>Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 00:54:10 -0400 (EDT) >From: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Molinos quijotescos >To: [log in to unmask] >X-Mailer: 9.0 SE for Windows sub 950 >Original-recipient: rfc822;[log in to unmask] > >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.