u/Next_Dragonfruit_415

I finished it today, and I was amazed at how tragic it is but also how emotionally and morally conflicting I feel.

Like obviously he was mentally ill, but there’s just something about how idealistic Don Quixote was, that’s so intoxicating but cynically you have to realize, how his impulsivity hurt people

It’s just extra fucked up how, right when Don Quixote is about to do something truely heroic where innocent people won’t get hurt. (Ala, saving the I think a Prince or something from Turkish pirates) Sanson comes around as the knight of the white moon and gets Don Quixote trapped by his own morals, after losing the joust.

At first he is sad but being the idealist he is, he decides him and sancho, but also the people he cares about but also the people who have been trying to stop him. The priest, Sanson, the bartender his niece and housekeeper. He thinks they can all be Shepards and practice a good chivalric life that way.

Then like he gets home and depressed, and he snapped out of his knightly delusions but he’s also somehow left with the memories of everything he did. It’s like the depression caused him to come back to reality and the depression from realizing what’s he’s done kills him.

What’s sadder is like he almost rebukes everything in his death bed and pour Sancho who only joined Don Quixote out of pure greed, is weeping, for no matter what fights the pair got into, or how Ridiculous the situation was Sancho was always loyal, and kinda cared and even got to live out his dream even if it was only 10 days of being a governor.

It makes the Shepards fantasy hurt in 2 ways, one he was thinking about everyone he cares about including the people that are trying to stop him, two it’s almost like at the shock of realizing that he can’t go around in his knightly errands, caused him to grip for whatever, slot in the world he could fill that he feels is noble. Mental self preservation.

I don’t really know how to feel.

I walked into this booking thinking it was about someone trying to bring a better way to his contemporary world, but also he’s objectively mentally ill.

It’s like Din Quixote is stuck in a world that doesn’t fit him, and that’s why he went mad in the first place not just because of books.

It’s the contradiction that gets me, cause the moments where Don Quixote acts but no one gets hurt it’s like the mad man, has more morals than the sane.

I think, that, arguably Sancho is the protagonist more than Don Quixote, it’s almost like Don Quixote thinks he’s the main character but it’s Sancho story, especially in the second volume.

Sancho is the change Don Quixote wanted to put into the world.
Sancho isn’t flawless or becomes a saint by the end of the story. He does change, and Don Quixotes teachings rub off on him combining with his simpleness and peasant lived experience

But compared from the beginning, by the time Sancho is Governor and even before and after, he has changed he speaks out even against Don Quixote, Sancho when he is governor despite his lack of education, he does rule with a chivalrous intent, he rules based on common sense and compassion.

(With the exception of the one guy he has tossed into jail because he was running from the guards and the guy was like “I didn’t do anything, and just becuse you say im going to jail I’m not going” )

This is what I mean when I say Sancho is changed mostly for the better but isn’t some saint, he’s still cap

Don Quixote couldn’t change his world, but he did change the world of some people especially Sancho Panza.

This book is more than a satire, and it’s more than a comedy. It covers so many themes, and moral dilemmas from both its time and today.

I think overall, the book asks us, how do we deal with a world that isn’t what it should be?

By the end I couldn’t help but think of a Beatles song.

“The Fool on the hill” from Magical mystery Tour

“And nobody seems to like him, they can tell what he wants to do
And he never shows his feelings
But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning 'round (oh oh oh)
'Round and 'round and 'round and 'round and 'round
And he never listens to them, he knows that they're the fools
They don't like him
The fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning 'round”

I’m an American, and this year I’ve been reading a lot of classics.

I think back to school the classics I had to read.

Animal Farm

The Odyssey

Of mice and men

Macbeth

Beowulf

To Kill A mocking bird

I think what I love about classics is that they tend to capture a specific era of time in a country and culture. Despite them being fiction they tend to highlight a culture. Classics are also a source of cultural pride or pushed the needle

My English teacher in 10th grade said that The Great Gatsby captures the 1920s the same way Back to the Future captures the 1980s.

So classics I’ve read this year are

Frankenstein:1818

The Grapes of Wrath

Cyrano De Bergerac

For Whom The Bell Tolls.

And I’m almost finished with a newer English Translation of Don Quixote.

All of these are from a place and point of view in the west which there is nothing wrong with that but I want to kinda expand my horizons like I want to look through another cultures eyes if that makes sense.

Not in a “look at these foreign alien things” but just I want to see like different points of view and different points of history even though I’d be reading it in English.

My next book will prolly be Gulliver’s Travels, as I’d like to read some Irish classics, cause of my family. (Dad emigrated) I’ve only really ever read WB Yeats.

Also what I love about classics, is the history, I love to see like how much of the place I already know about or can connect the dots without having to google, based on my preexisting knowledge

(also it normally gives me an excuse to read and learn about the historical context something was written)

So regardless of whatever continent you’re from, country or cultural group I’d love some recommendations.

I’ve been going to the pool as my exercise for Fridays, which is bittersweet cause it’s the pool my dad taught me the swim in and the reason I go is that it’s the only pool in my area that has swimming lanes.

My Dad isn’t a good person, and hasn’t been for a long time, even when I thought he was a good person. He was mostly good to me, cause I was his favorite but I was wrapped around his finger, while he preyed on my sister and tortured my mother, for years and I didn’t figure out till his was arrested and imprisoned why they gave up on him.

Everyone says I shouldn’t feel guilty cause I didn’t realize and my Mom and sister said that they knew I’d come around to see why they kept their distance from him.

I hate my dad’s guts, but I miss him all the same, it’s weird. My therapist says that biology drives us, more than we like to admit, and that’s part of the reason why I miss him so much. It’s not just the good memories I had with him.

I try to cope by, looking at my dads mistakes, and learn from them, (specifically with his substance abuse, junkie behavior and his inability to take responsibility) sometimes I get scared of becoming him, but people around me remind me that, for the fact I’m aware of it means it won’t happen nor am I somehow magically destined because he’s my father. My therapist says I need to build more self efficacy and not have my fathers voice cut down my self confidence

Every-time though like, I see a father and son, (like an actual kid( and like they are having a good time or a good conversation I get a lil choked up.

Cause obviously I don’t know what lies behind these moments, but it just makes me think look how sweet that is, or I hope that man is actually good.
Cause I had moments with my dad that were genuine and heartfelt but it feels all ruined now, cause he’s a monster that preyed on children.

But it’s moments like this, I was swimming I stopped to catch my breath and there is a Dad and his kid in the lane next to me and they had this exchange

“You let yourself get beaten by an old fat man?”

“You’re not that fat but you’re like old or whatever.”

“You gonna win next time?”

“Yeah Dad!! love you!”

Then he splashed and dashed.

I try to cope by like being the best version of myself I can be, being a person my Dad wasn’t that he would always criticize me over.

Someone who take responsibility, and someone who gives a shit about people especially those around him.