The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-06-05

NTHERS had ridiculed the tales
" of chivalry before him: Rabe-
lais, for example, and Chaucer; and
it must be admitted that Cervantes
had himself thought of writing a
serious imitation of "Amadis de
Gaul."
Perhaps it was his own poverty
that at least gave point to his pur-
pose; he resented the airy perfec-
ton of imagination in the face of
life's grimneSs and bathos; he wrote
to exercise romance from his own
soul; and he does not so much mock
romance for being unlike life, as he
satirizes life for being unlike ro-
nance. His own career had begun
like Don QuiXote's, and was ending
ike Sancho Panza's.
Let us look at the hero and his
valet. The Don is a country
gentleman drunk with romantic lit
erature; he rises suddenly from his
gallant books and swears that he
will be a knight; he arms himself
from head to foot; gets himself a
horse, aged and thin, but he re-
deems her with the name of
RoSinante, because he wants a good
big word, such a one as should fill
the mouth"
He takes to the road, filling the
air with language; meets some work
men laden With tools, and mistakes
them for arr led knights, halts them
with a naughty Hold" and chal-
lenges them: "Let all mankind
acknowledge and confess that there
is not in the universe a more beau
tiful damsel than the peerless Dull
cinea del ToboSi."
1t is true that Dulcinea does not
exist; nevertheless she is beautiful.
and at least as indispensable as
RoSinante. "a knight Grant" says
Don, CAMS be without a mistress:
It's not more essential for the skies
to have stars, than it's to be in love-"
Somewhere there must be a
woman waiting for him; and until
he meets here he will hold her beau
tiful. AS he never meets her, her
beauty and his love increases; and
in her name, if luck is with him, he
will split every skull in Christendom.
LIE has a servant whom he has
L bound to him with the prom
Use of a dukedom over an entire
island when he comes at last into
the kingdom which he is certain to
conquer; and every knightly en-
counter Sancho prays that this time
at last he may get his island.
Quixote is as thin as a saint,
SanchoaS fat as an archbishop; it
is a mystery not explained by their
creator, how it is that Sanoho re-
mains as stout as ever, though he
and his master starve in every chap
ter. But there is no sauce in the
world like hunger" says Cervantes;
"and as the poor never lack that,
they always eat with good stomach"
Cervantes had begun with the
idea of writing a short satire: but
he fell in love with his subject and
his creatures, and ran on into 1000
pages. We need not read more
than 300, unless we have long life
and long wind; we are convinced
of the authors theorem and will
be content with one-fifth of the
proof.
But for those who can meander
(and would that we might AID,
there will be a healing pleasure in
following this merry inventor, as
"undulant and diverse" as Mon
taigne, and as reckless as Quixote's
horse-"He rode on, leaving it to
his horses discretion to go which
way he pleased"
Perhaps this horse sense does not
suffice to make a work of art; and
it is easy to see, from the loosely
episode structure of the structure
lessness of this book that it was
written with gay irrelevence, and in
an ambling spirit that loved the
road more than the journeys end.
There is no architecture here, no
tying threads together, no cement
ing unity; indeed, the story often
enough retraces its own track, and
in every other chapter the Don is
kicked, beaten, wounded and left
half dead. The humor is of the sort
that Shakespeare's groundlings
would have relished; simple burles-
que humor, less erotic than excre-
tory, redeemed with the laughter of
the gods and the sympathy which
philosophers can give to every hui
man error.
How shall we caYil at it when
e