Don Quixote

As Don Quixote and Sancho Panza head toward Barcelona where DQ will (he thinks) participate in a tourney, the have yet another strange encounter: DQ feeling very depressed and unable to eat - he is apparently evaluating to whole purpose of his quest and of his life - a spiritual moment that reminds us of the outset of the Divine Comedy perhaps - as SP eats heartily and tries to console. As day breaks they see dead bodies hanging in the trees above the - a truly ghastly moment that is soon interrupted by the arrival of Roque (?) a well known bandit from Catelonia. R recognizes DQ and shows him great deference and courtesy and escorts him into Barcelona. Once again the layers of reality and illusion and narrative structure are almost labyrinthine. We have a fictional character meeting a historic character within a novel and the historic figure recognizes the fictional character from having read the book about him - and of course the novel we're reading purports to be a historical account written in Arabic and translated by Cervantes and in the second volume it refutes the accuracy of a pirate sequel - so in all of this who is the real DQ and what does it mean for a character in a novel to be "real"? The reality of a character in a Booker - regardless of whether the author bases his character on a historical personage - is the life that they take on in our mind and in our culture. Isn't it fair to say that DQ is at least as real as others who have lived in flesh and blood? We are almost like the character in this novel ourselves - we feel we know DQ and would recognize and honor him if we came across him. Their behavior - the duke the bandit the guests at th inn who recognize DQ as a celebrity is just like ours - and in that sense we too are characters in Don Quixote.

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