University of Vermont
With courage and conviction, Félix Martínez-Bonati
takes on nearly the entire establishment of Cervantists from Menéndez
Pelayo and Rodríguez Marín to Ortega y Gasset, Américo
Castro, and most Cervantine scholars of today. Not that this is a broadside
attack, nor is it an inimical one. With a nod toward those aspects with which
critics have provided him with food for thought, Martínez-Bonati makes
it politely and definitely clear that the proper reading of
Don Quixote has not yet been achieved. His
aim is nothing less than to «consider some very generalized points of
confusion that obstruct the correct understanding of the Cervantine
text»
(4). If his theses are valid, he declares, his
reading «is the original reading, that of an educated contemporary of
Cervantes. At the same time it is the best reading, forever prescribed by the
text and its pertinent circumstances. Though it seems boastful, this is a
modest claim»
(231).
Cervantists may be surprised to learn that there is no
«pensamiento de Cervantes» in
Don Quixote, that is, «the thought
of the
Quixote is not the thought of
Cervantes'»
(xiv); that «the philosophy
(including the literary theory) present in the Cervantine work is
insignificant»
(20); that «the question whether
the
Quixote is the first modern novel, the
prototype of the genre, cannot be answered in the affirmative»
(64); that the
—103→
«Cervantine discourse
(except in occasional speeches by Don Quixote) is never like the chivalric, not
even when it introduces familiar motifs from books of chivalry»
(75); that «the explicit theme of the evil of books of
chivalry in the
Quixote has to be understood as a
superficial motif»
(16). At times the author gets caught
up in the web of his own complexity. Referring to instances such as the
reaction of Don Fernando and others to Dorotea's story («they wished
it had lasted longer, such was the charm with which Dorotea described her sad
experiences»
) and Don Fernando's reaction to the captive's tale
(«we should be glad if we could hear it all over again»
),
Martínez-Bonati calls our attention to «these duplicities of a
meta-poetic dimension», «transregional speech acts»
(71), and «dislocated literary commentary»
(259). Although I cannot disagree with him, is all this
nomenclature really necessary? Does it not suffice to say that the characters,
suffering from the boredom of their (admittedly literary) existence, find
interest in the travails of others, much as devotees of escapist fiction,
mystery stories, and horror movies are wont to do? And do such reactions of
supposedly rational people not mirror the protagonist's own inability to
separate art and reality? Is this evident point made any clearer by the labels
cited above?
Martínez-Bonati attributes to Cervantes the
«supreme solution to [the] Aristotelian norm of the absolute
beginning»
by presenting Anselmo's case («El curioso
impertinente») as without cause. Anselmo's «tragic error is
unmotivated; nevertheless, to a penetrating intuition it is part of the
unfathomable order of nature»
(206). It sounds very
erudite, yet I suggest a much simpler explanation. There
is a cause, and it is the obsession with the
loss of honor because of the possible actions of one's wife, the essence of
much of the Golden Age
comedia. Cervantes' position regarding
the Lopean presentation of this theme is well known. Anselmo's irrational
behavior is in reality the product of his rational
reductio ad absurdum of this concern.
And we find it purposefully exaggerated in other psychotic cases in Cervantine
writings, notably in
El celoso extremeño and
El viejo celoso. But this would argue for
Cervantes' thought to be found in his literary creations, something
Martínez-Bonati rejects (although at one point he does indulge in
biographical conjecture, admitting that he has gone «beyond the limits
that I have set for myself»
[212]).
We read of «the rigorous silence that is maintained in
the work with respect to Don Quixote's
past... All that we know of him and the
others is what has occurred in these few months of his insanity. There are no
recollections or narrative anticipations that go beyond this
circumscription»
(97). Yet we are then given a list of
details -isolated to be sure- that do give us slight glimpses into the
protagonist's past, such as his having seen Aldonza Lorenzo and his boyhood
fondness for the theater. But such instances, says Martínez-Bonati, are
related «in the modality of uncertainty»
(97),
by which is meant a qualifier like («according to what is
understood»). I leave aside the cumbersome nature of such phraseology,
just as the author leaves aside other hints about the protagonist's past, such
as the reference
—104→
to his paternal grandmother and his declaration
to have descended from the Quixana family (I.49), in which no uncertainty is
suggested, though it is true that these are statements by Don Quixote himself
(which apparently is what disqualifies his assertion that he has not seen
Aldonza as many as four times). But my quarrel is not with the veracity or
uncertainty of these details. The fact is that such qualifiers abound in the
Quixote, yet Martínez-Bonati cites
them only in references to the protagonist's past or future in order to make
the point that such exceptions to the norm (of limiting the time frame to the
events recounted in the book) «stand out and even surprise us, thereby
confirming this design of almost chronicle-like closure»
(97). I am not sure what is meant by «almost
chronicle-like», but although I agree with the general thrust of the
argument here, the use of the «modality of uncertainty» to make the
simple point is irrelevant unless all the many other statements like «as
far as what is believed» are similarly scrutinized.
Joaquín Casalduero treats the two parts of
Don Quixote as two distinct works, we are
told, in support of which Martínez-Bonati cites Casalduero's use of
«'the 1605
Quixote' and 'the 1615
Quixote'»
(93). What
are we to conclude then, when Martínez-Bonati himself refers to
«the 1605 book», «the 1605
Quixote»
, and the «1605
work»
(106-107)? Clearly, Martínez-Bonati does
not treat the two parts as distinct works. Though it is not inaccurate to say
that Casalduero does, the use of these locutions, as in the cases of
«modality of uncertainty», amounts to the accommodation of a text
to support a point of view.
