Daniel Ramirez’s Reviews > Don Quixote > Status Update

Update IV: In which Daniel acknowledges how genius and entertaining this book is, how deserving indeed it is of its time transcendent praise. Cervantes really is a comedic genius, and each new misadventure wholly captures my attention every time. So far my favorite chapters have been the barber and priest who burned Don Quixote’s books, the demise of the love stricken shepherd, and the battle at the castle (inn).

“But since Don Quixote’s sense of smell was as acute as his sense of hearing, and since Sancho was clinging so very close to him, it was inevitable that some of the fumes, rising almost in a straight line, would reach his nostrils, whereupon he went to their rescue by squeezing them between finger and thumb, and said in somewhat nasal tones:
‘It seems to me Sancho, that you are very frightened’” (160-161).

“‘Sir, do you think this might be that enchanted Moor come to punish us again, with some extra punches he forgot to throw the first time?’
‘It cannot be the Moor,’ replied Don Quixote, ‘because those who are enchanted do not allow anyone to see them.’
‘Maybe they don’t let anyone see them, but they let them feel them alright,’ said Sancho. ‘And if you don’t believe me, just ask my ribs’”

“‘Oh sir,’ cried the niece, ‘please have them burned like the rest, because it could well happen that once my uncle gets over his chivalry illness he starts reading all these other books and takes it into his head to become a shepherd and wander about the forests and meadows singing and playing music and, what would be even worse than that, turn into a poet, which they say is catching an incurable disease’