Don Quixote Notes (Pt. 2, Ch. 30)

 The second part begins with an extremely modern premise: The adventures of Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza have been published and become an international bestseller. Don Quixote's dream of worldwide fame has come true. How very meta. It is surprising that such a device has not been widely adopted in the past few hundred years --- For example, having Harry Potter and friends be swarmed by paparazzi in London or letting Bridget Jones enjoy her celebrity in the sequel, or making Clark Kent's parents go on TV to explain the origin of Superman and sell his baby clothes as souvenirs. 

Don Quixote's early adventures in Part 2 are much more pleasant than those in Part 1. He magically defeats the neighbor who pretends to be a similar knight errant and challenges him to single combat. He is hosted by a wealthy gentleman farmer. He gets to use his combat skills (again!) in a disrupted wedding, while Sancho gorges on the wedding feast. 

In addition to the new victories and fame and fortune, Don Quixote has a hallucinatory experience in the cave of Montesinos. At this point, the novel further blurs the line between dream and reality. The text frequently suggests that Don Quixote is aware of his self-deception and his choice of fantasy over reality, perhaps because in the fantasy he is the world's bravest and purest knight errant. However, given the new fame he gained in the "real world" (both in the novel and in Cervantes' world, which is sort of our world), his fantasy is not so far from reality. 

Sancho, meanwhile, gains surprising insight into Don Quixote's madness through his own power of deduction. If Don Quixote is convinced that the peasant girl is Lady Dulcinea of Toboso of his dream, a claim that Sancho just made up, then nothing else he believes is true. As Sancho can verify one of Don Quixote's beliefs as fantasy, it stands to argue that all of his believes are --- except the reward of governorship to an insula promised to Sancho himself. In other words, Sancho is smart enough to see through the delusions of Don Quixote, except when it comes to the hopes of riches for himself. Hmm, where have I seen that behavior before ... ?