Summer Vacation, Day 10: Cervantes

June 13, 2008 / J. Thorp / 1 Comment

As I said late last night (or early this morning as the case may have been), I finally finished Don Quixote. Great book, full of poetry and humor and provocation. The story itself provokes: consider the fact that a well-to-do couple stages elaborate scenarios to engage Don Quixote’s madness and Sancho Panza’s simplicity, and they do this in order to amuse themselves. Cruel, right?

On the flip side, there are moments in the scenarios in which our heroes are as alive and happy as they’ve ever been. The cruelty is dulled by the fact that the heroes don’t seem to be experiencing it as cruelty. (Although a few times I wondered if Quixote was truly mad, or just “living his dream” …)

From a writerly perspective, it provokes, too. Cervantes brings himself (personally, and under various guises) into the narrative and draws attention to his craft. Audacious! Plus, my translation kept my head spinning with questions about the original text and the challenge of translating humor. When Don Quixote uses the word “syntax” and Sancho replies something like he’ll regret the “sin” and take a pass on the “tax” – was that a play on words in the original Spanish? Homophones don’t translate, do they?

Beyond these points, here’s my Top Three Things To Love List for Don Quixote:

A Man Living By An Outdated Code. One of my favorite literary and film themes, e.g., Mr. Blue and Ghost Dog.

You Always Mock the One You Love. To me, the love of Cervantes for his subject matter is clear. All of the tales within the tale are well done, layering romance atop romance. The bad poetry is appropriately bad, and the good, appropriately lovely. The chivalry-hating priest cannot bring himself to burn all the books, and those who seek to help the knight to sanity mourn his madness when it passes. I’m writing a fractured fairy tale right now, so I like this approach.

What Is the Nature of Madness? Don Quixote’s lunacy-versus-lucidity was interesting, but I loved the more subtle madness of Sancho and his wife. Who hasn’t seen that PowerBall jackpot and dreamed of what they’d do with it? These two (and DQ to boot) roll the dice, then get caught up in the bounces!

Complaints? Only the length, but it helps to keep in mind that the two volumes were published 10 years apart. People who read the first volume were hungry for more. Today, to paraphrase my good friend Jinglebob, we are fed, not a forkful of hay, but the whole load at once.

The Spirit Is Willing …

June 4, 2008 / J. Thorp / 3 Comments

I’ve been stewing on a question for some time now – especially since this post got me to thinking about a conversation several months ago with Jinglebob regarding the war in Iraq. This question, however, can also be applied to political campaigns, labor disputes, and public disagreements of all kinds. The question is this:

At what point do good people make the choice
to fight dirty in order to win?

I remember the point at which, during the 2000 Republican Primary season, McCain started to get dirty, and the Straight Talk Express began to veer. I remember pundits saying, just a few months ago, that Obama needed to “get tough” to combat Clinton’s negative attacks. I’ve worked in communications for more than a decade now, and I’ve seen the daily headline wars won again and again by simplistic, and generally negative, messages – sometimes with little to no basis in fact. And I’ve heard friends and family advocate extreme measures to combat terrorists with no qualms at all about committing the worst sorts of atrocities against innocent people.

When confronted with such an adversary, it seems there is little room for negotiation, nuance, rules or truth. The faithful are often admonished to turn the other cheek – but once both cheeks are battered and bruised … then what?

This is the point at which the idealist in me says, Then you lose on principle. Die with honor.

But the body rebels. The mind justifies. The ego says, No way I’m going out without a fight. The gloves are coming off!

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Jewish psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl touches briefly on the lives of Jewish capos – prisoners who, in many cases, decided to survive the concentration camps by any means necessary. These prisoners acted as camp trustees on behalf of the Nazi SS and, Frankl says, sometimes became more brutal that the Nazi guards in their treatment of fellow prisoners. Frankl argues that these men sacrificed something more precious than life – their personal values. They were accorded special privileges and survived the camps, but many never recovered their humanity.

Public policy is rarely life-and-death, so this comparison is not exact. But the same questions apply to both arenas: Where is the line, and when should we cross?

Fishing Followup

October 9, 2007June 4, 2017 / J. Thorp / 3 Comments

It’s been quiet around here, mainly because my off-line life has been anything but. Just a quick one tonight: The long-promised group shot of the intrepid trout fishermen from our trip to Colorado. From left to right, it’s Sasquatch, the Kid, Cowboy Bob, and the Buddha. Why the Buddha? Because he smiles often and says little; you rarely know what he’s thinking, but when he speaks, it’s important. Always.

The Poetry of Falling Leaves …

September 27, 2007October 23, 2023 / J. Thorp / 3 Comments

I saw my breath on the trek across campus this morning, the first real sign that the best time of the year is upon us. The leaves have been changing, bit by bit, for a month now – more from lack of water than anything else, and now there’s no lack of that. The slip and patter of droplets from leaf to ground; the plunk! of dislodged acorns and feather-fall of the leaves themselves is music to my over-heated ears. Come frost, and fleece, and wood smoke! Come, October!

Thought I’d share some old stuff to help share the autumnal spirit. I called them poems when I wrote them; a couple I even dubbed haiku, although they’re titled and … well, they’re 17 syllables, 5-7-5, but little else. Call them what you like – I hope you enjoy them.

cornucopia
the hungry need
mornings like this –
the world no longer
black or white, but blue,
red-orange, gold and green,
deep purple, nutty brown
the trees like apples, stood
on their stems, some
like tomatos turning;
melon-ball maples, lemon
poplars, grape sumac –
crisp and abundant and
ripe for the picking

j. thorp
16 oct 02

monarch’s fall
in leaves almost lost
on swirling autumn breezes
the monarch tumbles

j. thorp
20 oct 00

crash
bloodied by the fall
the sumac’s head drips red on
shards of shattered grass

j. thorp
(some frosty october
morning, circa 2001)

I’m working on what my friend might call a real poem – one with rhyme and meter and everything – based on our recent trip to the mountains. Maybe tomorrow…

High Country Fishing

September 25, 2007June 4, 2017 / J. Thorp / 5 Comments

So I thought I’d give words a rest and share a few photos from our mountain excursion with our good friend Cowboy Bob, while we’re on the topic.

That’s Jinglebob himself, and a shaggy varmint we’ll call The Kid. I hadn’t realize Bob hadn’t spent much time in this country; his head was turning every which way, trying to take everything in, and he kept shouting “Oohs” and “Aahs” and various expletives, whic was nerve-wracking, since he was driving, too …

Every view a postcard, but the camera won’t do them justice.

The only elk we saw in all of Colorado was this beautiful bull in Estes State Park, comfortably chewing his cud and enjoying his protected status. My dad, uncle, cousin, and a family friend had were hunting elk with black powder rifles south of here – but Bob, the Kid, and I were seeking trout.

We tried fly-fishing and casting spinners and spoons in the Colorado River for a couple of days, to no avail. On the way to the river one day we looked down into the valley to see this train snaking through a stone archway!

On the last day of fishing, we found it: a quiet mountain lake stocked with cutbows – a rainbow/cutthroat cross, I’m guessing. We fished with with worms, spinners, and a jar of salmon eggs a couple of other fishermen left for us. The Kid caught the biggest (and the smallest – poor little thing bit off more than he could chew), and the group caught 13 in all. Pan-fried with salt and lemon-pepper, they were delicious!