Lol! A modern Quixote or just a thickhead?
Lol! A modern Quixote or just a thickhead?
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
Haha, thickhead I think.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of those films that men of certain age can quote, chapter and verse. It’s a sort of shared experience without which we’d be unable to communicate with each each other.
If I were to say, in an outrageous French accent -
“Yer mother was a hamster and yer father smelt of elderberries.”
Everybody in my demographic would know the context:
https://youtu.be/cG-AYVb3LGA
Uhhhh...
Thanksfor the clarifying video, Sancho. I was a bit puzzled about those endearments.
Now returning to the Quixote. Have you already arrived at the episode when he tries to free gale slaves? It struck me as similar to that of the boy only much more people and corresponding confusion were involved.
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
Hi Danik, I’m just catching up with you. I’ve have a couple of busy-busy work weeks. Tell me your impressions of the galley-slaves incident and by the time I sign in and read it I’ll be caught up.
But first I wanted to jot down a quick comment about the most well known scene in the book. And also I wanted to quote my favorite line in the whole book.
Said Sancho:
You know, considering the windmills of Spain at that time, I kind of see what Don Quixote saw. They do look a little like monsters. What I wasn’t prepared for was how violent the attack on windmill/monster was. The Knight and his horse were lifted into the air, then hurled to the ground, nearly breaking poor Rocinante’s back.What monsters?
The windmills:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...079300441).jpg
How Gustave Doré imagined it:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...e_Dore_VII.jpg
Uhhhh...
Don´t mind me, Sancho read the book in your own rhythm and time. Let the galley-slaves rest a while, until you come naturally to them. My memory of the book is rather jumbled up, not chronological, occasionally something surfaces as just now, when I asked with Sancho, but for a different reason "What monsters?". The fact is, that inmy memory the monsters were giant and so I went for the original which read:
" —La ventura va guiando nuestras cosas mejor de lo que acertáramos a desear; porque ves allí, amigo Sancho Panza, donde se descubren treinta o pocos más desaforados gigantes, con quien pienso hacer batalla y quitarles a todos las vidas, con cuyos despojos comenzaremos a enriquecer, que esta es buena guerra3, y es gran servicio de Dios quitar tan mala simiente de sobre la faz de la tierra4.
—¿Qué gigantes? —dijo Sancho Panza.
—Aquellos que allí ves —respondió su amo—, de los brazos largos, que los suelen tener algunos de casi dos leguas.
—Bien parece —respondió don Quijote— que no estás cursado en esto de las aventuras6: ellos son gigantes; y si tienes miedo quítate de ahí, y ponte en oración en el espacio que yo voy a entrar con ellos en fiera y desigual batalla7."
https://cvc.cervantes.es/literatura/...08/default.htm
And then I wanted to know what my translator had made of it:
"“What giants?” said Sancho Panza.
“Those thou seest there,” answered his master, “with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long.”
“Look, your worship,” said Sancho; “what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go.”
“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat.”
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/996/996-h/996-h.htm#ch8"
So it seems that your translator took some liberty with the original text turning the giants into monsters. But this may have a reason. No doubt you have heard about the "cleaning" of books that is going on, revising older classics and specially children books like Mark Twain"s to take out every word or expression that can be deemed offensive to current readers. One of the forbidden words, for example is "fat" or any word that refers to corporal weight. So it might be possible that your translator in a quixotic spirit transformed the giants in monsters to preserve her text from the monsters of modern censorship.
Giants or monsters I saw the whole seguence of Gustave Doreé, the scene is terrible.
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
Ack Ack Ack!
You’re right, Danik. It’s Giants. It was such a short line I did it from memory and subconsciously substituted Monsters for Giants. Duh. It was late. Have you ever heard of the Major League Baseball team The San Francisco Monsters? Me neither.
Ah well. Short line - short memory. Ya know, my memory is the second shortest thing I’ve got.
Uhhhh...
no chance English bed-wetting types!Originally Posted by Sancho
now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!
