Adrián M. García
The relative pause creuted by the insertion of EJ curioso impertinente into Don Quijote conveys true-to-tife aspecta of verdadera historia, a new narrative form that Cervantes playfutly advances, exalts, aud undermines in lis novel. The characters' reading of the Curioso is the sote porirayal of the att nf reading fiction in the Quíjoceund the onty instance when characters and the reader in effect read the same narrative simuttaneously. The chance reading depicts tifes aleatory etement and other fandamental uspects of human experience, such as rest, teisure, entertainment, and the desire for escape. The "hreatc" atan produces verisimilarrepresencacions of atilineas, sitence, and the passage of time. For sorne readers throughouí the ages, the insertion of Ihe Curioso is loo haphazard nr hanal. Yet the "pause" mirrors tifes complexity and disptays how the Quijote ja a primary intertexí for cnntempnrary narrative, which ofien features metafiction, fragmentation, and protracted "pauses."