For 415 years, the original "dynamic duo" of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza have intrigued readers with their memorable road trip adventures. What they can teach us even now.
Here is a question for you. Has anything in human nature really changed in 400 years?
In 1605, When Miguel de Cervantes published his story of a well-to-do dilettante and his illiterate neighbor setting out on quests as a knight errant and faithful squire-- the world roared with laughter. They still do.
Our second president, John Adams (an exceptionally well-read man) always carried two books with him wherever he went-- the bible and Don Quixote.
With that overture played-- let's open the curtain on this comedy that has captivated generations of readers.
At first glance the novel appears to be a farce. A well'to-do burger reads so much literature of knight-errantry that his "brains, dry-up", and as a result, he sells some acreage, and with his (at first mercenary and then later converted) neighbor-- sets off to right the wrongs of the world.
If indeed Cervantes had written a farce-- it would have been popular with his readers, but it is doubtful it would have been timeless. The genius of Don Quixote is determining the level of his madness, the motivation of his madness, and the consequences of his noble deeds and intentions.
This is where we come to now. Although our many differences seem particular to our time and place, Cervantes reminds us that the ideologue and the self-important scholar; the prig and the opportunist; the dreamer and the denier-- are all on that same road to hell paved with good intentions.
Don Quixote as an idealist would be more lovable (and certainly more persuasive) if he were a tad less arrogant and far less self-important. Throughout his pontificate of folly, it is the not-quite cynical-- but certainly street-wise and jaded every-man-- Sancho Panza-- who tells the reader in his reactions, that no matter how well-read or well intended-- "whether the stone hits the jar, or the jar hits the stone-- its going to be bad for the jar".
And Don Quixote is not alone in his misguided attempts at good intentions. The small town intelligentsia, led by the priest and barber, spare no expense (or effort) to intrude on their friend's good intentions with their own -- from walling up his library to downright subterfuge. Of course-- since they are the plutocrats of the town-- they are the sane ones-- never mind the old adage about who is less sane-- the madman or the person who argues with one.
In our current world, where the media and mass culture make every windmill a giant and every flock of sheep an invading army-- we should try to recall the lessons that Cervantes eloquently sketched from pen to paper. Landholder or curate, surgeon or poet-- you must always keep the the Sancho Panzas in mind. Humble and ill-read though they may be, they might have a better idea of how to save the world than you do, with all your learning and self-important good intentions.
For further consideration:
A piece on the novel Don Quixote, Wikipedia
Don Quixote Kindle Edition, Amazon (Free to all)
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