I've just passed the half-way mark in Don Quixote. Since I distinctly remember thinking, many years ago on my first reading, that the second part was greatly superior to its forerunner, and since this is undoubtedly the critical consensus, there's a lot to look forward to. In truth, Part 1 made heavy going on occasion, essentially due to the not-necessarily-gripping interpolated tales, and I'm a touch pleased with myself for persevering thus far.
One thing I'm finding myself very conscious of on this reading that I don't think registered quite as intensely the first time round, is Cervantes's obvious enjoyment of the knockabout violence of a good deal of the action. I suppose I thought of this a long time ago as a kind of cartoon violence, not to be taken with any degree of literal seriousness. Now I'm not so sure. I have this uneasy sense that battering a person to the point of insensibility may genuinely have been seen as a rather jolly jape way back when. It all makes the theatre of cruelty look a bit soft around the edges.
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