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QUIXAND


                                               August 6-17, 2005

   He received a hearty welcome
   from the goatherds.
      -- Cervantes,
      "Don Quixote" (1605-1615)        All page numbers,
      Part 1, Chapter XI, p. 83        Penguin Classics edition
                                       Trans: John Rutherford.
                                       (ISBN 0 14 24.3723 9)


Nice to read some high brow
literature for once about
people vomiting on each other.



We all have some familiarity with the
Don Quixote story in outline -- a
madman thinks he's a Knight, and goes              Everything you've
off on deluded "Adventures", such as               heard about in this
the infamous tilting at windmills.                 book occurs in it's
                                                   first 100 pages.
   And this is of course the
   source for the strangely                            This may say something
   pronounced adjective                                about the remaining
   "quixotic".                                         900 or so.

                                                       In essence, Don
   "Don Quixote" is one                                Quixote is just
   of the candidates you               Trying to       another overblown
   sometimes hear                      read this       serial --
   proposed for Greatest               book straight
   Novel Ever Written,                 through is        The modern era did
   and one of my own                   neither           not invent milking
   quixotic endeavors is               necessary nor     a popular property.
   to try to read all                  desireable...
   of them and decide                                      And indeed,
   for myself.                         It's much like      Cervantes has
                                       renting the         included some
     If you're interested              entire run of       amusing rants
     in the score "War                 "Star Trek" and     about the
     and Peace" is still               trying to watch     terrible state
     winning.                          it all in one       of the theater
                                       sitting.            in his
     Tolstoy is handily                                    era... one could
     beating out Twain,                                    fill in the word
     Melville, Hugo                                        Hollywood
     and now Cervantes.      WAR_AND_PEACE                 instead, and no
                                                           one would guess
       Swift still to go.                                  it was written
                                                           500 years ago.

                                                           THEATRICAL_RANTING




I had a particular reason for
investigating how Cervantes
presents Quixote's madness.

  I had this Great Insight
  about "Chivalry" as an ethical         I'd been reading works
  system focused on means rather         like Walter Scott's
  than ends:                             "Ivanhoe", and (much
                                         better) Conan Doyle's
  In a world sufficiently bleak          "The White Company"...
  that positive outcomes always
  seem to recede, upholding a               LIGHT_EXPECTATIONS
  "code of honor" would at least
  be an achievable goal.

  But that seemed                                  What was I doing
  very close to                                    philosophizing
  the notion of                                    about Chivalry
  Quixote as a man                                 without having
  afflicted with a                                 read Cervantes?
  noble madness...
                                                   For all I knew,
                                                   "Don Quixote" was the
                                                   original source of
                                                   Doyle's depiction of
                                                   Chivalry.
A Quixote-figure could be
presented as someone with
the courage to engage in
an existential act of               I'm pretty
self-creation, to attempt           sure that I've
to re-define himself in             heard this        At the very
spite of his apparent               line argued,      least I've
unsuitability for the role          but I don't       seen it
he wants to play, and in            remember where    suggested
spite of the dissonance             at this point.    that Don
between the role and the                              Quixote
mundane world.                                        allows for
                                                      multiple
   The willingness to be                              interpretations.
   absurd would then be the
   true heroic act.



   "'But uncle, why do you have         'I know who I am,' retorted
   to go and get involved in            Don Quixote, 'and I know
   these arguments?  Wouldn't           that I can be not only all
   it be better to stay quietly         those whom I have mentioned,
   at home instead of looking           but every one of the Twelve
   for better bread than what's         Peers of France, and every
   made from wheat, and                 one of the Nine Worthies as
   forgetting that many a man's         well, because all the deeds
   gone out shearing and come           performed by them both
   back shorn?'                         singly and together will be
                                        exceeded by mine.'

