Reading Markson Reading

Pg. 61 of David Markson’s copy of Wittgenstein’s Vienna by Allan Janik & Stephen Toulmin:

On which Markson placed a check next to a Theodor Herzl quote regarding the creation of a Jewish state:
“If you wish it, it is no fairy tale,” and “If you don’t wish it, it is a fairy tale.”

—-

     The first of those two statements of Herzl’s re: the creation of a Jewish state:
     “If you wish it, it is no fairy tale.”
     Used in Markson’s This Is Not A Novel, albeit with a variation in the translation:
     “If you will it, it is no dream.
     Said Theodor Herzl.”
     Markson wrote on pg. 31.

If you wish it, it is no fairy tale.

If you will it, it is no dream.

If you build it, he will come.

Oh, sorry, that last one isn’t a translation of Herzl, but a quote from the movie Field of Dreams.

Who is the he that came in that movie?

“An old-time baseball player, wasn’t there?”
– Markson’s Going Down, pg. 13. (Obviously out of context).

John Kinsella. Fictitious baseball player.

Others came too: Shoeless Joe Jackson. Moonlight Graham. Both real.

Baseball is one of Markson’s main obsessions.
References to the sport can be found in just about every one of his novels.

     Baseball was likewise a major topic in the old literary haunts Markson frequented (like The Lion’s Head & The White Horse Tavern):
     “Joint’s awash in authors, prime theme indisputably’d be gelt. Pussy and/or baseball running a tight second, however.”
     – Springer’s Progress, pg. 3.

     Baseball held a special place in his heart:
     “Markson acknowledges his autobiographical bias and wonders about his own nostalgia for a bygone era of baseball before his time, asking the reader the question that troubles him and to which he gives no direct answer: ‘How does one explain baseball nostalgia?’”
     Says Françoise Papin-Pelleau in her Markson study This Is Not A Tragedy re: Markson’s “A Day for Addie Joss.”

     Perhaps some answer can be found in the movie I mentioned that caused this digression: Field of Dreams.
     In that movie James Earl Jones’ character says:
     “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

How does one explain baseball nostalgia?

Field of Dreams.

If you will it, it is no dream.

Pg. 196 of David Markson’s copy of Poets in a Landscape by Gilbert Highet:

On which Markson placed a check next to the following information about Juvenal:
“During his lifetime, his satires produced hardly any effect whatever. After his death, they were forgotten for nearly two hundred years. It would have astounded him, accustomed as he was to bitter disappointments and to ironic twists of destiny, to learn that centuries after he died the Romans would rediscover his poems, and re-publish them, and edit them with explanatory notes, and imitate them; that he would become one of the most popular of all Roman poets.”

—-

One thing we learn from Markson and his Notecard Quartet (his tetralogy, his final four books which of course can be “readily read” individually):
The rejection of great artists by their contemporaries has been a constant phenomenon throughout all of recorded history.

Even Juvenal, so long ago…

     “Juvenal’s poetry is not mentioned anywhere, by anyone, during his lifetime or until almost two hundred years after his death.
     By the era of Petrarch and Boccaccio and Chaucer, he has become O Master Juvenal.”
     – This Is Not A Novel, pg. 165.

Since Markson’s death a year ago his literary profile has grown considerably—I’d like to think in small part because of the work I’m doing here (but that could admittedly be merely my delusions of grandeur)—but I think it will only continue to grow and grow.

Until he has become O Master Markson.

He is the kind of novelist who will be studied for centuries to come.
Says I.

As his daughter Johanna said of Markson at his memorial on October 7th, 2010:
“He always told us he’d be famous after he was dead.”

Just like Juvenal.

And Keats. And Kafka. And Van Gogh. And Gauguin. And Vermeer. And Poe. And Fragonard. And Bach. And Thoreau. And Schubert. And El Greco. And Emily Dickinson. And Amedeo Modigliani. And Bix Beiderbecke. And Herman Melville. And Ferdinand de Saussure. And John Kennedy Toole. And Henry Darger. Etc. Etc. Etc.

O Master Markson.

Pg. 17 of David Markson’s copy of Shakespeare: The Poet in His World by M. C. Bradbrook:

On which Markson placed a check next to the sentence:
“Shakespeare’s three younger brothers all died before him, and none was married—which prompts speculation.”