Martínez-Bonati confuses the role of the narrator. At one
point he speaks of the «parodical posture of 'historian' assumed by
the fictional narrator»
(6), thereby confusing the
narrator and the fictional historian, Cide Hamete. He later corrects this view
by declaring what most Cervantists understand quite well, namely that the
narrator «is in no perceptible respect 'an Arabic historian', and
there is not even a formal reason to call him Cide Hamete, since he quotes Cide
Hamete's words as those of another person»
(101-02). At
another point he refers to Don Quixote's interment at the end of Part I,
mentioned by the same narrator who «makes the writer Cervantes a
friend of the Curate, so that Don Quixote becomes a contemporary of the
narrator»
(81), erroneously equating the fictive
narrator with the author of the 1585
Galatea. (It is the inclusion of the
historical Cervantes as a friend of the fictional curate that is at issue here.
The narrator is not the author -fictive or historical- alluded to by the
priest. The irony lies in the book's inclusion in Don Quixote's library; the
narrator here serves only to narrate that «fact».) It is also
confusing, at least to me, how it is
the narrator who «makes [Don Quixote]
learn about the publication and translation» of Cide Hamete's volume one.
At other times, Martínez-Bonati refers to the narrator as the
«narrator-author».
Although he concedes that there is some inconsistent evolution in
the characters, Martínez-Bonati allows himself to be taken in by the
fictive translator's interjections in II.5. Granted that Sancho has not been
transformed
—105→
from peasant to solon, his constant contact with Don
Quixote's stories cannot help but have their effect. We already see in Part I
how Don Quixote's narrative not only captured Sancho's imagination but,
parallel to Don Quixote's own path to madness, the story made Sancho so
oblivious to his own circumstances that he forgot he had a wife and family
(I.21). And in I.29, Sancho is perfectly prepared to believe that his master
can kill the giant that has aggrieved Princess Micomicona, though he does not
believe that Don Quixote can deal with phantoms. (Not to be missed is Sancho's
use of «desfaga» here.) Yet
Martínez-Bonati insists that «the characters of the
protagonists remain essentially unchanged to the end: chivalric madness and
pedestrian good sense»
( 268; emphasis mine), though elsewhere he allows that
«Don Quixote and Sancho change considerably and inverisimilarly in
physical aspect and in personality during the course of the work»
(102). Why is it so difficult to believe that in a private
conversation with his wife months later, Sancho will mimic his master's way of
talking? And, as he himself says in that chapter, much of what he says is not
of his own invention, «for all that I mean to say are the judgments of
the reverend father who preached in this town the past Lent»
, an
explanation he also uses for one of his «Solomonic» judgments as
governor. And if we are to credit the «translator» here, the entire
chapter is apocryphal, yet in the very next chapter the narrator refers to
Sancho's wife as Teresa Cascajo, as she had insisted in that
«apocryphal» chapter.
Martínez-Bonati is a fine reader of detail. He notes, for
instance, that during the dialogues in Don Diego de Miranda's home, the narrow
focus is centered on the foreground, leaving Don Diego's wife completely out of
vision. If most of us are aware of this, how many will also have noticed that
the range of vision, «with no explanation..., even excludes
Sancho»
(100)? What this reviewer misses, however, is
Martínez-Bonati's explanation of this exclusion. Similarly, reference is
made to passages of «silent irony»
, and we are told that
«there is a good example in I.21»
(101).
Cervantists may be expected to recall this chapter's content, but why not
simply tell us? If there is a reason to bring such matters to our attention,
why are we not given the benefit of the author's insight? And why is it
necessary to tell us, when citing a passage from Genesis, that Abraham was
«at that time called Abram»
(205)? On the other
hand, the author is very clear when he explains why Don Quixote disappears by
going to sleep immediately upon his return to the inn following his stay in the
Sierra Morena: not for psychological reasons pertaining to his character but
for «metapoetic reasons»
(235). That is, he
would simply be in the way of the conclusion of the stories that find their
denouement at the inn. Here Martínez-Bonati criticizes Howard Mancing's
reading as «out of place». (On an earlier occasion, he similarly
labels Mancing's assumption about the characterization of the priest
«out of place»
[87].) The same argument
regarding Don Quixote's disappearance at the inn is presented elsewhere in the
volume to refute E. C. Riley's «one-dimensional»
and
«mistaken»
reading (58).
Martínez-Bonati's argument is coherent, particularly given the
perspective applied to
—106→
his analysis, but it is unfortunate that
at times the tone of such disagreements takes on the appearance of
condescension: The volume ends with a nod to «contemporary Cervantes
scholarship, which owes a great deal to both Riley and Mancing»
(235). Indeed.
This book is not intended to be a series of interpretations of the episodes of Don Quixote. The author's purpose is the study of the work's poetics. And he is at his best when he is analyzing not the plot but the anatomy of Don Quixote, not its characterization but its poetic architecture, not its psychological depictions but its response to poetological (the author's word) and phenomenological analysis. It is not an easy book to read, partly because of its heavy reliance on nomenclature, partly because of its complex sentences that are often marred by parenthetical commentary that tends to divert the reader's focus. Nonetheless, it is an important book.
«Don Quixote» and the Poetics of the Novel is a thought-provoking study. Despite some of the shortcomings that I perceive in it, it merits careful study by Cervantists. Much of its material is original and challenges the assumptions and presumptions of distinguished scholars in some of the most often cited works on Don Quixote. Whether one agrees or disagrees with its theses, its reading is rewarding and forces a rethinking. This is, after all, the purpose of scholarship.