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Saturday, September 26th, 2009
This is a funny bit of information: The island where José Saramago lives (and about which he has published a series of journals) is Lanzarote, in the Canaries. I had never realized what this name is until I was reading along in Don Quixote just now: ...puesto que no quisiera descubrirme fasta que las fazañas fechas en vuestro servicio y pro me descubrieran, la fuerza de acomodar al propósito presente este romance viejo de Lanzarote......given that I had not wanted to declare myself until the deeds I had performed in your service made me known, the necessity of adapting to the present circumstances that old romance of Lancelot... I'm giggling now thinking about Saramago living on an island named after Sir Lancelot. Probably just me...
posted afternoon of September 26th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, June 12th, 2010
 At a street fair yesterday, I happened on Patrick Woodruff selling his wares, including Las aventuras de ¡QUIXOTE! -- bought a copy, it's a lot of fun. Take a look at his deviantart gallery, the pages of this comic are all there.
posted morning of June 12th, 2010: Respond
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Sunday, July 18th, 2010
...truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future's counselor.
This catalog of attributes, written in the seventeenth century, and written by the "ingenious layman" Miguel de Cervantes, is mere rhetorical praise of history.-- "Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote" (Hurley's translation)
It was not until I was reading the Quixote this evening and happened on the quoted line (near the end of the ninth chapter) that I realized it is not a mere rhetorical flourish, that Borges is calling attention to the line for his own reasons. (Still not exactly sure what those reasons are...; but the line comes at the end of bit of meta-storytelling that sounds to my ear very Borgesian, about the discovery and translation of Benengeli's history. When I'm reading it now it sounds like Cervantes is being ironic about the truth-value of his story.)
posted evening of July 18th, 2010: 4 responses
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Monday, September 26th, 2011
The exchange that has been taking place at The Stone over the past few weeks on the subject of naturalism takes an interesting turn today with William Egginton's assertion that "fiction itself... has played a profound role in creating the very idea of reality that naturalism seeks to describe." Egginton focuses on Cervantes' creation of a narrative reality which exists independently of his characters' subjective experiences, and sees the idea of "objective reality" developing around this same time.
posted evening of September 26th, 2011: Respond
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Wednesday, February first, 2012
 Some idle Googling the other day brought me to Mercedes GarcÃa-Arenal and Fernandez RodrÃguez-Mediano's essay on Miguel de Luna, Arabic Christian from Granada and thence to de Luna's True History of King Roderic... Lots to read... (And can it really be true that de Luna's True History has never been translated into English? It seems strange to think such a thing but I am not finding it anywhere. This looks like a pretty key bit of history of literature to me...)
posted evening of February first, 2012: Respond
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Monday, February 24th, 2014
posted evening of February 24th, 2014: Respond
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