The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 03 — Reading Notes

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In Category - Wandering Heroes Classic Adventures

Authors: Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616, Doré, Gustave, 1832-1883 [Illustrator], Ormsby, John, 1829-1895 [Translator] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Spain -- Social life and customs -- 16th century -- Fiction; Knights and knighthood -- Spain -- Fiction; Picaresque literature; Romances Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 11,284

Reading time 50 min

Text sections 2

The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 03 — Reading Notes can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 11,284 words, 50 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #5905

In Part 3 of Don Quixote, the scrutiny of Quixote's library reveals the curate and barber's comic book-burning, while the windmill adventure showcases Quixote's delusion and Sancho's earthy pragmatism, with Cervantes' dialogue and narrative voice blending parody and pathos.

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File: pg5905

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OF THE DIVERTING AND IMPORTANT SCRUTINY WHICH THE CURATE AND THE BARBER MADE IN THE LIBRARY OF OUR INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN

He was still sleeping; so the curate asked the niece for the keys of the room where the books, the authors of all the mischief, were, and right willingly she gave them. They all went in, the housekeeper with them, and found more than a hundred volumes of big books very well bound, and some other small ones. The moment the housekeeper saw them she turned about and ran out of the room, and came back immediately with a saucer of holy water and a sprinkler, saying, "Here, your worship, senor licentiate, sprinkle this room; don't leave any magician of the many there are in these books to bewitch us in revenge for our design of banishing them from the world."

The simplicity of the housekeeper made the licentiate laugh, and he directed the barber to give him the books one by one to see what they were about, as there might be some to be found among them that did not deserve the penalty of fire.

"No," said the niece, "there is no reason for showing mercy to any of them; they have every one of them done mischief; better fling them out of the window into the court and make a pile of them and set fire to them; or else carry them into the yard, and there a bonfire can be made without the smoke giving any annoyance." The housekeeper said the same, so eager were they both for the slaughter of those innocents, but the curate would not agree to it without first reading at any rate the titles.

The first that Master Nicholas put into his hand was "The four books of Amadis of Gaul." "This seems a mysterious thing," said the curate, "for, as I have heard say, this was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain, and from this all the others derive their birth and origin; so it seems to me that we ought inexorably to condemn it to the flames as the founder of so vile a sect."

"Nay, sir," said the barber, "I too, have heard say that this is the best of all the books of this kind that have been written, and so, as something singular in its line, it ought to be pardoned."

"True," said the curate; "and for that reason let its life be spared for the present. Let us see that other which is next to it."

"It is," said the barber, "the 'Sergas de Esplandian,' the lawful son of Amadis of Gaul."

"Then verily," said the curate, "the merit of the father must not be put down to the account of the son. Take it, mistress housekeeper; open the window and fling it into the yard and lay the foundation of the pile for the bonfire we are to make."

The housekeeper obeyed with great satisfaction, and the worthy "Esplandian" went flying into the yard to await with all patience the fire that was in store for him.

"Proceed," said the curate.

"This that comes next," said the barber, "is 'Amadis of Greece,' and, indeed, I believe all those on this side are of the same Amadis lineage."

"Then to the yard with the whole of them," said the curate; "for to have the burning of Queen Pintiquiniestra, and the shepherd Darinel and his eclogues, and the bedevilled and involved discourses of his author, I would burn with them the father who begot me if he were going about in the guise of a knight-errant."

"I am of the same mind," said the barber.

"And so am I," added the niece.

"In that case," said the housekeeper, "here, into the yard with them!"

They were handed to her, and as there were many of them, she spared herself the staircase, and flung them down out of the window.

"Who is that tub there?" said the curate.

"This," said the barber, "is 'Don Olivante de Laura.'"

"The author of that book," said the curate, "was the same that wrote 'The Garden of Flowers,' and truly there is no deciding which of the two books is the more truthful, or, to put it better, the less lying; all I can say is, send this one into the yard for a swaggering fool."

"This that follows is 'Florismarte of Hircania,'" said the barber.

"Senor Florismarte here?" said the curate; "then by my faith he must take up his quarters in the yard, in spite of his marvellous birth and visionary adventures, for the stiffness and dryness of his style deserve nothing else; into the yard with him and the other, mistress housekeeper."

