The first novelist
It�s 400 years since his death and he�s not Shakespeare
James Badcock
Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died one day apart, 400 years ago, each of them a giant in his own language and literary tradition. But a difference in the scale of quatercentenary celebrations in their respective countries and around the world is leading some fans of the author of Don Quixote to cry foul.
While all the worlds a stage for the British bard thanks to the rollout of the massive Shakespeare Lives programme of arts events around the globe, celebrations of the life of his Spanish contemporary are perhaps more honoured in the breach than the observance.
Shakespeare Lives aims to reach half a billion people worldwide - the first screenings of The Complete Walk, 37 short films to represent the complete body of the bards stage plays, took place at the weekend. The Spanish governments action plan for Cervantes, on the other hand, seems far less ambitious... and leans heavily on exhibitions and conferences in big city museums and libraries.
The state could have done more to promote the Cervantes event - but the fact is that Shakespeare is much more popularAndres Trapiello, Novelist
This has provoked some rather unchivalrous comments from bigwigs in the field of Spanish culture.
Weve had 400 years to prepare for this, said Dario Villanueva, director of the Spanish Royal Academy, shortly after a letter from UK Prime Minister David Cameron introducing Shakespeare Lives was published in major newspapers around the world.
There are a few events lined up but the figure of Cervantes deserves a major gesture on the part of our top institutions.
The Spanish Culture Ministry has admitted that the programme remains a work in progress and that some events will not emerge from the pipeline until 2017.
But Spanish novelist and commentator Andres Trapiello, argues that the difference in the commemorations has a lot to do with the authors themselves, and how the public relates to them.
Sure, the state could have done more to promote the Cervantes event, but the fact is that Shakespeare is a much more popular writer, he says.
His works last two or three hours in the theatre and have been made into God knows how many films. Cervantes wrote a number of works but above all Don Quixote, a 1,100-page work which you need to read with thousands of footnotes.
Trapiello describes the difficulty of reading the early 17th Century classic - often described as Europes first modern novel - as a kind of albatross hanging around the neck of contemporary Spaniards, many of whom have come to associate the name of Cervantes with a negative cultural experience.
Everyone says they appreciate the importance of Don Quixote but there is this national frustration that they cannot read it. People get a complex about it, he says.
Every couple of years they sit down and say I am going to do it this time, but they get as far as the windmill story on about page 50 and give up.
This story sees Don Quixote, a minor nobleman who imagines himself a knight errant, mistake windmills for hulking giants and charge them on his pathetic horse, Rocinante - its the origin of the English phrase tilting at windmills. BBC
