At some point in the first 20-ish chapters, the author must have realized that inventing a series of fights Don Quixote gets into and loses are unsustainable, if he wants to avoid the tropes of an invincible knight errant or legendary hero. There is a reason that heroes in legends always beat whoever and whatever they combat. Legends that recorded reality must have been very short and long lost in the tide of time.
After an absolutely hilarious episode of Don Quixote taking penance in the mountains with some X-rated jokes (can't even pass American movie censorship today), the novel takes a turn from episodic adventures of one characters to a collection of stories within a story. It seems like a cheap trick to stuff the pages when one runs out of ideas. The stories of two characters (Cardenio and Dorotea) linked by one villain are kind of clever, but the episode of "two friends in Florence" seems to be a blatant page-stuffer.
In this segment, which I have not finished, Don Quixote recedes to the background, I guess until the author can uncover another dimension to his madness. Sancho Panza continues to provide most of the witticism in contrast to the hat of "ignorant peasant" he wears. I am particularly fascinated by the way this character is painted and all the contradictions he embodies.
A particularly poignant point was made in the chapter where the innkeeper confesses, to the priest's exasperation, that he too takes the knight errant books as real --- just not applicable to his time. Here the author is displaying the gradient of perception in tales outside of our daily lives: from Don Quixote who believes every word of chivalry in his immediate world, to the innkeeper who believes the tales as true history, to the priest who knows the stories are made up but the grandiose anecdotes about a true war hero. Then there is Sancho, who knows reality in what he witnesses but is taken in by his master's promises of governorship and riches --- primarily because he is illiterate. One has to wonder, then, whether he would have done better or worse compared with Don Quixote or the innkeeper if he could read.
That Cervantes was examining the questions of "what is real" and "how do I know" in 1605 suggest that fake news and its subscribers are not a modern phenomenon. Humans are not innately able to discern the truth from fiction. Truth cannot be easily attained by our brain and abilities, despite technological advances we have made. We are, by nature, a species of make-believe.
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