Don Quixote - Chapters V-VII

Moving on with our bold adventurer, we read chapters V through VII. My reaction is below:

Not gonna lie, last night's read wasn't as much fun as the night before, but a quick synopsis:

Chapter V: A farmer from Don Quixote's town happens to find him still laying on the ground after being beaten by the merchants. He takes his armor off, straps him to his donkey, and rides him back to his home to rest and recover. Standing outside his home are his niece, a priest, and a barber who are all discussing how Don Quixote has gone mad with his desire to fulfill his chivalrous destiny.

Chapter VI: (This chapter was kinda boring) The three mentioned above go through Don Quixote's library deciding which books they're going to keep and which they're going to burn. Thinking back to the prologue, I think this is Cervantes tongue-in-cheekily referencing all sorts of other books, as many other authors do to make themselves sound more well-respected and intelligent.

Chapter VII: Finally, when Don Quixote finally rises after two weeks of rest, they tell him that his books and library were destroyed by an evil enchanter -- he completely believes this, of course, convinced that he will at some point in the future destroy this enchanter. The rest of this chapter was pretty brief, but Don Quixote sets out on another "sally" (definition: a venture or excursion usually off the beaten track ) and heads in the same direction as he did the first time. Only this time, he's leaving with a companion: a short, stout man from his town whom he names Sancho Panza. Again deluded by his visions of future grandeur, he promises that he will make Sancho Panza king/ruler of whatever small island or community they first claim as their own. Oh, and then he says that to expect that to happen within 6 days is not unreasonable.

He's a lunatic.

Check back soon for the next post!

Don Quixote - Chapters II - IV

Our first night reading just part of the story, we moved onto chapters II through IV. My dad took a stab at the summary, which I'll include below, followed by my response:

So, in Chapter 2.

Don the man sets out on his horse on an adventure to be dubbed a knight.  Comes upon an inn/castle and is met by two ladies.  Is fed food and drink at the castle, but does not take off his shield, making drinking very difficult.  Does not have any money to pay for the stay at the inn/castle.

In chapters 3 and 4

The newly dubbed knight leaves the inn.  He comes across a farmer who has his working boy strapped to a tree and is whipping him because whenever he watches the farmers sheep, he always loses one.  Don tells the farmer to stop whipping the boy and to pay him the money that he is owed him.  The farmer agrees, however when Don rides off, the farmer ties him back to the tree to wack him some more.

Don then comes upon some men and asks the men to confirm that Dulcinea is beautiful.  They do not do that right away, so Don charges them, only to have Rosinate tumble, at which point Don is beaten, and the men leave.

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Nice! I think you pretty much nailed everything you put in here.

To put it all together, I think in these three chapters we start to see how much of a bumbling idiot Don Quixote actually is. He's so obsessed and committed to these ideas of knighthood and chivalry that he's read about in so many books that he can't view the world as it actually is, only in the way that he perceives/wants it to be.

For example, when he gets to the Inn, he thinks the Inn is a castle, he thinks the prostitutes in front of the Inn are actually fair maidens of the realm, and he thinks the horn is used to herd the pigs is actually a horn welcoming such a well-respected knight to the castle. Later on, while everyone at the Inn is chuckling about his madness and how insane he is, he's preparing himself for his knighthood ceremony in the morning. While standing guard over his armor, he ends up attacking two guys who unknowingly come by him trying to get to the watering trough to feed their animals.

He then proceeds to get knighted by the innkeeper, who claims to have been a knight in an earlier portion of his life, though clearly that's not the case. 

His next two encounters are pure buffoonery as well. He thinks he's this big, respectable, glamorous knight, but all of the people that he confronts literally laugh at him. He thinks he's doing these great deeds and cementing his legacy, but really, he's just making even more of a mockery of himself with each effort.

Also, just another minor thing that I enjoyed -- he says that he's letting his horse lead the way whichever direction he prefers, but really, as the author notes, the horse is just trying to head back to his own stall.

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Check back soon for our next post, chapters V through VII!

Beginning Don Quixote - Prologue, Poetry, and Chapter I

Ok, let's get this rolling. First of all, some context about the people you'll be hearing from:

John: I'm the one who will be posting most (if not all) of these. I'm 23, a year and a half removed from school, where I studied Civil Engineering and Political Science. I like to read, but I have no real literary foundation except what little I received in high school.

