believes to be a castle, calls the prostitutes he meets “ladies” (doncellas), and demands that the innkeeper, who he takes to be the lord of the castle, dub him a knight. He spends the night holding vigil over his armor and becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. In a pretended ceremony, the innkeeper dubs him a knight to be rid of him and sends him on his way.
Don Quixote next “frees” a young boy named Andres who is tied to a tree and beaten by his master, and makes his master swear to treat the boy fairly, but the boy’s beating is continued (and in fact redoubled) as soon as Quixote leaves. Don Quixote then encounters traders from Toledo, who “insult” the imaginary Dulcinea. He attacks them, only to be severely beaten and left on the side of the road, and is returned to his home by a neighboring peasant.
After a short period of feigning health, Don Quixote requests his neighbour, Sancho Panza, to be his squire, promising him a petty governorship (ínsula). Sancho is a poor and simple farmer but more practical than the head-in-the-clouds Don Quixote and agrees to the offer, sneaking away with Don Quixote in the early dawn. It is here that their famous adventures begin, starting with Don Quixote’s attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants.
The two next encounter two Benedictine friars travelling on the road ahead of a lady in a carriage. The friars are not travelling with the lady, but happen to be travelling on the same road. Don Quixote takes the friars to be enchanters who hold the lady captive, knocks a friar from his horse, and is challenged by an armed Basque traveling with the company. As he has no shield, the Basque uses a pillow from the carriage to protect himself, which saves him when Don Quixote strikes him. Cervantes chooses this point, in the middle of the battle, to say that his source ends here. Soon, however, he resumes Don Quixote’s adventures after a story about finding Arabic notebooks containing the rest of the story by Cid Hamet Ben Engeli. The combat ends with the lady leaving her carriage and commanding those traveling with her to “surrender” to Don Quixote.
Sancho and Don Quixote fall in with a group of goat herders. Don Quixote tells Sancho and the goat herders about the “Golden Age” of man, in which property does not exist and men live in peace. The goatherders invite the Knight and Sancho to the funeral of Grisóstomo, a former student who left his studies to become a shepherd after reading pastoral novels (paralleling Don Quixote’s decision to become a knight), seeking the shepherdess Marcela. At the funeral Marcela appears, vindicating herself from the bitter verses written about her by Grisóstomo, and claiming her own autonomy and freedom from expectations put on her by pastoral clichés. She disappears into the woods, and Don Quixote and Sancho follow. Ultimately giving up, the two dismount by a pond to rest. Some Galicians arrive to water their ponies, and Rocinante (Don Quixote’s horse) attempts to mate with the ponies. The Galicians hit Rocinante with clubs to dissuade him, whereupon Don Quixote tries to defend Rocinante. The Galicians beat Don Quixote and Sancho, leaving them in great pain.
After escaping the musketeers, Don Quixote and Sancho ride to a nearby inn. Once again, Don Quixote imagines the inn is a castle, although Sancho is not quite convinced. Don Quixote is given a bed in a former hayloft, and Sancho sleeps on the rug next to the bed; they share the loft with a muleteer. When night comes, Don Quixote imagines the servant girl at the inn, Helen, to be a beautiful princess, and makes her sit on his bed with him, scaring her. Seeing what is happening, the muleteer attacks Don Quixote, breaking the fragile bed and leading to a large and chaotic fight in which Don Quixote and Sancho are once again badly hurt. Don Quixote’s explanation for everything is that they fought with an enchanted Moor. He also believes that he can cure their wounds with a mixture he calls “the balm of Fierabras”, which only makes them sick. Don Quixote and Sancho decide to leave the inn, but Quixote, following the example of the fictional knights, leaves without paying. Sancho, however, remains and ends up wrapped in a blanket and tossed up in the air (blanketed) by several mischievous guests at the inn, something that is often mentioned over the rest of the novel. After his release, he and Don Quixote continue their travels.
After Don Quixote has adventures involving a dead body, a helmet, and freeing a group of galley slaves, he and Sancho wander into the Sierra Morena and there encounter the dejected Cardenio. Cardenio relates the first part of his story, in which he falls deeply in love with his childhood friend Lucinda, and is hired as the companion to the Duke’s son, leading to his friendship with the Duke’s younger son, Don Fernando. Cardenio confides in Don Fernando his love for Lucinda and the delays in their engagement, caused by Cardenio’s desire to keep with tradition. After reading Cardenio’s poems praising Lucinda, Don Fernando falls in love with her. Don Quixote interrupts when Cardenio suggests that his beloved may have become unfaithful after the formulaic stories of spurned lovers in chivalric novels. They get into a fight, ending with Cardenio beating all of them and walking away to the mountains.
Quixote pines for Dulcinea, imitating Cardenio. Quixote sends Sancho to deliver a letter to Dulcinea, but instead Sancho finds the barber and priest from his village and brings them to Quixote. The priest and barber make plans with Sancho to trick Don Quixote to come home. They get the help of Dorotea, a woman whom they discover in the forest, that has been deceived by Don Fernando with promises of love and marriage. She pretends that she is the Princess Micomicona and desperate to get Quixote’s help. Quixote runs into Andres, who insults his incompetence.
Convinced that he is on a quest to return princess Miconiconia to the throne of her kingdom, Quixote and the group return to the previous inn where the priest tells the story of Anselmo (The Impertinentely Curious Man) while Quixote, sleepwalking, battles with wineskins that he takes to be the giant who stole the princess Micomiconia’s kingdom. A stranger arrives at the inn accompanying a young woman. The stranger is revealed to be Don Fernando, and the young woman Lucinda. Dorotea is reunited with Don Fernando and Cardenio with Lucinda. A captive from Moorish lands arrives and is asked to tell the story of his life. A judge arrives, and it is found that the captive is his long-lost brother, and the two are reunited.
An officer of the Santa Hermandad has a warrant for Quixote’s arrest for freeing the galley slaves. The priest begs for the officer to have mercy on account of Quixote’s insanity. The officer agrees, and Quixote is locked in a cage and made to think that it is an enchantment and that there is a prophecy of his heroic return home. While traveling, the group stops to eat and lets Quixote out of the cage; he gets into a fight with a goatherd and with a group of pilgrims, who beat him into submission, and he is finally brought home. The narrator ends the story by saying that he has found manuscripts of Quixote’s further adventures.
In my school days I used to borrow some best story books for reading and I recall one of them was Don Quixote. The other books which fascinated me were Treasure Island, Shakespeare stories, Arabian nights and Grimm’s fairy tales. In Tamil of course many books were there I enjoyed reading. I cannot still forget Kalki’s works, Devan’s books and La.sa. Ramamirtham’s excellent writing. Every week Illustrated weekly of India, used to bring out Phantom the ghost who walks with pictures which enthralled me.
