>Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 00:54:10 -0400 (EDT)
>From: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Molinos quijotescos
>To: [log in to unmask]
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>
>Well, a good writer can be good at using imagery, sounds (rhythm,
>consonant and vowel combinations, etc.), ideas, psychology, symbolism,
>etc.  Cervantes was good at all of these things, and he was indeed very
>good at using imagery, that is, at presenting striking visual
>situations.  This is fundamental to the narrative art, and a great many
>writers who are considered very good novelists are nowhere near as good as
>Cervantes was in this regard.  His situations are visually memorable.  So
>the selection of the windmills makes great sense.  Even today one is
>enchanted by the view of windmills on a field.  Finally, the verticality
>and size of the windmills, with their moving arms, can imaginatively
>correspond to giants indeed on the Manchegan horizon.  One could add the
>symbolism of wind in the head associated with madness and so forth as I
>believe one colleague has already done.  Or one could add that a force of
>nature,, wind, animates the windmills, in a display of irresistible force
>that anyone who has encountered a force of nature, from wind to waters to
>fire can appreciate.  Nature is under certain circumstances
>irresistible.  So battling these machines that are as close to nature as a
>machine can be makes DQ's attempt even more foolhardy,
>more....Quixotic.   But this would only be the icing on the cake.  The
>windmills episode is basically memorable because it is visually
>memorable.  As a painter I am sure Theo will agree with this.  Dario
>Fernandez-Morera, Northwestern University.