Sunday Salon: Don Quixote (Don Quijote), Part 2.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
Published in 2005 by Harper Perennial.

(Part 1 can be read here.)

First of all let me tell you how glad I am that I have finally read this novel. The book publishing industry is pouring out new and newer and newest "sensational" works every day - and while I am trying to get some information before I try a newly "discovered" author, sometimes it is just the urge to keep a tab on the literary pulse (which is not even too important if you think about it, and mainly not leading to real values most of the time; but I am made of human, and such, can be corrupted easily). Consequently, the classics are often play a secondary role in my reading schedule and I am ashamed of it quite well. It is very rare that while reading a book we cry out excitedly: "At last a novel that has not been written with the help of yesterday's readings!" (to paraphrase Chamford if I remember right).

The DQ-volumes proved to me again a well-known commonplace: the subject matter (the "material" or the "story") is basically secondary; the most important factor of a great work is the talent that creates something outstanding in the end from an otherwise not-too-intriguing stuff. Take this masterpiece for instance: in the beginning Cervantes' goal does not seem to be more than creating a parody of the then-fashionable novels of chivalry. First we do not understand his effort - that kind of literature would have died out soon anyhow (after all, the much more "realistic" view in the arts was already awoken in the 16th century, after the dark Middle Ages). However, we soon notice that in its writer's hands the theme way exceeds its original goals. The Don, who seems to be a pathetic, crazy person in the first few chapters, becomes one of life's great symbolic figures by the middle of the first volume (a symbolic figure, by the way, whose symbolism is more meaningful in the European nations' constant identity crisis, than it can ever be over the Atlantic Ocean - hmmm... another topic for a post...?). When we are introduced to the protagonists we simply shrug: what do we have to do with these silly guys? But amidst big laughs we gradually find their story more and more tragic, until we suddenly realize that we are reading a story about ourselves, we are them, the essence of our two inner worlds. Or in other words, we can easily identify ourselves with both Don Quijote and Sancho Panza; reading the stories is like looking in a magic mirror: it makes us face the two sides of our life.

While the first part is more ironic, more of a critique of Reality's Great Misunderstanding by either Don Quijote or Sancho (we can never be sure which is the real thing), the second part - being as funny and ironic as the first one on the surface - is much more the Don's inner, personal way to trying to accept the other world (Sancho's world, if you like) around him. And if Life itself is so scary, so terrifying, so overpowering that the picture we get from Cervantes' beautiful work (or simply by looking around us now), then who knows where the borderline is between sanity and insanity. Maybe it is in charity work for others, maybe it is in giving up our dreams, maybe it is in treasure hunting in places scattered with garbage, maybe it is in being too rational, maybe it is in not seeing in life what it could be.

Don Quixote a madman, and we sane; (...) I'd like to know now which is the madder, he who is so because he cannot help it, or he who is so of his own choice?

Maybe the world would be much more perfect (beautiful?) if it were Don Quijote's world (which is, by the way, the reaction to the eternal dissatisfaction in Life - we can't afford not to build it up inside us) but I guess the real Reality is somewhere between the two viewpoints (represented by the two protagonists): ideals without reality are as false as a reality without ideals.

However, I can't help feeling quite miserably by the end: Don Quijote is definitely one of the most bitter, most disillusioned judgements anyone can tell about us, people. According to Cervantes, we cannot even imagine any ideals let alone live with them - and I cannot argue with this at all.

And still.

There was a very famous Hungarian poet with a very tragic life, Attila József, who, at the dawn of the European fascism, when humankind reached one of its deepest points, wrote a beautiful poem, welcoming Thomas Mann's visit in Hungary. That's what he said in the last four lines (translated by Vernon Watkins):

Sit down, please. Let your stirring tale be said.
We are listening to you, glad, like one in bed,
To see to-day, before that sudden night,
A European mid people barbarous, white.

Let's not give up our hope.