Chekhov’s Mistess

Is this anything like Clinton’s fondness for Walt Whitman?

Probably not (and in all due respect, I’ve expressed my good feelings for the playboy of Harlem before). But this article, from the English edition of Spiegal online is about the Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s affinity for “Don Quixote,” which at times seems like a national marketing campaign…

“As one of his first official acts in office, Don Quixote fan Zapatero appointed a commission to figure out how, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the novel’s first publishing, the jouster and his squire could serve as worldwide goodwill ambassadors for Spain. The Spanish government allocated €30 million to the project, 24 times as much as Germany is spending on this year’s commemoration of German poet Friedrich Schiller.”

And at others genuine zeal…

“For Zapatero, the novel by Miguel de Cervantes, “El Ingenioso Hildalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha,” printed in Madrid 400 years ago, embodies “the basic law of life.” He sees “Don Quixote” as an exalted ode to freedom unparalleled in world literature, the epitome of the universal novel…


Now, Spain has a prime minister with a propensity for quoting from his favorite book in parliament. He always ends his speeches with “vale.” Many consider the 44-year-old socialist proponent of constitutional law from Leon to be the modern reincarnation of Cervantes’ hero, a man whose response to the threat of international terrorism was to recommend an “alliance of cultures,” in a speech to the United Nations. Political commentators love to portray the tall, constantly smiling Zapatero as a well-meaning jouster on an eternal campaign for the good and the beautiful.”

The article, as newspaper articles should, gives us some interesting background on the book as well…

“Aside from the Bible, no other work of literature has been translated and read as much as “Don Quixote.” German schoolchildren are more familiar with the comic exploits of Hidalgo and his portly manservant, Sancho Pansa, than with Schiller’s “Robbers” or Goethe’s “Faust.”


Every April 23, the anniversary of Cervantes’ death, girls wearing ribbons in their hair and boys in tennis shoes join retirees to spend hours waiting in front of the art deco building housing the Madrid Art Society, where they collectively read an act from Spain’s favorite book. Last year, even government ministers, actors and ambassadors took part in a 44-hour marathon reading by almost 5,000 voices that culminated in the novel’s famous final word, “vale,” a mixture of “farewell” and “so be it.”


All this attention to Cervantes’ novel has its precedent in history. A hundred years ago, a generation of poets sought the key to Spain’s constantly changing history in “Don Quixote,” hoping to find answers to the contradiction between the fame once enjoyed by a global empire upon which the sun never set and its grandiose decline. Spain had just lost its last colonies, Cuba and the Philippines, when authors like Miguel de Unamuno, who called the novel Spain’s holy scripture, began developing the character of Don Quixote in their own works.


The knight who once battled windmills has returned once again. Half a million copies of the 1,360-page peoples’ edition, published by the Royal Academy of Language to celebrate the anniversary, have been sold within the first month of publication. Prize-winning Latin American author Mario Vargas Llosa has spoken about the characters, praising Hidalgo as a true liberal who feels a “deep mistrust of the excesses of power.”

But just because I’ve quoted most of the article here doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go read it yourself.

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: March 16, 2005
• Filed Under:
  Wise Men Fish Here: Literature

Tags: Cervantes

• Comments:0
• Links to this Post: Technorati

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