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Part 3 opens with the curate and barber conducting a mock-inquisitorial scrutiny of Don Quixote's library, a scene that turns literary criticism into farce. The housekeeper arrives with holy water and a sprinkler, fearing the books will bewitch them, while the niece urges burning them all. The curate insists on reading titles before sentencing, and the ensuing judgments—sparing some books, condemning others—parody the Inquisition's censorship. Cervantes uses this episode to comment on the chivalric romances that fuel Quixote's madness, but also to display his own erudition and wit. The dialogue is brisk, with each character's voice distinct: the housekeeper's superstitious simplicity, the niece's vengeful practicality, and the curate's learned deliberation.

The Library as Battlefield

The scrutiny of Quixote's library is not merely a plot device but a metafictional commentary on reading itself. The curate and barber act as critics, deciding which books deserve the fire. Their judgments are arbitrary and often comic: they spare some romances for their style or morality, while condemning others for absurdity. The housekeeper's fear of magic and the niece's eagerness for destruction highlight the tension between enlightenment and superstition. Cervantes here parodies the very act of canon formation, showing how literary value is negotiated through personal taste and social authority. The scene also foreshadows Quixote's later adventures, where his delusions are fueled by the very books being condemned.

Windmills and the Logic of Delusion

The windmill adventure is the most iconic episode in the novel, and in Part 3 it is rendered with precise comic timing. Don Quixote sees giants where Sancho sees windmills, and the narrative shifts between Quixote's heroic rhetoric and Sancho's plain speech. When Quixote charges, the windmill's sail catches his lance and hurls him to the ground. Sancho's response—'did I not tell your worship to mind what you were about?'—is a model of understated irony. Quixote's explanation that the sage Friston transformed the giants into mills to rob him of glory reveals the self-serving logic of his delusion. Cervantes does not mock Quixote's madness outright; instead, he lets the reader see both the absurdity and the pathos of a mind that cannot accept defeat.

The Squire's Voice: Sancho's Pragmatism

Sancho Panza emerges as a foil to Quixote's idealism. His concerns are bodily: hunger, pain, and the practicalities of travel. After the windmill fall, he reminds Quixote it is dinner-time, and when Quixote claims knights-errant cannot complain of wounds, Sancho retorts that he will complain for any ache, unless the rule extends to squires. This exchange reveals the class dynamics of the partnership: Quixote lives by a code that Sancho does not share, but Sancho's loyalty is pragmatic, not ideological. Cervantes gives Sancho a voice that is earthy and direct, grounding the narrative in physical reality. His interruptions puncture Quixote's grandiosity, but they also create a rhythm of call and response that drives the comedy.

Narrative Voice and Parodic Structure

Cervantes' narrator in Part 3 maintains a tone of mock-heroic detachment. The chapter titles themselves are parodic: 'Of the Diverting and Important Scrutiny' and 'Of the Good Fortune Which the Valiant Don Quixote Had in the Terrible and Undreamt-of Adventure of the Windmills.' The narrator reports events with deadpan seriousness, even when the action is absurd. This gap between the narrator's tone and the events described is a key source of humor. The structure of the episodes—first the library, then the second sally, then the windmills—mirrors the pattern of chivalric romances, but with a deflating twist. Cervantes uses the conventions of the genre to critique them, creating a work that is both a parody and a celebration of storytelling.

Part 3 of Don Quixote establishes the comic rhythm that will define the novel: Quixote's delusions collide with reality, Sancho provides a skeptical chorus, and the narrator maintains a wry distance. Readers should attend to the interplay of voices—the housekeeper's superstition, the curate's learning, Sancho's plainness—as they reveal the social world that Quixote both rejects and reshapes. The windmill episode, often reduced to a symbol of futility, is here a masterclass in comic timing and narrative control.

Reading the book-burning scene, I remembered my own father’s careful destruction of a stack of old pulp Westerns, muttering about “waste.” He never understood why I cried. When I later found The History of Don Quixote, Volume 1, Part 04 — Text and Context, that same pang returned—not for lost stories, but for the quiet tragedy of someone who cannot see what another person truly treasures.