Miguel de Cervantes published the first part of the Don Quixote in 1605 and the second ten years later, in 1615. In doing so he has been credited with inventing the novel wholesale, and there are early, incipient forms of things like postmodern literature and metafiction within it. In his introduction to Edith Grossman's translation, which is the translation I read, Harold Bloom said that it is to the novel what Shakespeare is to drama.
Three hundred and sixty-seven years later, Graham Greene published Monsignor Quixote.
Monsignor Quixote bills itself as a retelling of Cervantes' book, in post-Franco Spain. It is that, but, luckily, it is so much more than that.
Cervantes's book is the story of a minor nobleman who becomes convinced, through the many books of chivalry he has read, that he is a knight errant and so sets out for adventures, accompanied by a peasant, Sancho Panza - of course, that is the most literal description. On a thematic level, Don Quixote is mad, wrong - outright delusional - about much of the world around him, yet in his clinging to old ideals nevertheless demonstrates the madness of the world around him, too.
Greene's book is the story of a country priest who, by accident, is made into a monsignor and so is unwillingly forced from his congregation, accompanied by the ex-Mayor of the town, a Communist who has lost an election, Sancho Zancas. In Cervantes, Sancho is a peasant, occasionally clever and possessed of some level of knowledge of the madness of his master but nonetheless ignorant of much of the world around him. In Greene, Sancho becomes a second Quixote. Both loyal to the spirit of the beliefs more than the letter of them or the ostensible heads of the institutions that define and represent those beliefs. The two are bound in friendship by both this shared idealism at core as much by doubt and uncertainty.
Many of the events of both books map directly to each other, but what spurs them is different. Don chooses adventures. Monsignor is forced into them. Don’s books of chivalry are works of fiction – Monsignor’s are the Bible, the Gospels. (Oh, it is true that Monsignor also believes himself to be a descendant of Don. But this is not something he clings to with anything like the ferocity with which Don clings to the idea that his books of chivalry are true histories.) Don, upon encountering windmills, believes them to be giants and charges them. Monsignor is found by the Guardia, and though they are later compared to windmills, it’s clear that they are closer to giants, and they reappear later on.
And the endings diverge completely. Don is defeated in a duel and returns home, and shortly takes ill. He returns to himself, Alonso Quixano the Good. Monsignor is wounded and taken to a monastery, where, in a fit of delirium, he celebrates Mass and administers communion to Sancho, and then sinks into his arms and dies.
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Don Quixote is a long work, over nine hundred pages long, that walks the line between comedy and tragedy; a comic tragedy, a tragic comedy.
Monsignor Quixote is a short work, just under two hundred pages, is an elegy, whatever its moments of humor. And I think it deserves more attention.
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