El picaro' (Was: Boring holes)

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

Don Quixote may not have been paranoid, but his family sure was. . . 
"what will the neighbors think?", they continually ask/worry.

On Tue, 12 Sep 
1995, Gillies, Lindsay wrote:

> 
> Heikki writes:
> >Something was in the air in Spain, a bit the same way as in the U.S. in
> >the 1970s, when _GR_, _JR_, and _The Public Burning_ came out in short
> >intervals.
> 
> Perhaps the picaresque tale is a sort of literary Xray of the empire (Spain 
> in the late 1500's, Amerika post WW2)---both in terms of paranoia and of the 
> misinterpretation of reality.  (While Quixote is never paranoid, he might as 
> well be, for all the people sniggering at him behind his back.)  While the 
> Presidents and Generals assume (some of them, anyway) that Everything is In 
> Control, in reality they are stumbling around, bumping into objects they 
> don't understand in darkness they don't recognize as such.
>