Yesterday, in a post at 3 Quarks Daily, I declared that Don Quixote was a novel I could cross a desert with. Long ago, I once asked whether a friend had just one book that he would happily re-read over and over until the end of time? I had thought I had a my own definite answer to this question; for my "novel of a lifetime" has always been The Brothers Karamazov.
This changed, however, in an eye-blink when I finally began Don Quixote.
Like Karamazov, the Quixote is chock full of philosophical questions that would engage a reader endlessly. And what the Quixote may be lacking in religious truths, it more than makes up for in humor. And indeed, don't we want to keep laughing? The countless droll and surprising images in the book can become like little poems that a reader can carry around with them in their pocket and bring out whenever they want to smile or giggle, or to just plain fall on the floor laughing! I love el Quixote and was not surprised one bit to hear that it is one of the most requested book by the inmates at Guantánamo. (That, according to Quixote scholar Roberto González Echevarría).
But of course, my two favorite books are connected. So deeply did Dostoevsky love the Quixote that he wrote his own version of the story, in his novel The Idiot. This below is from a letter Dostoevsky wrote from Geneva to his niece as he was working on the book:
The main idea of the novel is to present a positively beautiful man. This is the most difficult subject in the world, especially as it is now. All writers, not just our, but European writers, too, have always failed whenever they attempted a portrait of the positively beautiful. Because the task is so infinite. The beautiful is an ideal, but both our ideal and that of civilized Europe are still far from being shaped. There is only one positively beautiful person in the world, Christ, and the phenomenon of this limitlessly, infinitely beautiful person is an infinite miracle in itself. (The whole Gospel according to John is about that: for him the whole miracle is only in the incarnation, in the manifestation of the beautiful.) But I am going too far. I’d only mention that of all the beautiful individuals in Christian literature, one stands out as the most perfect, Don Quixote. But he is beautiful only because he is ridiculous. Dickens’ Mr. Pickwick (who is, as a creative idea, infinitely weaker than Don Quixote but still gigantic) is also ridiculous but that is all he has to captivate us. Wherever compassion toward ridiculed and ingenious beauty is presented, the reader’s sympathy is aroused. The mystery of humor lies in this excitation of compassion.
"This excitation of compassion"
It has been so interesting sitting in on a class on the Quixote with 25 undergraduates at Caltech. They do not seem overly impressed by the hero's idealism--and indeed rather than a hero, one even referred to him as an anti-hero. They are concerned about the havoc he wrecks and the people he hurts. They also worry about his influence on Sancho. This has been very strange. Certainly DQ is no Odysseus. He is not even an Aeneas. But wouldn't they be surprised to learn that it was not just Dostoevsky who considered Don Quixote as a "Spanish Christ." No lesser figure than the great Spanish philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, declared him to be likewise so.
To paraphrase Kessel Schwartz: like Christ, Don Quixote went out into the world with his disciple, where he was persecuted; "not so much for his beliefs but for what he thought of as the Kingdom of Heaven." He was ridiculed for trying to tend to the needs of men.
Luke 4:18-19 King James Version (KJV)
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised...
I think the students would be shocked by this because, strangely, they do not seem to see him as a hero. He does cause a lot of trouble along the way...it's true.
**
Simon Leys had a wonderful essay in the NYRBs a million years ago, called The Imitation of Our Lord Don Quixote. A great piece, I highly recommend it to you!
Would love to get a copy of Unamuno's book, The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Below from Ley's wonderful essay:
His main argument, which he sustained, tongue in cheek, over more than four hundred pages, is that Don Quixote should be urgently rescued from the clumsy hands of Cervantes. Don Quixote is our guide, he is inspired, he is sublime, he is true. As for Cervantes, he is a mere shadow: deprived of Don Quixote’s support, he hardly exists; when reduced to his own meager moral and intellectual resources, he proved unable to produce any significant work. How could he ever have appreciated the genius of his own hero? He looked at Don Quixote from the point of view of the world—he took the side of the enemy. Thus, the task which Unamuno assigned to himself was to set the record straight—to vindicate at last the validity of Don Quixote’s vision against the false wisdom of the clever wits, the vulgarity of the bullies, the narrow minds of the jesters—and against the dim understanding of Cervantes.
In order fully to appreciate Unamuno’s essay, one must place it within the context of his own spiritual life, which was passionate and tragic. Unamuno was a Catholic for whom the problem of faith remained all his life the central issue: not to believe was inconceivable—and to believe was impossible. This dramatic contradiction was well expressed in one of his poems:
…I suffer at your expense,
Non-existing God, for if You were to exist,
Me too, I would truly exist.5
In other words: God does not exist, and the clearest evidence of this is that—as all of you can see—I do not exist, either. Thus, with Unamuno, every statement of disbelief turns into a paradoxical profession of faith. In Unamuno’s philosophy, faith ultimately creates the thing it contemplates—not as subjective and fleeting autosuggestion, but as an objective and everlasting reality that can be transmitted to others.
And finally it is Sancho Panza—all the Sancho Panzas of this world—who will vouch for this reality. The earthy Sancho, who followed Don Quixote for so long, with skepticism, with perplexity, with fear, also followed him with fidelity. Sancho did not believe in what his Master believed, but he believed in his Master. At first he was moved by greed, finally he was moved by love. And even through the worst tribulations, he kept following him because he came to like the idea. When Don Quixote lay dying, sadly cured of his splendid illusion, ultimately divested of his dream, Sancho found that he had inherited his Master’s faith; he had acquired it simply as one would catch a disease—through the contagion of fidelity and love.
Because he converted Sancho, Don Quixote will never die.
Thus, in the madness of Don Quixote, Unamuno reads a perfect illustration of the power and wisdom of faith. Don Quixote pursued immortal fame and a glory that would never fade. To this purpose, he chose to follow what would appear as the most absurd and impractical path: he followed the way of a knight errant in a world where chivalry had disappeared ages ago. Therefore clever wits all laughed at his folly. But in this long fight, which pitted the lonely knight and his faithful squire against the world, which side finally was befogged in illusion? The world that mocked them has turned to dust, whereas Don Quixote and Sancho live forever.
Comments