Don Quixote
By Foy Valentine
Now and then, say every 500 years or so, some genius invents an immortal.
Homer did it with Ulysses.
Some pale Scandinavian did it with Beowulf.
Bunyan did it with Pilgrim.
Some quintessential Englishman did it with King Arthur.
And Cervantes-let the drums roll-did it with Don Quixote.
More real in fiction than most people are in real life, Don Quixote is known and embraced around the world. He is more popular now than when he first sprang onto the world stage 400 years ago.
For instance, on my own desk there stands a 12-inch high wood carving of this worthy Knight of the Rueful (Read Sad, Pitiable, Mournful, Squalid) Countenance. Astride his pitiful old nag (spavined, undernourished, rib cage exposed, abused, and dispirited), the man of La Mancha bears in his right hand his ludicrous overlong lance, disports his silly armor which he has scavenged, wears his absurd helmet which he and Sancho Panza have improvised from a hapless barber`s abandoned wash basin, and gazes earnestly into space as he awaits his next outlandish new adventure.
If the famous artist in Mexico, none other than J. Pinal himself, who sold us this masterpiece could only have known what pleasure his handiwork would afford me, he could have got away with charging Mary Louise ten times as much as she paid for it. So be it. Let the seller beware.
On my study wall there hangs a really good oil painting, also from Mexico City and also by a famous artist, of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on their mounts, Don Quixote on Rocinante and Sancho on the ass. They are making their way through deep woods. Sancho is clearly ready for a square meal and a good night`s sleep and Don Quixote is clearly ready to do the noble work of a knight-errant, rescuing some damsel in distress, avenging some injustice, or righting some dastardly wrong. Ethics at its best. [So there. You thought I`d never find a handle to justify all this meandering, didn`t you? Ethics, I must remind you, is my calling.]
And hard by, in my work room, there hangs Picasso`s striking rendition, in garish red, of-who else-Don Quixote.
Moreover a Broadway musical about the Man of La Mancha has recently been wildly popular.
And a song based on Don Quixote`s life, "The Impossible Dream," has been sung by millions and has possibly inspired ten times that many sermons, many of them eminently sleep-worthy, to be sure.
Indeed, this Don Quixote is ubiquitous.
And well he should be.
Consider his credentials.
Cervantes, whose full and proper name was Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, was born in Alcla de Henares, Spain in 1547 and died at age 69 in 1616. He began giving Don Quixote to the world and to the ages in 1604 and 1605. The second part of the book appeared toward the end of 1615. Written some ten years after the first part, the second part is considered better, more subtle, more stylistically excellent, more focused, more logical, more structured, and more mature than the earlier part. But from beginning to end, the book is stamped indelibly with Cervantes` genius. To read the English translation is to be absolutely astounded with Cervantes` imagination and seemingly inexhaustible vocabulary; and those whose mother tongue is Spanish assure me that when reading it in the Spanish which Cervantes employed, Don Quixote is even more astonishingly remarkable for its vocabulary and glowing realism, its sympathetic insight into the everyday lives of nobles, knights, priests, traders, shepherds, farmers, innkeepers, muleteers, convicts, kitchen workers, ladies, damsels, Moorish beauties, country girls, and kitchen wenches of easy virtue.
Don Quixote has always pleased the multitudes because of its fast pace, its uncomplicated comedy, its kindly pathos, its delicious absurdities, its generous humanity, its spontaneous gaity, its ingenious wit, and its penetrating insight into real life.
Hardly any knowledgeable critic would hesitate to name Cervantes, on the basis of Don Quixote alone, one of history`s greatest writers. A much used observation has been that children lovingly turn its pages, young people avidly read it, adults never tire of it, and old people continue to delight in it.
The character of Don Quixote himself is an inexhaustible mine for students and scholars, a treasure trove of psychological studies and theological insights, and a mother lode of plain common sense and authentic wisdom.
That Don Quixote himself is crazy as a loon only serves to make people identify with him all the more sympathetically.
He appeals to me, and in turn I commend him to you for several reasons.
He has a passionate desire to do ethics.
He dreams the impossible dream.
He does not count the cost in pursuing justice.
He wears his authentic humanity honestly.
He relates to Sancho decently and fairly.
He has courage, even to tilt at windmills.
He knows the Bible and often quotes it.
He can laugh at himself.
He is tireless in his pursuit of the good.
He loves words and is unfailingly loquacious.
He employs a vocabulary that would fell a water buffalo at 100 yards.
He is often funny enough to make a dog laugh.
He is gloriously literate.
He is the kind of chap who would seem to me to want his chili hot, his heroes human, and the truth with the bark on it.
Besides all this, to tell the truth, the old codger just seems to me to be quite a lot like my kind of folks.
Let`s hear it for Don Quixote.
