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Greg McNamee wrote a very nice post the other day about the birthday of Don Quixote de la Mancha (right), who is remembered by those who haven’t read the book as the odd fellow who jousted with windmills and sang “The Impossible Dream.” Greg noted in passing that the author of the book, Miguel de Cervantes, died the day before another literary giant, William Shakespeare, passed from the scene.
As you may know, there are those who question whether William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was really “Shakespeare,” the author of some of the most brilliantly penetrating and poetical plays in all human history. They argue that the bumpkin from the Warwickshire village simply could not have had the education or the sophistication required. The argument has been going on for a century and a half, ever since a Connecticut writer by the name of Delia Salter Bacon set it going with a claim that “Shakespeare” was actually Sir Francis Bacon and a few others. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal revealed that no less a contemporary than Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is an anti-Stratfordian; he holds out for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.
The argument is bolstered, at least negatively, by the paucity of information about the Stratford lad. He hardly exists in the documents preserved from his time. Few of his contemporaries thought him worthy of mention. Could so obscure a person have accomplished such miracles of creative expression?
It occurred to me that for some reason no such questions seem to have been raised about Cervantes. I wonder why? If you read the biography of Cervantes in the Encyclopædia Britannica, you repeatedly encounter such words and phrases as “probably,” “little is known,” “supposition,” “another mystery,” “he must…have been,” and the like. In short, much is not known about this fellow also. He was a soldier, a civil servant, and then suddenly, late in life and in jail, he penned this world classic novel. How probable is that? I only ask.
As it happens I have read the book, though it wasn’t until just a few years ago. I managed to avoid it in college. My girlfriend, a comparative literature major, was assigned it, but I, an English major, got to read The Faerie Queene instead. I lost that round. But I can now strongly urge anyone who hasn’t yet to take up Quixote; and then read Tristram Shandy, too. You’ll thank me.
I’ve always tried to finish the books I start. It’s probably just a character flaw. The only novel I can remember giving up on was John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor. (I had forced my way through Giles Goat Boy and in end wished I hadn’t.) Just now I’m finishing up a book that has tempted me to walk away: A Confederacy of Fools, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1980, in large part, I have to think, because of the book’s back story. I leave it to you to investigate if you’re interested. The novel is meant to be an antihero romp in the manner of Catch-22 or The Ginger Man, but I have found it merely tedious. When next I have a taste for that sort of thing I think I will reread At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien, a very fine book, indeed.
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