For week 30 of the humanities crash course, I followed Gioia’s recommendations: the first five chapters of Don Quijote and Moliére’s Tartuffe. In keeping to Spain and sacrilege, I paired these readings with Buñuel’s VIRIDIANA.
Note I wrote Quijote and not Quixote. This is the first time the course has covered a work in my native tongue. Quijote is required reading in the Spanish-speaking world, for good reason: Cervantes is something like our Shakespeare.
I’ve read the novel twice, so I wasn’t sure I’d revisit it now. I thought, “What the heck, I’ll just revisit the first chapter.” I was immediately drawn back in, read all five chapters, and wanted to keep going. It’s a fantastic work.
Readings
Cervantes wrote Quijote in two parts: the first came out in 1605 and the second a decade later. In my last reading (2007), I found the second part being more self-referential and almost postmodern.
But this week covered the very beginning of the first part, which sets the story in motion. Alonso Quijana (or Quijada — Cervantes is intentionally vague) is a middle tier country squire obsessed with novels about knights. He reads incessantly. Eventually, the fantasies overtake him and he embarks on the life of an errant knight.
He misunderstands his experiences, thinking them all episodes in a tale of chivalry. He imagines his weak horse a mighty steed, prostitutes high ladies, peasants nobles, etc. Eventually, he will take on a squire in his neighbor, Sancho Panza and set off on mighty adventures including the famous battle against windmills (which he imagines to be fearsome giants.)
But that all comes later. The first five chapters introduce us to the main character, establish the premise of the story, and cover his first outing as knight errand-to-be outside his property. It’s hilarious and self-aware: when Don Quijote first sets off, he muses about how his future chroniclers would narrate his first outing.
Tartuffe is more straightforward, albeit controversial in its day. Moliére wrote it in 1664 — almost half a decade after Quijote — but in some ways, it feels less “modern.” Its humor and controversy are very much of its time.
Orgon takes Tartuffe, a pious stranger, into his house. Orgon and his mother are swayed by Tartuffe’s pious demeanor. Other members of the household — his son Demis, brother Cleante, wife Elmire, and servant Dorine — have doubts.
Marianne, Orgon’s daughter, is engaged to Valere. To her despair, Orgon orders her to marry Tartuffe instead. Meanwhile, Tartuffe propositions Elmire. She hopes to leverage this indiscretion to have him forego Marianne, but Demis, who spied them, exposes Tartuffe.
Orgon chooses to believe Tartuffe, and casts Demis out of the family. He also signs over his property to Tartuffe. To convince Orgon of Tartuffe’s deceit, Elmire pretends to give in to his advances while Orgon hides. He sees the light, but too late: having signed everything over, Tartuffe tries to have them evicted. But the king sees through the ruse and orders Tartuffe arrested.
I’ve written before about my distaste for fiction in which stupid characters make stupid decisions for stupid reasons. Tartuffe fits that mold: I can think of few stupider characters than Orgon. But perhaps his behavior was normal in the 17th century France?
Audiovisual
Music: The piano music of Granados and Albeniz. I was familiar with some of these songs through a CD my mom had of Julian Bream playing them on guitar, an instrument I associate with Spain. (More so than the piano, anyway.)
Arts: Three Spanish painters: El Greco, Velásquez, and Goya. I’m familiar with all three and plan to visit the Prado next week, so I didn’t spend too much time now with them now.
Cinema: I wanted to pair my reading of Quijote with classic Spanish cinema. I’d long been aware of Luis Buñuel’s VIRIDIANA, but hadn’t seen it.
Reflections
The common thread this week was self-deception. Don Quijote makes chivalry novels the center of his world. As they overtake his mind, the stories intercept whatever signals he receives from the “real” world. He’s willed himself into a delusional state where he misunderstands everything.
Some people think of Quijote as a kind of hero, seeing the world as he wants it to be, not as it is. I see the novel as a cautionary tale. It’s possible to become obsessed with something to the point where it takes over your life, leading you to make bad decisions. His position is one to be avoided, not celebrated.
Tartuffe is an even clearer cautionary tale, this time against hypocrisy — especially that of the overly pious. As I read the play, I thought of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who died earlier this month. One of the best-known preachers of his time, Swaggart’s career was eventually derailed by dalliances with prostitutes.
In a way, VIRIDIANA also deals with self-deception. Buñuel’s protagonist isn’t a hypocrite pretending to be pious, like Tartuffe. Instead, Viridiana is deeply pious. Alas, her worldview causes her to ignore human nature, leading to disastrous decisions. She’s not fooling others: she’s fooling herself.
This isn’t the stuff of fiction. There are Tartuffes, Quijotes, and Viridianas all around — and we risk becoming them too. As Richard Feynman put it, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” These stories help us see more clearly by pointing at the ways we can deceive ourselves.
Notes on Note-taking
DEVONthink 4 came out this week. DEVONthink has long been part of my knowledge garden, but I’ve used it less since I got into Obsidian several years ago. Recently, I’ve considered moving on. But this new release has several features that may bring me back to the fold.
The most important new feature is the ability to language models within DEVONthink — and not just cloud-based models, but local ones too. I’ve been experimenting with a local instance of Gemma, and it works great. This feels like a usable platform for “agentic” workflows using local LLMs.
This highlights one of the key benefits of using plain text as the lingua franca for the knowledge garden: being able to move seamlessly between applications.
I’m wary of new features in any of these applications that break this paradigm. Foremost in my mind is Obsidian’s new-ish Bases plugin, which adds exciting functionality — as long as you stay within Obsidian. The data is still open under the hood, but the feature can’t be replicated by other apps.
And it’s worth noting that both Obsidian and DEVONthink are commercial closed-source software. Obsidian’s barrier to entry is very low (it’s free,) but it’s ultimately controlled by a small company. What if they decide to switch business models? What if they go out of business altogether? These aren’t questions I want to be asking of key components of my knowledge garden.
This is yet another reason why I often fantasize about moving everything over to Emacs. Yes, it’s less practical. (In my case, the fact that there is no way to run Emacs on the iPad is a major obstacle.) But there is some peace of mind in knowing that one’s personal knowledge garden is built atop open technologies that have stood the test of time. (Cue Lindie’s effect.)
Up Next
Gioia recommends Rousseau’s Social Contract and Machiavelli’s Prince. I haven’t read the former, but I re-read Machiavelli in 2023 and won’t revisit it at this point. I’ll be on vacation, so I’m not sure yet whether I’ll replace it with another text or not.
Again, there’s a YouTube playlist for the videos I’m sharing here. I’m also sharing these posts via Substack if you’d like to subscribe and comment. See you next week!