Jeff: My dad, just turned 50 last year, has been working as an accountant for 25+ years. He too likes to read, but to call him a literary critic would be more than a bit of a stretch.

That said, we're both excited about what's happening with this project, and enjoying the process that we'll be going through.

As for the first book that we're reading, I imagine it will be the oldest of all the books we read, as the first part was published in 1605, followed by the second part in 1615. Written by Miguel Cervantes in his native Spanish, my dad and I are reading the 2003 translation by Edith Grossman. I'd be lying if I said we picked this specific translation for any specific reason; rather, it was the first copy I found at the book store.

The goal is to read about 3 chapters a night, which means we should make it through the 127 chapters of the book in just about a month and a half. The assignment for our first night (Christmas night -- I'm trying to catch up with these posts!) was to read the Prologue, the poetry section preceding the actual story, and then Chapter I.

My summary and reaction, written the next morning and emailed to my dad, follows below:

So what did we learn last night?

In the prologue, Cervantes was worried that his book wouldn't seem as official or respectable without a proper prologue and the proper references and poetry written by other respectable authors. His buddy then tells him to essentially just make it all up, and nobody will know the difference once they start reading the book itself.

The poetry, while a bit bizarre, serves the purpose that Cervantes' friend suggested. They're all made up poems, addressed from fictional knights and other characters of books past addressed to characters that we will soon become familiar with.

Finally, the first chapter introduces us to the man himself, Don Quixote de La Mancha. We learn a little bit about him, but must importantly we learn that he is obsessed with books about chivalry and knight errants. (I meant to look up specifically what that term means) He has a bunch of things that he wants to accomplish in life, but all of those fall to the wayside because of his obsession with reading about knights and his decision to become one. Upon deciding to become a knight, he chooses arbitrarily "knightly" names for the three main characters in what will become his story. Himself: Don Quixote de La Mancha. His horse: Rocinante. And the lady whose heart he strives for: Dulcinea of Toboso.

Later that day, I looked up the definition of knight errant, which wikipedia explains as: A knight-errant is a figure of medieval chivalric romance literature. The adjective errant (meaning "wandering, roving") indicates how the knight-errant would wander the land in search of adventures to prove his chivalric virtues, either in knightly duels (pas d'armes) or in some other pursuit of courtly love.

Check back soon for the next post, covering chapters II-IV, and my dad's first turn at recapping the story!

Welcome to Father Son Books

Two days before Christmas in 2012, my dad and I were sitting around our family room, and out of nowhere, he perks up with the question "What are the best books ever?" A little perplexed, I responded: "What do you mean?" He expanded a little further with "Like what are the best selling books of all time?"

Convinced that this conversation was going nowhere, I responded (half jokingly) "If you want the best selling books of all time, start with the Bible, move to Harry Potter, and finish up with the Hunger Games."

He still prodded a little more and said, "No, really. I'm curious what the best books ever are. Those are what I'd like to read," and that's how the conversation ended.

The thought continued to fester in my mind, though, and the over the next 24 hours I did some searching around online to see what "Best Books Of All Time" lists I could find. There were a bunch out there, some with different qualifications, some 10 books long, some 100 books long, some voted on by authors, some voted on my critics; you name it, the list exists.

Nothing really piqued my interest until I stumbled across thegreatestbooks.org. The list is put together by Shane Sherman, and is essentially a massive compilation of 43 other Best Books list from various publications.

Figuring this was probably the best place I could start from, I went back to my dad and said, "It looks like the best book of all time is Don Quixote. If you actually want to read it, I'm willing to read along with you, a few chapters a night, as long as we commit to exchanging commentary on the book as we go along."

At this point, I was really excited about the prospect that this held, and my dad was the same way. His response was "Yeah! When can we get the book?" I ran to the store the next day, picked up a copy for each of us, and we've been rolling since.

This blog is meant to be a repository of our daily communications regarding what we read. Neither of us have a literary background, but we do both enjoy reading, and we're both fully committed to this process. Each morning, one of us will send a brief summary/commentary on the reading from the night before, with responsibility for this alternating daily.

Ultimately, I expect this to be updated daily, but the frequency will be a little higher at first while the posts catch up to our current progress in the book. If you've found your way to the page, feel free to comment with any thoughts, reactions, or suggestions!