It's surprising that Cervantes is in fashion today for being what he wasn't, but not for
being what he truly was: the author of the most important literary work in the history of
universal literature. The fact that he wrote Don Quixote is irrelevant in the 21st century.
This is called ignoring the truth. Please don't take this the wrong way.
The sad thing is that no one cares today about what this novel means, from the perspective
of freedom, religion, or politics, neither in schools (where it's not even mentioned), nor in
secondary schools (where it's read, perhaps, in battered bits), nor at universities
(where instead of talking about Cervantes, they talk about "gamerization" and other such nonsense). Today, anything
is more important than literature, intelligence, or, simply, reality.
And when reality doesn't exist, anything goes. That is the magnificent legacy that
Kant, the Enlightenment, and the idealists have given us. If Cervantes interests some people today, it is not
for his literature or Don Quixote, nor for his tragic and comic plays, and much less for his poetry.
It turns out that today Cervantes matters for his backside. Other merits
are not valued. It is clear that our society has an extremely
"straightforward" sense of virtues and customs. Amen. In such a joyful society, lying—
that is, lying to the reality of the facts—is very easy. Among other things, because, quite contrary
to popular belief, it is impossible to deny something that never happened. We can say that
Cervantes was a Buddhist, a spy for the Turks, or an ambassador of the Martians on planet Earth
during the 17th century. And tell me I'm not. We can say he was Galician (I have proof, presented
in an article published in FARO DE VIGO on April 17, 2016). We can say whatever
we want about Cervantes, especially in a world like today's, which has lost sight of reality. Why?
Because living in ignorance of reality is a lot of fun. It allows you to say whatever you want,
especially if it's funny, controversial, or profitable. What matters least is the truth. What
really matters is that it's funny even if it's not funny, that it annoys as
many people as possible, and that it makes money by falsifying whatever,
because nothing matters and because lies pay and are more popular than the truth.
When a person died centuries ago (let's say in 1616), they are a universal icon of
values that no one really knows how to explain—but which are there as an advertising gimmick,
like the face of Che Guevara or Marilyn Monroe—and their image can be used freely in brothels
, because no one is going to demand rights where the law seems like a fiction,
there's room for a good business. Film, television, and the internet do the rest.
If it also turns out that this person was the author of a series of literary works, barely
one of which is known—because in reality, none of them have been read—entitled The Ingenious Gentleman
Don Quixote of La Mancha, which doesn't even have university students enrolled and graduated from Faculties of Letters at home
(because they haven't read it either), then the whole mountain
is oregano for doing and saying whatever one damn well pleases with this guy, a certain Miguel.
Impunity is absolute and, as the saying goes, ignorance is audacious.
Of course, our society swallows anything. Here it seems that everyone—especially Cupids
born in the second half of the 20th century—slept with Cervantes and knows all his secrets
and sexual successes. Curious information, which not even the CIA has declassified, and yet
those who haven't even read his literary work know it inside out. It turns out that of a
man of whom not a single reliable portrait of his face has ever been preserved (the one attributed to Juan
de Jáuregui is apocryphal) , all the details of his sexual life during five years in Algiers (1575-1580)
are now known, no doubt by magic (I don't know if it was black, white, or fuchsia).
It's as if it had been registered before a notary. In chapter 59 of the second part of Don Quixote,
Cervantes writes that famous phrase: "Let whoever wishes draw my portrait," said Don Quixote, "
but don't mistreat me, for patience often fails when it is loaded with insults."
If we consider the number of wonders that cinema can contribute to the interpretation of
literature, we'd have enough for days and days of dissertations. However,
when it all comes down to a colonoscopy, we'd be better off focusing on internal medicine, for example,
and leaving the art of cinematography alone. And, of course, the colon of the author of Don Quixote.
Is it worth spending time in one's life watching a lie being told?
I'm not talking about fiction, but about lies, fallacies, the fraudulent presentation of facts with the intention
of deceiving the viewer and skewing their interpretive possibilities. A lie is anything
that is done, said, or left unsaid with the intention of intentionally misleading.
I won't be the one to deny anyone the pleasure that comes from consuming lies,
but cheating at solitaire is very unintelligent. Is it necessary to deceive oneself
by consuming such products in order to feel better? Let each do as
they see fit, because there are different tastes. But in case it's useful, I'll explain it in
the words of Cervantes himself, who detested art with false and deceitful content. When
in Don Quixote he condemns both the books of chivalry and the plays of Lope de Vega
for the many absurdities depicted there, we read in chapter 47 of the first part:
"False fables de mendaciouses must be married to the understanding of those who
read them." What would Cervantes say if he saw himself portrayed—in literature,
painting, or film—as what he never was? Well, it's a lie. And a lie
can only be responded to with the truth at hand. However, when faced with nonsense, there are only
two ways to act: either by ignoring it completely, or by responding to it with another nonsense.
Workers choose the first option because they don't have time to waste,
while the idle, who have nothing to do or earn, and don't even want to, choose
the second. And so, like the number of fools, the nonsense multiplies ad infinitum.
But some foolish things are extremely profitable. If a stupid idea generates a trail
of equally stupid responses, the internet says bingo. Then lies become very
profitable, because the red blood cells of social media, that is, the flow of advertising
generated by comments and commentators of the most idle kind, grow like wildfire.
Forgive my frankness, but our time has more gullibility than a 17th-century cuckold
, one of those who appear in Quevedo's interludes. Which is saying something...
Fiction does not legitimize the falsification of reality.
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