      part 1, Chapter VII, p. 61            part 1  chapter V, p. 50


                    But there are very few
                    touches like this of
                    what might be taken as
                    reverse english.          And  I sincerely hope
                                              that no one holds it
          And they come very                  up as a grand example
          early in the story.                 of the unreliable
                                              narrator.
          Then it settles down
          into what seems like                That "translated from the
          an interminable Hope                arabic" is a pretty silly,
          & Crosby routine.                   meaningless piece of schtick
                                              on Cervantes part...  the
   There's precious little                    voice of the story remains
   to indicate that                           resoundingly, monotonously
   Cervantes had any                          consistent throughout.
   sympathy for Quixote's
   delusions whatsoever.
                                                   There is something
      Perhaps:                                     appealing about the
                                                   thought of
      'That is the whole                           generations of
      point,' replied Don                          obsessed academics
      Quixote, 'and therein                        grouping through the
      lies the beauty of my                        entrails of this low
      enterprise.  A knight                        brow slapstick,
      errant going mad for a                       desperately
      good reason --- there                        searching for some
      is neither pleasure nor                      complex meaning.
      merit in that.  The
      thing is to become                                            "Don
      insane without a cause             How many dissertations     Quixote"
      and have my lady think:            have there been on the     itself
      if I do all this when              meaning of the tale of     a focus
      dry, what would I not              300 sheep?                 for a
      do when wet?  ...'                                            kind of
                                           (I hope I have the       madness.
                                            number right.)
  Part 1, Chapter XXV,  p. 209
  Inspired to imitate Cardenio,
  "the Ragged Knight"

                                              'The devil take you peasant!'
                                              said Don Quixote.  'What good
                                              sense you sometimes speak!
                                              Anyone would think you'd been
                                              to university!'

                                              Part 1, Chapter XXXI, p. 285
                                              Quixote to Sancho


I went looking for a
work about chivalric
ideals, but instead "Don     A satire of some extremely
Quixote" just appears to     safe targets: the tale of
be a very broad piece of     chivalry and it's censors,
comedy.                      long after both were dead
                             issues.                       (Though I gather
                                                           that Cervantes'
                                                           occasional
  Don Quixote isn't the source.                            disrespectful
  It's just more commentary.                               swipes at the
                                                           Church were
  I'm always reaching for                                  regarded as a
  "High Noon" and ending up                                bit more edgey.)
  with "Blazing Saddles".
                               WHITE_WASHED




 If anything, Cervantes is taking
 a position diametrically opposed
 to my notion...

 He repeatedly makes fun of the
 way that Quixote's actions
 achieve nothing worthwhile, no
 matter how proud he is of them:


   " 'It is not the
   responsibility of knights
   errant to discover whether the
   afflicted, the enchained and
   the oppressed whom they                 '... And you're to blame
   encounter on the road are               for it all, because if
   reduced to these circumstances          you'd gone on your way
   and suffer this distress for            and hadn't come poking
   their vices, or for their               your nose into other
   virtues; the knight's sole              people's business, my
   responsibility is to succour            master would have been
   them as people in need, having          content to hit me a dozen
   eyes only for their                     or a couple of dozen
   sufferings, not for their               times, and then he'd have
   misdeeds.  I came across a              untied me and paid me
   rosary of angry, wretched men,          what he owed me.'
   I did with them what my
   religion requires of me, and            Part 1, Chapter XXXI, p. 287
   nothing else is any concern of          Andrés to Quixote
   mine; ... "                             and company

   p. Part I, Chapter XXX, p.271
   Quioxte excuses releasing
   criminals from a chain gang.



A book about the way
people relate to fiction...


This story about a delusional fan who
takes the fiction too seriously has
been done again many times since             And Sancho Panza's
Quixote -- I think of it as a "Walter        creative mangling of
Mitty" story (without much respect           language will forever
for priority or accuracy).                   seem to me like Leo
                                             Gorcey schtick, from
                                             the Bowery Boys.


                 Most recently, I
                 saw a film named
                 "Raghu Romeo"
                 (2003) a satire          Certainly watchable, with
                 about a man lost in      some funny satire of Indian
                 the world of             music video, but the man's
                 Indian television.       obvious insanity makes the
                                          story hard to get into.

