A few months ago I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to read Don Quixote again. I hadn't read it since my first go-round in college...about 40 years ago. He anxiously asked if he could join me, and I said sure, since it is always more fun to read with somebody else...and I told him I would get us both copies of the same translation. It took a bit of doing, but eventually I found a second copy of the translation I wanted to read...the same one I had read all those years ago, but also the translation I liked the best when I compared five different ones...by Walter Starkie.
I should have known things wouldn't go well with this little reading duo. For one thing, this was the same friend who had talked about wanting to read Faust together, but who could never even decide if he meant Goethe's or Marlowe's version...and who then proceeded to tease me about how we hadn't read it for years after it didn't happen. When I gave him (for free, by the way) a copy of Don Quixote, his first comment was, "The print is really small in this." Did I mention that it was free? I told him, "If you want to find another version, that's fine with me." Of course he demurred.
I started reading, but I'm pretty fast when I decide to bear down on something, so I kept asking Friend, "How far are you?" And then I'd have to stop reading for a couple of days...or a week...until he caught up to me. Finally, around 150 pages in, he stopped making any progress whatsoever. I waited for awhile, kept asking...nada. So yesterday I decided Fuck Him and picked the book up to finish it on my own. I've just knocked out 30 pages, and it already made me laugh so hard at two separate incidents that my youngest son was a little worried about me.
That's what I call great literature.
ANYway, today I read a passage which I'd entirely forgotten about. Of course, I've entirely forgotten most of the book, so that's not saying much of anything. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that just about everybody has forgotten most of this book. You see it pop up on Jeopardy! every once in awhile...like last night, as a matter of fact, which is kind of a weird little coincidence...but the answer is always some variation of "Windmills." Which is the point I'm coming to, but I have to get out my pencil sharpener first, so wait for it.
In "The Forgotten Incident," Don Quixote sees two clouds of dust heading towards each other on a road. They are actually two herds of sheep being driven by two different shepherd groups who are unaware of each other's existence, but Don Q decides that they are opposing armies who are going into battle. He even describes the armies in great detail and tells Sancho Panza the reason they are fighting, etc. And then he rides forth to do battle with the bad guys. He rides into the midst of one of the flocks and starts stabbing sheep, and kills "more than seven" of them before the shepherds bring him down with slingshot stones.
It's a pretty disturbing scene, actually.
After I finished reading it, I started thinking about the aforementioned Tilting at Windmills scene. It is (obviously) a case of mental illness manifesting itself, as a sick man fights imaginary enemies...but it seems to me that it has become enmeshed with the idea of idealism and even nobility. At the very least, it is what people say when they think someone is being overly idealistic.
The sheep killing scene, on the other hand, is just plain insanity. Innocent creatures are killed by a crazy man who is completely out of touch with reality. Innocent shepherds are deprived of part of their livelihood because of this man's craziness.
The windmills scene ennobles Don Quixote. The sheep scene snaps it all back into reality.
Don Quixote is not a hero. He is someone we should pity, perhaps. He is certainly someone we should restrain.
Reminds me of someone in the news lately....