—-

     On pg. 11 of Markson’s The Last Novel:
     “Always give a moment’s pause when happening to remember—that Shakespeare had three brothers.
     One of whom was a haberdasher.”

     And later on down on the same page from the same novel:
     “Shakespeare’s sister Joan—the only sibling to survive him, and a relatively indigent widow.
     Whose welfare he took care to safeguard in his will.”

I can’t help, when discussing the siblings of Shakespeare, but immediately think of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, where she makes extensive mention of Shakespeare’s sister.

     In it Woolf wrote of an imaginary sister of Shakespeare’s named Judith (who would have possessed his genius but not his opportunities):
     “Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted sister, let us suppose, remained at home. She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school. She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil. She picked up a book now and then, one of her brother’s perhaps, and read a few pages. But then her parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers. They would have spoken sharply but kindly, for they were substantial people who knew the conditions of life for a woman and loved their daughter—indeed, more likely than not she was the apple of her father’s eye. Perhaps she scribbled some pages up in an apple loft on the sly, but was careful to hide them or set fire to them. Soon, however, before she was out of her teens, she was to be betrothed to the son of a neighboring wool-stapler. She cried out that marriage was hateful to her, and for that she was severely beaten by her father. Then he ceased to scold her. He begged her instead not to hurt him, not to shame him in this matter of her marriage. He would give her a chain of beads or a fine petticoat, he said; and there were tears in his eyes. How could she disobey him? How could she break his heart? The force of her own gift alone drove her to it. She made up a small parcel of her belongings, let herself down by a rope one summer’s night and took the road to London. She was not seventeen. The birds that sang in the hedge were not more musical than she was. She had the quickest fancy, a gift like her brother’s, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre. She stood at the stage door; she wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her face. The manager—a fat, loose-lipped man—guffawed. He bellowed something about poodles dancing and women acting—no woman, he said, could possibly be an actress. He hinted—you can imagine what. She could get no training in her craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight? Yet her genius was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men and women and the study of their ways. At last—for she was very young, oddly like Shakespeare the poet in her face, with the same grey eyes and rounded brows—at last Nick Greene the actor-manager took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman and so—who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body?—killed herself one winter’s night and lies buried at some crossroads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle.
     That, more or less, is how the story would run, I think, if a woman in Shakespeare’s day had had Shakespeare’s genius.”

Could Joan have been like Woolf’s imaginary Judith?

Could Joan have been as much a genius as her brother William?

Joan, the only sibling to survive him…

Pg. 284 of David Markson’s copy of Crack-Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald:

On which Markson placed a bracket and a line next to (and underlined the first sentence and last part of the last sentence of) the following paragraph from a letter from Fitzgerald to Hemingway discussing Hem’s For Whom the Bell Tolls:
“Congratulations too on your new book’s great success. I envy you like hell and there is no irony in this. I always liked Dostoiefski with his wide appeal more than any other European—and I envy you the time it will give you to do what you want.”

—-

Congratulations too on your new book’s great success.

I envy you like hell and there is no irony in this.

I envy you the time it will give you to do what you want

     Fitzgerald said other complimentary things of For Whom the Bell Tolls in the letter in the above scan too:
     – “It’s a fine novel, better than anybody else writing could do.”
     – “The massacre was magnificent and also the fight on the mountain and the actual dynamiting scene.”
     – “The scene in which the father says goodbye to his son is very powerful.”
     – “I’m going to read the whole thing again.”

     What’s interesting about these kind remarks is that when I went to Markson’s books to see if the marked quote was used by Markson—or if any of the other quotes were used—I found something quite fascinating:
     Fitzgerald’s sentiments on For Whom the Bell Tolls ARE mentioned in the tetralogy, but not the sentiments from the above letter. Instead apparently Fitzgerald thought differently of For Whom the Bell Tolls when not writing directly to Hemingway:
     “A thoroughly superficial book with all the profundity of Rebecca.
     Scott Fitzgerald called For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
     Markson tells us on pg. 135 of Vanishing Point.

Fitzgerald singing an altogether different tune…

A postcard sent to Charles J. Shields from David Markson re: the biography of Kurt Vonnegut that Shields has written (which will be published later this year).