There are innumerable things                  (I've never understood the
like the Bob Hope movie, "My                  appeal of fiction where
Favorite Brunette" where the                  you're supposed to laugh
main character really wants                   at the main characters.
to be a hardboiled private                    Give me the Marx Brothers,
eye...                                        every time.)

A personal favorite of
that sub-genre is the
British film "Gumshoe"       "Gumshoe" is a movie that
(1971).                      works well as a satire of
                             a detective-adventure
                             story and also a good
   (written by               example of the genre.
   Neville Smith,
   directed by               The reason it works: at
   Stephen Frears)           any moment you can't tell
                             whether the main character
                             is really being crazy, or
                             might have something going on.
                             There's a level of suspense
                             to that that's missing from
                             the usual fantasy of the
                             Competent Man.

                                                     And, in comparison, Don
                                                     Quixote is universally
                                                     a fuck-up throughout.


How common is the
Quixote syndrome,
really?

I would say that if anything we
suffer from the opposite disease.

Far from being surrounded by
people who are trying to be like
the heroes of adventure stories,
our real trouble is that if you
get near any kind of idealism or      And there are a lot of
grand ambition you'll get shot        people out there who
down with an "Oh, grow up.  Can't     seem to have said
you be *realistic* for once?"         "Heroism?  Uh...  I'll
                                      take the Likeable Rogue
                                      option, please."

                                            BRAIN_PULP


A book about unreliability of human reason...

   The canon was gazing at Don Quixote and wondering at this
   strange great madness of his, and at how he showed a fine
   understanding in all his remarks and replies, only taking
   leave of his senses, as has already been pointed out, when
   chivalry was the subject under discussion.

   Part 1, Chapter XLIX, p. 451


   Sancho said all this with
   such calm assurance, every
   so often wiping his nose
   with the back of his hand,           SHANDY_TOWN_MIND
   and it was all so absurd,
   that both men were again
   struck with amazement as
   they considered how
   powerful Don Quixote's              ' ... what must have happened is that
   madness was, carrying this          those who have enchanted me have
   poor man's wits along with          assumed their likenesses; because it
   it.                                 is easy for enchanters to take on
                                       whatever appearance they please, and
     Part 1, Chapter XXVI, p. 226      they must have taken on the appearance
                                       of our friends to make you think what
                                       you are thinking, and lead you into a
                                       maze of conjectures from which you
                                       would not be able to extricate
                                       yourself even if provided with the
                                       thread of Theseus. ... '

                                       Don Quixote to Sancho.
                                       Part I, Chapter XLVIII, p. 447


A collection of fragments....

When Cervantes drops the Two Stooges
routine and goes off on a tangent,
the book gets much more readable.             "I've never seen a book
                                              of chivalry that could be
The stories within a story all work           regarded as a whole body
pretty well as stories, even though           complete with all its
they're extremely simple tales                members, and in which the
of romantic romance.                          middle corresponds with
                                              the beginning and the end
"The Tale of Inappropriate                    with the beginning and
Curiosity" is probably the                    the middle; on the
best...                                       contrary, their authors
                                              give them so many members
The Captive escaping from the                 that their intention
Moors is okay too -- the detail               seems more to produce a
there makes it look like                      chimera or a monster than
Cervantes was doing historical                a well-proportioned figure."
fiction, or possibly travelog.
                                              Part 1, Chapter XLVII, p.440
Even the stuff about the Ragged               The canon, to the priest
Knight (Cardenio) works okay,
despite being resolved by                          A fine example of the old
multiple forced coincidences.                      self-deprecating hypocrisy
                                                   joke (one of the seven
                                                   deadly types of humor).
 So: what is Cervantes saying about
 our relationship to fiction, by
 interjecting these simple stories
 into the satiric narrative without
 any noticiable irony?

     Showing by example how
     a Quixote can be seduced?

     Or is he apologizing for
     coming down so hard on
     tales of romance?
                                           NULL_HINGED
        "Don Quixote" is a
        tribute to the engaging
        power of fiction of
        which the novel itself
        has nil.


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