Monsignor Quixote

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Quixote is also naive, thinking that the movie his worldly companion takes him to, The Maiden’s Prayer, must be a religious one; he even chuckles at the graphic sex scenes not having known physical love.

Now, I haven’t read Cervantes’ novel but there is so much in Greene’s tale that is drawn from it that I almost don’t need to. Like in the novel, the adventures of the errant priest ends up in a melancholy way, and as always, Graham Greene's catholicism gets the better of him.Anyway, for whatever reasons some of my favorite novels have been written by converts, and this must include Carrere. Both debate and argue gently about what do their beliefs mean and yet, as they find themselves asking those same questions to themselves too, they end up clinging to each other in a kinship of doubt, of the mutual acknowledgement of uncertainty in life. Father Quixote, a parish priest in the little town of El Toboso in Spain's La Mancha region, regards himself as a descendant of Cervantes' character of the same name, even if people point out to him that Don Quixote was a fictitious character. Here also, like in the novel, the greatest asset is the conversations and discussions between the two vagabonds. A couple of light stain marks to the upper for-edge in no way affecting the pages themselves and therefore of no great consequence.

Quixote and Sancho drink and talk - about Judas and Stalin, the prodigal son, Marx, and belief that wears off like vodka. The parallelism with Father Quixote's "ancestor" was apparent in the way theology was treated as a form of chivalry. Quixote is much like Scobie, really, with similar doubt and despair — I imagine that both of them are probably autobiographical in this respect.Don Quixote's delusions are here transformed into Alec's catholic faith and belief in the holy trinity, which Leo mocks, persisting that Marx is more real.

Probably more than anything, what Greene best captured from DQ was the Kierkegaardian (and Unamuno's Imitation of our Lord Don Quixote) aspect of Cervantes' novel. The theological/political dialogue between Catholic and Communist is delightful in its semi-conclusion (or consent agreement between the two characters) that the priest is a Catholic in spite of the Curia while the Mayor is a Communist. Greene's lessons in Catholic theology are much clearer and more charming here than in his other novels. Her second has already won the Costa Novel Award, among other honors, since it was published in Ireland and Britain last year.

I'm describing the topic the "religious" because at the heart of the book is a dialogue between Monsignor Quixote, a Spanish priest, and Sancho, who used to be the major of the Monsignor's home town. This fictional character lived in El Toboso more than four hundred years ago, and everyone jokingly says that the priest is related to Don Quixote. He wishes everything could go back to normal, but the villagers tell him he must seize this new opportunity. The believer will fight another believer over a shade f difference: the doubter fights only with himself.