Hey SavMarshMama Krewe
CreoleBeBebop here
I'm reading Don Quixote for the umpteenth time. Reading a translation by Edith Grossman. Why, some may ask, are you reading that fucking tome? Why indeed? Here are several reasons:
- I was intellectually abused by Carmelite monks when I was an impressionable high school student. They thought the sun rose and set in the Western canon, and M. Cervantes was its high priest.
- It contains the plots and subplots, along with Billy Shakespeare, of every masterpiece of Western fiction since.
- I agreed to read it periodically because one of my sons (The Doc) does the same, and he's super fucking smart.
- I like that Don Quixote gets his ass handed to him throughout the book, but keeps on trucking. Voltaire's Pangloss in Candide comes close to getting this number of mind-numbing ass-kickings. And he says, "That is all for the best in this best of all possible worlds." What a fucking Shmoo. I see you fucking MAGA bitches.
- I want to disprove the literary worth of the son-of-a-bitch each time I read it, but can't for the life of me.
So, I can only imagine that somewhere, right now, on this planet, someone is saying to himself/herself and to their students that the greatest novel, bar none of all time is Gilgamesh, or the Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, or some other non-Western classic novel. And this is said with all the self-righteousness, cultural arrogance, and hubris that the Carmelites exhibited when they inflicted Cervantes on the young, tender mind of CreoleBeBop.
One of their students is probably saying, this is bullshit! I heard about this book written in the 17th century that was the fucking bomb - and the name is even cool - Don Quixote!
I leave you with this Western tradition:
This weekend is the Kentucky Derby. I'm drinking a mint Julep in anticipation, and reading Cervantes. Go figure.
Derby and Don?
ReplyDeleteThat's quite the pair.
xoxo
Don Quixote? I don't think Drumpf translates to Quixote in Spanish, but it fits.
ReplyDelete{{{hides head in hands}}} I have to admit... I've never read it.
ReplyDeleteI've not even seen Man of la Mancha!
Forgive me. Jx
You have been spared. Don Quixote's madness started because he read too much. Go figure.
DeleteI can never read the name "Mint Julep" without the taste of puke rising in the back of my throat.
ReplyDeleteTeehee, nobody knows Pangloss these days.
ReplyDeleteKentucky Derby - I only know what Hunter S. Thompson had to say about it, something along the line of "degenerated and perverse", but ther may have some "Mint Julep" be involved - whatever it is. The name sounds a bit like something from British cousin ... GOd may help us !
I preferred Candide to Don Quixote because Candide wasn't so damned prolix. I won't be re-reading either one any time soon. Now hand me that julep!
ReplyDeleteCandide was great! Quixote was a slog. I won't be re-reading either one any time soon. Now pass the juleps!
ReplyDeleteI disagree with your Carmelites. WTF Don Quixote. Candide was better and you weren't stuck reading the same thing restated ninety different times. Gimme a julep.
ReplyDelete