#51 The Deceitful Marriage- Miguel de Cervantes
I have on my desk a huge book of short stories called That
Glimpse of Truth, the title of which honors a quote by Joseph Conrad. It’s a compendium of “100 of the Finest Short
Stories Ever.” As subjective as such a
title suggests, it’s a great collection that I plan on using this year to read some authors that I won’t otherwise get to, especially classic authors, of
whom I don’t have full collections.
Before each story of this book, there is a small blurb about
each author. Did you know that Cervantes was buried on the same day that
Shakespeare died (4/23/1616)? Well, now you do!
Cervantes has a grand and very theatric writing style, which makes
sense. Before he wrote Don Quixote, he was a well-known playwright. His
storytelling is full of airy prose and theatric preamble like:
“Well, what I’m going to tell you now will, and you must be
prepared to believe it without crossing yourself or raising objections and
difficulties…etc.”
Or rife with adages and common truisms like:
“He who takes delight in deceiving others must not complain
when he is deceived himself.”
Like most of his work, this story is a fun rambling tale
full of coincidence, set-piece comedic circumstance, and full of cartoonish
characters. It’s all very entertaining
and well done. And to be done at the same time as Shakespeare, pretty cool.
Notable Passage: “It must have been for love…and marriages of
that kind have the path to repentance already built in.”
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