     On which Markson wrote:
     “Dear Chs.—                                                                 4/11/09
     Thank you for the note—and my regrets, again, for not being able to get together. I had to fink out on Ann Beattie too, only a few days later, when she was in town. Next week it will probably be the ghost of Ava Gardner.
     Meantime, only a couple of days after that, four bloody hours to drag myself to a fancy oncologist, sit and wait, sit and wait, etc, + then shlepp home—all to be told ‘Go get such + such a test + then come back.’ Damn, I hate being old.
     I’m glad you saw Knox, though. I must, must, get over there.
                                                                 My best again—Dave.”

—-

Although the point of my blog is to share Markson marginalia, I was given a special treat by Charles Shields, who scanned and sent me his correspondence with David Markson.
So I couldn’t help myself but do a special post.

Markson was known for sending these type of plain white notecards to his friends and acquaintances.
I was lucky enough to receive two myself (which I’ve discussed on here at some point but have not yet posted—perhaps I will at some point in the near future).

Yesterday I explored Markson and old age, so I felt it a propos to post this notecard, which further explores the topic.

“Damn, I hate being old.”
He wrote to Shields.

     “Age.
     Dammit.”
     – Vanishing Point, pg. 180.

A few pages later:
“Age. Age.” (Pg. 186).

In the introduction to her book on Markson, This Is Not A Tragedy, Francois wrote:
“He also saw a connection between his isolation and his age. He explained that while for years he’d been saying he was getting old, now, he really was.” (Pg. xxvi).

Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.

Damn, I hate being old.

—-

Pg. 36 of David Markson’s copy of Classic Art: An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance by Heinrich Wolfflin:

On which Markson put a check next to the following passage:
“As we saw, Leonardo retained only one great line, the indispensable one of the table, yet even here there is something new. I do not mean the omission of the projecting ends—he is not the first to do that; the innovation lies in having the courage to depict a physical impossibility in order to obtain a heightened effect. The table is far too small. If the covers are counted it is clear that all the people there could not have sat down. Leonardo wishes to avoid the effect of the Disciples lost behind a long table, and the impression made by the figures is so strong that no one notices the lack of space.”

—-

The other day I created a post, using a scan from this same book by Wolfflin, re: the oddly large size of the hands and feet on Michelangelo’s David. In that post, I mentioned that Markson made note of this fact of the large extremities of Michelangelo’s David in a couple of his pre-tetralogy novels, and in both instances associated the largeness of David’s extremities with the smallness of the table in Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

Perhaps this was because the information came from the same book?

Heinrich Wolfflin’s Classic Art: An Introduction to the Italian Renaissance.

Or perhaps—even more important than the source—he liked linking the largeness of the one with the smallness of the other?

“Table in The Last Supper’s too small. Hands and feet on Michelangelo’s David are too big.” (Springer’s Progress, Pg. 76).

“In fact it was similarly Leonardo’s own doing when he made the table in The Last Supper far too small for all of those Jewish people who are supposed to be eating at it.
Or Michelangelo’s, when he took away superfluous material on his David but left the hands and feet too big.” (Wittgenstein’s Mistress, Pg. 148).

Whether the extremities are too big, or whether the table is too small, the point is that art doesn’t have to accurately reflect reality.
(And actually couldn’t, even if it wanted to.)

“People speak of naturalism in opposition to modern painting. Where and when has anyone ever seen a natural work of art?
Asked Picasso.” (The Last Novel, Pg. 9)

“No artist tolerates reality, Camus said.” (This Is Not A Novel, Pg. 105).

“The act of painting transforms the painter’s mind into something similar to the mind of God.
Said Leonardo.” (This Is Not A Novel, Pg. 178).

The artist thus imagines and creates an alternative reality.

“This very sort of imagining being the artist’s privilege, obviously.
Well, it is what artists do.” (Wittgenstein’s Mistress, Pg. 148).

Art doesn’t have to accurately reflect reality.

“Art is not truth. Art is a lie that enables us to recognize truth.
Said Picasso.” (Vanishing Point, Pg. 108).

Pg. 287 of David Markson’s copy of The Spirit of Tragedy by Herbert J. Muller:

On which Markson placed a check next to a quote from a Chekhov play:
“I am old, I am tired, I am trivial; my sensibilities are dead.”

—-

“I am old, I am tired, I am trivial; my sensibilities are dead.”
Words said by Astroff in Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.

Old. Tired. Trivial.

