Cervantes is my hero: I Heart Irony

So, I've been reminded that I haven't written anything here in a while. Partly that's because, as I said in one of my recent entries, I'm too busy living to spend time writing, but mostly it's because I've been spending all my time writing other stuff and reading. I've been dutifully trying to finish Don Quixote and I didn't want to write about it until I had, but I'm so enamored of Cervantes use of irony and meta fiction that I had to say something about it now.

Here's the quote that confirmed Cervantes as my hero. Cardenio says of Don Quixote, "I don't know whether anyone who tried to invent such a character in fiction would have the genius to achieve success."

Seriously? Does it get any funnier than that. If you guys haven't read any Cervantes you don't know what you're missing. I mean, genius, Cervantes does have, and he's not afraid to mention it off hand, just in case you hadn't notice after 300 or so pages.

A couple of years ago, before I went back to school, I decided there were certain books I had to read in order to consider myself an educated person....The Iliad, The Odyssey, Wuthering Heights, Moby Dick, Don Quixote, Crime and Punishment, The Canterbury Tales, The Old Man and the Sea, etc. The Odyssey is the only one I got through before going back to school and at the time I didn't think it such a problem because I sort of assumed that being back in school would expose me, as required reading, to these classic works of literature. Not so. I had a lot of required reading in school but almost none of it included any of the classic works of literature on my "must read" list.

However, in school, I met someone who re-inspired me to get back to my personal required reading list. This guy in one of my classes said he was reading Don Quixote and, over time it became clear that he had impeccable taste, so I asked him if it was any good. He, of course, said it was great, because he's no idiot (as I said his taste is impeccable). Any praise he gave it though couldn't compare to how great it really is. You just have to read it. And make sure to read all the foot notes.

Cervantes is hilarious and, even better, his humor is often very subtle. I'd write more about it now, but I want to get back to reading the book. Seriously though, read it, you won't be sorry.

Have faith cycling fans - Millar's back

How cool is it that David Millar won the prologue at Paris-Nice? In my opinion it is a fantastic start to the European cycling season. Sure, I'd hoped that Dave Zabriskie would win, but Millar is another one of my favorites.

Millar is unpopular in some circles for having admitted to doping but I think the fact that he admitted it, took his punishment, and came back to the sport clean is a good thing. Yes, it's some negative press for the sport of cycling to have an admitted doper, but it's better than the usual state of cycling where you can't tell the dirty riders from the clean ones.

I like to believe that athletes who spend huge amounts of their time and money trying to prove their innocence on doping charges are clean. Professional cyclists don't make a lot of money in comparison to pros in other sports and the demands on their time are pretty huge if they want to train in the way they need to in order to compete at the professional level. So, there's some logic in thinking that athletes that spend a lot of time and money fighting doping charges are more likely to be innocent, but it's not super great logic by any means. The truth is you really can't tell who's on drugs anymore. Believing that those who fight charges are innocent and those that don't are probably guilty is comforting but even that only encompasses those that actually get accused.

David Millar was exceptional though. He was open about his doping. He admitted it. He talked about it openly and about his efforts to get in racing shape and be competitive without drugs after coming back from his suspension. He's a success story of someone who's come back from doping, and from everything I've heard he's a really great guy as well. I liked him before the doping and somehow even knowing that his results before were drug induced didn't disillusion me. I looked forward with hope to Millar's triumphant return to professional cycling. And now he's back.

This is going to be a good year in cycling. Tom Boonen may not have won the Tour of Qatar but he made a very strong showing. He's in top form. Levi Leipheimer won the Tour of California a couple weeks ago and he's riding with the Discovery Chanel team now. David Millar is back and in winning form. It's a great time to be a cycling fan. I say, don't let the drug scandals ruin your enjoyment of the sport.

No time for writing. Too busy living.

Things I'd like to blog about but don't have time to discuss in detail:

Cycling season is underway. Tom Boonen did not win the Tour of Qatar again this year, but I think he's going to have a really good season and that makes me happy.

GM is introducing a plug in hybrid car (as are several other auto makers).

Libby was found guilty of obstruction and perjury for his part in the Valerie Plame leak.

There's an investigation into possible abuse of power regarding the firing of some US attorneys recently.

There's going to be a vote on whether or not to rebuild the Alaskan Way Viaduct or to put in a tunnel instead, but it doesn't include a surface street option or an option to reinforce the current viaduct. (Since I don't have time to write about this you should all read Danny Westneat's column about it.

In fact, while you're at it, read his column about impeaching Bush and his column about abolishing civil marriage.

Beckett, Cervantes, Joyce and the Tour de France...the wonders of literature.

Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is possibly the most boring piece of literature ever written. I read it for a dramatic lit class I've been taking this quarter and the professor told us that, after it premiered in Dublin a critic wrote that in Beckett's Waiting for Godot nothing happens twice. I'm a huge fan of word play and that pun is a truly great one, but it's an understatement. In truth nothing happens far more than twice in the play.

However, the class discussion of the play was remarkably interesting despite the source material. There are, apparently, tons of critical essays on Waiting for Godot that address the question of who Godot is. Many of these essays, if not all, were written within Beckett's lifetime and he addressed the speculation by saying that if he knew who Godot was he would have said so thereby indicating that speculating about who (or what) Godot might be or represent is a waste of time. However, my professor felt, and I agree, that one of the speculations was, at least, entertaining.


He told us that one Beckett scholar noticed several mentions of cycling in Beckett novels and he looked through old Tour de France participants and found that there was one named Godot. It's not surprising that Beckett might have been interested in, or even a fan of, cycling given that he lived much of his life in France. I find it puts the, otherwise totally boring, play in a hilarious light though. If you consider that perhaps Vladamir and Estragon are cycling fans waiting by the side of the road after the peleton has long since passed, waiting for a slow rider to finally pass by, it makes it all so much more funny.

When questioned, in class, about where in the world we assumed the setting of the play to be my initial response was that it's not in the world and several people had come to that same conclusion. However, when I thought more about it I realized I'd made a connection somehow between Waiting for Godot and Don Quixote and I'd imagined the play taking place somewhere in Spain as a result. So, we discussed the idea of authors communicating with each other through their works and the idea that the communication between artists of different generations exists in some other place than reality, someplace outside the world.

Now though, I have this image in my head of Beckett and Cervantes, perhaps the ghosts of Beckett and Cervantes, sitting by the side of the road, under a tree, somewhere up in the Pyrenees, maybe on the Pla-de-Beret, watching the Tour de France, waiting for the Lanterne Rouge to finish the race and talking about politics and art and history and war and love and really good whiskey.

Also, the professor mentioned that Beckett was once nearly engaged to James Joyce's insane daughter which has made me really want to read biographies of both Joyce and Beckett. Of course, first I have to finally finish reading Don Quixote.