Two Spanish Picaresque Novels – Quevedo & Anon

Translated from the Spanish by Michael Alpert

Lazarillo de Tormes, author unknown, is credited with being the first ever picaresque novel. It was published in 1554, some half a century before Don Quixote. The Swindler may be considered roughly contemporary with Cervantes.

The two novellas share many common features. The pícaro of the picaresque novel is a reaction against the hero of the chivalric novel. Acts of daring are performed out of a motive of material self-interest, and this world view is lent credence by resort to a verisimilitude which draws from fundamentals. Hunger and, often, the scatological. The ultimate aim of the pícaro in each novel is to achieve a veneer of respectability, and a life of relative ease. The means are largely irrelevant.

Gentlemen of the Road – Michael Chabon

I don’t recall liking the film of Wonderboys (just thinking of it brings Michael Douglas clashing unpleasantly into my head) and I don’t remember reading the novel of the same name, although I do recollect starting it. Not, then, a propitious introduction to Michael Chabon, but Gentlemen of the Road, largely through the means of a gorgeous cover, was able to overcome any residual resistance to the author.

Set in 950 AD, somewhere in the vicinity of the Caucasus (my tenuous grasp of Eastern European geography crumbled under the pressure) two picaresque adventurers are attempting to make a living through chicanery and downright criminality. Necessitating a great deal of travel.