DQ Update

I’ve had a bit of a reading spurt and miraculously have read about 40 pages of DQ recently. It is in part because the adventures are coming fast and furious and the reading is compelling. Of this 40 pages my favourite part is Chapter XVII which includes Sancho filling DQ’s helmet with curds and then allowing DQ to don the helmet and have the curds run down his face and beard. DQ believes that his skull is softening or his brain is melting or that he is inexplicably sweating and then gets really mad when he realizes that he has curds in his helmet. Sancho, of course, claims that the Devil did it. Next, a cart decorated with the King’s colours appears. DQ and company are told that the cart contains a gift of lions which the carters are delivering to the king. DQ demands that the lions be released so that he can challenge them. Unable to dissuade him, everyone runs away and the lion-keeper-carter opens the first cage. The lion stretches, yawns, turns around and basically ignores DQ who then demands that the lion-keeper agitate the lion and “force” him to come out and fight. The lion-keeper then says:

Be content, Sir Knight, with the day’s work, which is all that could be desired so far as valour goes. Do not seek to tempt Fortune a second time.

Is this a lesson in learning to “let things lie”? It also brings to mind the beautiful indifference of animals to human desires and reminds me that my favourite part in Life of Pi (not a book that I loved by any means) is when the tiger runs away (I won’t recount the whole episode because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone’s who almost there in the book or planning to read the book or even see the film they’re making of it).