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Don Quixote and Emma Bovary
Literary legends and the comic and tragic imitation of Art
“… Don’t I tell you it’s in the books? Do you want to go to doing different from what’s in the books, and get things all muddled up?” — Tom Sawyer in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
I Recall Fashioning Myself a Renegade Hero in the Style of Han Solo, Entranced Again with Star Wars.
This was if drawn from an afternoon dream — just yesterday.
And it seems just yesterday I was ordering an apéritif in French at a Parisian cafe, writing with zeal in the imitation of Ernest “Papa” Hemingway.
Again, yesterday, or just the previous decade or two, with the same zest, and the same passion that framed my literary aspirations, I planted my small feet in the gigantic steps of Lord Byron, another Lord of Myth, standing in his shadow on the shores of Lac Leman.
These were boyhood heroes that fueled my imagination; an imagination that wandered far from home. Their names were like thunderclaps in my ear; names that pricked the heavens like a Colossus.
I can still hear the claps of thunder in the foothills of my imagination.
Imitation is a Youthful Sign of Respect and Admiration
I am sure everyone has imitated someone at some point. We crave to emulate our heroes. So I hope belief in my honest confession startles not the rea0er — — especially a reader familiar with the exploits of Don Quixote and Emma Bovary.
Two hundred and forty-four years separate the authors, Gustave Flaubert in France and Miquel Cervantes in Spain.
Providing personal examples has enabled me to better understand the behavior of Quixote and Bovary; in the process of life imitating art, art has imitated life in the portrayal of Don Quixote and Emma Bovary.
So What Type of Characters Are They? The Archetype of Archetype — Perhaps Even the Prototype
Isn’t it rather exciting and rather easy to get lost in the escapades of books?
