I was incredibly impressed and amused by the integration of the false Second History of Don Quixote by Avellaneda into the narrative, and the continual jibes and dismissals of its portrayal. I got a lot of laughs out of that.
But in the very last chapter, Cervantes has Don Quixote suddenly and totally regain his sanity as Alonso Quixano, repudiate every one of his insane actions, and repudiate his lifelong love of chivalric romances. Even his death – which should have been emotive – just laboriously belaboured that the whole point of his death is to distribute an affadavit to swear off any further histories.
The metatextual elements of Don Quixote were always a strength, but here they seriously undermine the heart of the story: the earnest sincerity Don Quixote had shown up until then in his tireless though midguided efforts to do good. It reduces all of his virtues down to a mistake, and Cervantes explicitly repeats his scorn of chivalric ideals. Where once a scalpel used chivalric ideals to demonstrate their outdatedness, now a sledghammer is used to just hammer it home.
Maybe the character of Don Quixote was an object of Cervantes' scorn the entire time, and those of us who developed a patronising affection to him are those nobles mocked in the second part, who enjoy Quixote only to see his buffoonery played out. But I for one felt more than that. Yes, he was "insane". He was self-righteous, he was always putting others at risk, interfering with others. But I saw it all as a desperate reaction against modernity, an attempt to hold onto a simple and pure notion of ethics and morality and duty in a world that was becoming increasinly muddied. It was wrong, but throughout both novels, Quixote's heart was always in the right place.
It just feels like carving a marble statue of grandeur just to smash it to bits so that no one else can imitate it.
I would be very happy for someone to remedy my distaste for this ending by telling me that I got it wrong, that I misunderstood, or could see it in a better light. As it is, I would have rather have left the ending open with Quixote retiring to bed in the penultimate chapter.
by Gay_For_Gary_Oldman