Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene: Day 12
Part II, Chapter I (p. 131-145)
“He dreamt of three balloons which he had inflated and released into the air: two were big and one was small. He wanted to catch the small one and blow it up to match the others.”
One has to laugh so as not to cry at this moment. Poor captured Father Quixote—if only we were still on the road with him and Sancho.
Even with the horrible Bishop, Father Quixote could carry a conversation in which laughter leads to deeper truth. This chapter is as delicious as Beckett.
“‘So I am a prisoner,’ he thought, ‘Like Cervantes.’”
It is interesting that, for once, Father Quixote does not compare himself to his ancestor (Don Quixote also lost freedom momentarily in the original novel) but to the author who created that fictional ancestor. It feels as though Father Quixote begins to cross a border and enters a new realm: fiction no longer distracts or saves.
Join us on December 3 for a virtual discussion of Monsignor Quixote with Yiyun Li.
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I wondered if the third, small, balloon was like the third, half, bottle of wine that Father Quixote compared to the Holy Ghost, much to his later remorse?
"I don't know whether it's deliberate, monsignor, but you always seem to bring into our serious discussion quite trivial and irrelevant details." Like a character in Chekhov, Father Quixote lives through these kinds of irrelevant details. Trivial to his interlocutor, vivifying to the reader.