OT - Cervantes, Don Quixote and the LOC

Diomede

For any interested, the Library of Congress is having an event on Cervantes tomorrow.  I can't go, but I'd be curious for any feedback if anyone does go.  I am working on a project now that is a spoof of Don Quixote so this announcement caught my eye.

Valandar

The biggest thing he did was piblically admit it was all fiction. Don Quixote was written as a backlash against the "Knightly Romance" books that were the rage at the time, all technically fiction, but presented as a true story "from centuries ago", and from his writings they were all roughly on par with bad fanfiction.

Just think! Without Cervantes, we'd have nothing to read but bad fiction pretending to be history! Oh, and he was the SUBJECT of bad fanfiction within his own lifetime, when another writer wrote a "sequel" where Don Quixote actually became a hero... so Cervantes wrote a second book where he was proven to be delusional even more than before.

nonesuch00

So Cervantes invented fiction and the headline writers of that article are still using fiction that claim Cervantes invented fiction. Pointing that out however is a bit like railing at windmills.