The humble story of Don Quixote: reflections on the birth of the modern novel

III. The Picaresque Point of Reference 2

c h a p t e r i i i The Picaresque Point of Reference 2 The Buscón Aesthetic Detachment or Cruelty? Opinions about Quevedo’s Buscon tend to be extreme.1 Michael Holquist, editor of Bakhtin’s The Dialogic Imagination, calls it “one of the most heartlessly cruel books ever written” (Bakhtin, 163, note). On the other hand, Fernando Lázaro Carreter, a leading Quevedo scholar, speaks of Quevedo’s artistic intention as one of sheer linguistic virtuosity and ingenious, clever manipulation of literary language for its own sake. His emotion is purely aesthetic: Quevedo experimenta un sentimiento puro de creador; digámoslo sin rodeos: un sentimiento estético. El Buscón es una novela estetizante. Un ajusticiamiento, una profanaci ón, un adulterio, son hechos que nos conmueven si nuestro corazón se va tras la mirada. Pero si podemos refrenarlo, si acertamos a mirar aquello como un acontec62 1. This chapter is a revised and updated version of “Satan Expelling Satan: Reflections on Quevado’s Buscón,” which appeared in Homenajes 19, in honor of Peter N. Dunn (Newark, Del.: Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 2002). imiento de otro planeta, nuestra versión de los hechos será sólo material virgen para el intelecto. En este punto lo recoge Quevedo, aquí comienza su portentosa elaboraci ón artística. (1974, 97) (Quevedo’s feeling is strictly creative. Let’s put it plainly: it is an aesthetic feeling. The Buscón is an aesthete’s novel. An execution, a profanation, an adultery are things that move us if we put our heart in what we see. But if we hold it back, if we manage to look at such things as an event on a different planet, our version of those events will only be subject matter for our intellect. This is the point at which Quevedo picks it up, it is here that his prodigious artistic elaboration begins.) Of course, these two opinions do not necessarily contradict each other. To view such things as an “execution” or a “profanation” as purely aesthetic objects , an occasion for the aesthetic display of ingenious word games, can in itself be something “heartlessly cruel.” In fact, I think that both critics are right. One of the reasons why Quevedo’s treatment of his picaro protagonist appears to be so much more cruel than is the case with other picaresque novels is precisely his “aesthetic detachment” from, or “aesthetic insensitivity” to, the picaro’s misfortunes. Not only is his heart not “moved” at all by such misfortunes, he actually makes their description an occasion for the literary display of brilliant jocular virtuosity. Everything is a joke. We are supposed to roll with laughter as we see the miserable creature being pushed around, pelted with garbage, spat upon, smeared with human excrement, exposed to public shame, and beaten up. While Guzmán de Alfarache advised his readers —if they wanted some moral profit—not to look at the story of his life in the way cheering and exhilarated spectators look at the bull in the ring being lanced, wounded, and beaten, there is no such advice in Quevedo’s novel. On the contrary, through its brilliant artistry we are constantly invited to go in the opposite direction. If mediocre Avellaneda could not hide his qualms about exposing his lunatic Don Quixote to public ridicule, there are no such qualms in the Buscón. The tendency of those critics who, in the manner of Fernando Lázaro Carreter , concentrate on the stylistic virtuosity of the work is to deny that there is any serious intention underlying the virtuosity. They see Quevedo as only interested in displaying his ingenio, his linguistically acrobatic ingeniousness (a quality of his novel that is practically impossible to retain in translation). I suspect most readers would find this critical attitude more convincing if The Picaresque Point of Reference 2 63 the occasion for such ingeniousness were not so dehumanizing, frequently gruesome, or downright disgusting.2 Whatever Quevedo’s intention may be, it can be safely stated that no 2. Here is a telling example. The following is part of the letter that Pablos’s uncle, the official executioner in the city of Segovia, sent him with the news of the execution of Pablos’s father, a convicted thief, and of the imprisonment of his mother, who is scheduled to be burnt at the stake for sorcery: My dear...