GROUP READ: Don Quixote - Part 1, Book 4

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GROUP READ: Don Quixote - Part 1, Book 4

Tämä viestiketju on "uinuva" —viimeisin viesti on vanhempi kuin 90 päivää. Ryhmä "virkoaa", kun lähetät vastauksen.

1japaul22
joulukuu 31, 2011, 2:11 pm

This thread is for Part 1, Book 4 of Don Quixote. It contains 25 chapters and our goal is to read it over April and May to complete Part 1!

2banjo123
huhtikuu 5, 2012, 12:46 am

Hi! Are other people working on this portion? I am enjoying the reading and the way Cervantes is exploring the roles of women.

3avatiakh
huhtikuu 5, 2012, 12:51 am

I'll be starting on this next week.

4japaul22
huhtikuu 6, 2012, 5:13 pm

I've totally stalled out lately. I finished Book 3 about a month ago and haven't read a page since. And I was doing so well for a while . . .

5lkernagh
huhtikuu 7, 2012, 1:27 pm

I will be playing catch up on this one.... I haven't read our March reading yet! Hope to get to it soon.

6mamzel
huhtikuu 8, 2012, 5:59 pm

japaul, I'm in the same place. I read up to Chap. XLI (40% on the Kindle) and haven't been back. Luckily it is a year-long challenge, right?

7avatiakh
huhtikuu 12, 2012, 9:00 pm

I'm really enjoying this section, I loved The Impertinent Curiosity story about Anselmo, Lothario and Camila.

8banjo123
huhtikuu 15, 2012, 7:38 pm

The slow reading has plusses and minuses. RIght now am reading a chapter most days, which works for me. The Impertinent Curiousity was fun.

9avatiakh
huhtikuu 15, 2012, 8:12 pm

I finished Book 4 this morning and will come back to the group read in June. The pacing is suiting me, I'm getting through this book without it affecting my other reading. I thought the whole section set at the inn was particularly entertaining.

10japaul22
toukokuu 14, 2012, 7:41 pm

Congrats on finishing Part 1, avatiakh!

How is everyone else doing? Care to share final thoughts on Part 1? I have resolved to read at least a chapter a day until I'm done which means I'll be done in 12 days. So even if I get sidetracked by a short trip we're taking, I should still be done before May is over.

I'm enjoying it and will share more thoughts when I've finished this part. I've been thinking about how part 1 and part 2 were published a decade apart from each other and wondering just how connected they'll be - if it will feel like reading one book or two separate ones. Interested to find out in the second half of the year!

11banjo123
toukokuu 14, 2012, 9:49 pm

I have been plugging along--I enjoy DQ when I read it, but it's easy to get de-railed. I think I have about 10 chapters left in part !.
I enjoy the sense of Spain as just a place full of folks wandering around aching with star-crossed love.

12banjo123
toukokuu 20, 2012, 6:02 pm

I just finished part 1. There seems to be a lot of thought in this book about the importance of women's modesty and virtue. I am really glad that I was born in the 20th century, and not before that!

13japaul22
toukokuu 24, 2012, 1:00 pm

Congrats on finishing part 1, banjo123! I just finished as well. I decided to review each part separately, so here's my Part one review.

Don Quixote, Book One by Miguel de Cervantes trans. by Edith Grossman
Well, what can I say that hasn't already been said? I've finished book one of Don Quixote. I started reading in January, and it's my year long project to complete the book. Whether you've read the book or not, you probably know the basic plot; Don Quixote is obsessed with books of chivalry, goes mad, and takes Sancho Panza as a squire and Rocinante, his old horse, off on adventures believing he is a knight.

Some things that surprised me were how modern this very old book still feels. I suspect that since the story is so ingrained in our culture and literature it just feels familiar. I liked the women in this book. I was surprised that there were so many female characters and that they had so much personality and intelligence. I was surprised that the humor was so slap-stick and that it involved bodily functions so often! I was surprised at how sorry I felt for Don Quixote, who really should have been taken care of better with his mental illness. I had a hard time thinking some of the events that stemmed from his madness and resulted in injury were funny.

In the end, I'm very glad that I'm reading this book and I am enjoying it. But to be honest, I don't LOVE it. I like it, appreciate it, and am kind of in awe of how long ago it was written and how relevant a lot of it still is, but it's not necessarily my favorite book ever.

Original Publication Date: 1605
Author’s nationality: Spanish
Original language: Spanish
Length: 449 pages
Other books read by this author: none
Rating: 4 stars

14banjo123
toukokuu 24, 2012, 6:31 pm

Great review!

I wanted to ask people how they are liking their various translations. I've been happy enough with the Ormsby, but just started reading Love in the time of Cholera which is translated by Grossman. I am really liking that translation, and wonder if I should switch over to Grossman for the rest of DQ.

15japaul22
toukokuu 24, 2012, 6:57 pm

Thanks banjo123!

I'm reading the Edith Grossman translation and I really like it. One of the things that I like is that she uses fairly modern language (not jarringly so, though) for most of the action and conversation, but uses older English for Don Quixote's speech because he was speaking in the style of the knights that he read about. I don't know if all the translations do that, but it's been effective for me. She also makes the point in her intro that Cervantes really modernized the spanish language with Don Quixote so using 18th century english just doesn't make sense for a modern reader. The last translation that I tried, by Tobias Smollett, was really hard for me to read and I think it's because he translated it in the 18th cent.

If you're happy with the Ormsby translation, I don't think there's any reason to change unless you want a change of pace. It might be interesting to contrast, but I think it's mainly a personal preference and th translations all bring something of value to the original.

16lkernagh
heinäkuu 15, 2012, 11:26 pm

I am way behind with this group read but after spending the day indoors reading due to unsummerlike weather I am now finished Part 1. I am loving this quaint view of countryside Spain filled with - as banjo123 mentioned above - folks wandering around aching with star-crossed love. LOL!

There are times when I find myself frustrated with Don Quixote and how his fellow travelers treat him and pleasantly surprised at the number of strong female characters Cervantes has incorporated into his tale/saga.

As for the translation question, I have decided to stick with the Ormsby translation as it makes it easier for me to read the chapters late a night on my iPod as opposed to holding the print Motteux translation with the really tiny font size!

17banjo123
heinäkuu 16, 2012, 2:20 pm

16- glad that you are enjoying DQ. The way that DQ is treated by various travelers, his family and friends, is interesting. I wonder if Cervantes was trying to make a statement about the status of people with mental illnesses in society.
Does anyone know anything about Cervantes personal experiences with mental illness?