Happens in the best families, Sancho! Anyway, Im glad it is just a little memory slip and not a translation mistake.
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
Thanks, Danik. And me too.
Haha, “Is there someone else we can talk to?”
So here’s something that happens to me whenever I’m reading a good book — somehow the book seems to relate to just about everything else that’s going on. Here’s an example:
The other day I was driving around, streaming some tunes, letting Siri decide what to play. (Somehow Apple Computer Company knows what I want to hear.) Anyway Win Lose or Draw by The Allman Brothers Band comes on. It’s probably one of the more mournful rock and roll songs ever made. Basically it’s about the cold desperation of being locked up. It’s a story told by a prisoner more or less to his girl who is slipping away while he’s stuck on the inside:
I liked this line:Endlessly facing the cold concrete floor
Four cold grey walls, and no doors
I barely remember the last forty days
Or just what they're holdin' me for
So far away, they tell me:
"Boy, You're here to stay; win, lose or draw"
There's two men in one room for ten long years
Still strangers that talk away the time
It got me wondering - is that how Cervantes came up with all these adventures? Did he survive jail by telling stories? Did he learn to tell stories as a result of being imprisoned? I donno.
Uhhhh...
From what one can glimpse by Wiki, Cervantes led a very uneven life. He knew want poverty, debts and he was heavily wounded losing the use of his left arm during the war. But the Quixote, started in 1605, wasn´t his first work. It is very possible, I think, that he wrote it to while away his time in prison.
But somehow all roads of adventure lead to him.
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
Miguel Cervantes certainly didn’t live a cloistered life, and I think that is partly what makes Don Quixote such a compelling work. And in that respect I think we can compare him to Herodotus. They both lived their lives with verve. They got out there. Neither had to rely too much on second-hand information. They both had a finger on the pulse. I think we can trust their instincts. Okay, I’ve mixed enough metaphors for one post.
Uhhhh...
Lol! But one of the women of his house had to go to the cloister. In those times the cloisters sometimes waranted food and house to the poor woman, while the rich one had to bring her dowry.
Didn't know about Herodotus, though
Got the feeling that I just literalized your metaphors, Sancho.
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
I’m not sure why Herodotus popped into my head except that when I read him I get the sense he was a man of the people. He was out talking to people who’d witnessed firsthand the things he wrote about and witnessed much of it firsthand himself. The Histories, like Don Quixote, l can pick up and open at random, then read a few pages and find something really interesting.
I didn’t know about Cervantes’ sister(?). Did she get stuck in a nunnery?
Uhhhh...
I`ve been looking into Cervantes family to sheck that information, but the results are very meager. Apart from their names little seems to be known about them. He had a illegitimate daughter with one Ana Franca de Rojas, a married woman, which he recognized as Isabel de Saavedra and his own wife was Catalina Salar de Palácios.
I found also a reference to four women of his household: his sisters Andrea e Magdalena Cervantes, Constanza de Ovando, daughter of Andrea, and his own daughter Isabel de Saavedra. They were despectivelly called The Cervantas.It seems that they didn´t have jobs, but they not only were the main providers of the house, they also had to find the ransom money to free Cervantes from his captivity in Argel. And the bad renascentist tongues remarked that they received gentlemen at their house, at any time of the day or the night.https://gauchazh.clicrbs.com.br/comp...s-5783485.html
Following the radical changes of that time, it seems that one of these four women later went to a cloister. Gentlemen or no gentlemen it is very probable that without the Cervantas there wouldn't have been any "D. Quixote".
"I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
Indeed, there is no Don Quixote without Miguel Cervantes. He knew his subject well. On the topic of the Galley Slaves, he seemed very in tune with how incarcerated men act. Which is to say, a man in chains will do or say anything to shuck off those chains. Once free, any promises made under duress are considered null and void. I’ll bet most readers saw coming a mile away the ending of that chapter. I did. Sancho did. I’m kind of surprised (but not really) that The Don didn’t see it coming.
Uhhhh...
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