     Reminds me of:
     “Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.”
     – The Last Novel, pg. 2.

     “Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.
     All of which obviously means that this is the last book Novelist is going to write.”
     – The Last Novel, pg. 3.

“Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.”
– The Last Novel, pg. 190.

     “Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.”
     The title of Catherine Texier’s review of The Last Novel for the New York Times.
     Where she writes:
     “But what it resembles most is a long poem.
     In rhythm and tonality, if not in content, ‘The Last Novel’ hints at the incantations of the Kaddish—it sometimes evokes the beat of Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Kaddish’ and ‘Howl’—and brings to mind the Renaissance complaints of the French poets Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay, François Villon’s famous ‘Ballad of the Ladies of Yore,’ mourning the loss of youth, and Shakespeare sonnets lamenting the specter of death.”

Mourning the loss of youth…lamenting the specter of death…

Catherine Texier was, of course, right to focus on the problems of old age in her review.
That is definitely one of the most prevalent of Markson’s obsessions in the tetralogy, and especially in The Last Novel (which “can be readily read by itself,” Markson wants me to emphasize, as seen on pg. 161 of that novel, and as discussed in yesterday’s post).

Between the “Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.” on pg. 2 and the one on pg. 190, there exists a number of times where Markson specifically broods over the aging process…

“Rereading a Raymond Chandler novel in which Philip Marlowe stops in for a ten-cent cup of coffee.
Old enough to remember when the coffee would have cost half that” (Pg. 18).

“Old enough to remember when they were still called penny postcards.
And a letter cost three cents.” (Pg. 23).

“Mithridates, he died old.” (Pg. 48).

“Old enough to have started coming upon likenesses on postage stamps of other writers he had known personally or had at least met in passing.” (Pg. 79).

“Michelangelo’s Pieta—
Is the Virgin many years too young?” (Pg. 83).

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?
Asked Satchel Paige.” (Pg. 92).

“Anton Bruckner, in old age, tells Gustav Mahler that he can readily foresee his coming interrogation by his Maker—
Why else have I given you talent, you son of a bitch, than that you should sing My praise and glory? But you have accomplished much too little.” (Pg. 95).

“I hope I never get so old I get religious.
Quoth Ingmar Bergman.” (Pg. 104).

“It’s a terrible thing to die young. Still, it saves a lot of time.
Quoth Grace Paley.” (Pg. 120).

“When I am eighty, my art may finally begin to cohere. By ninety, it may truly turn masterful.
Said Hokusai. At seventy-three.” (Pg. 151).

“A passage in Montaigne where he speaks of himself being well on the road to old age—having long since passed forty.” (Pg. 157).

“Old Hoss. Old Pete. Old Reliable. Old Folks. Old Aches and Pains.” (Pg. 175).

“Old age is not for sissies.
Said Bette Davis.” (Pg. 178).

“Freud, born in 1856, being asked in 1936 how he felt:
How a man of eighty feels is not a topic for conversation.” (Pg. 178).

“Shaw, at ninety-four, being asked the same:
At my age, one is either well or dead.” (Pg. 179).

“My old paintings no longer interest me. I’m much more curious about those I haven’t done yet.
Said Picasso, at seventy-nine.” (Pg. 184).

“You can tell from my handwriting that I am in the twenty-fourth hour. Not a single thought is born in me that does not have death graven within.
Wrote Michelangelo at eighty-one—himself with eight years remaining.” (Pg. 184).

“I’ve no more sight, no hand, nor pen, not inkwell. I lack everything. All I still possess is will.
Said Goya—nearing eighty.” (Pg. 186).

     “Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the red shoes dance on.
     What happens in the end?
     Oh, in the end she dies.” (Pg. 186).

“Cézanne, who lived in greater and greater isolation, late in life.” (Pg. 186).

“Degas, who lived in greater and greater isolation, late in life.” (Pg. 187).

“Sophocles, re a tremor in his hand, as recorded by Aristotle:
He said he could not help it; he would happily rather not be ninety years old.” (Pg. 187).

“The old man who will not laugh is a fool.
Said Santayana.” (Pg. 189).

“Dispraised, infirm, unfriended age.
Sophocles calls it.” (Pg. 189).

“Unregarded age in corners thrown.
Shakespeare echoes.” (Pg. 189).

     The novel ends with:
     “Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.
     The old man who will not laugh is a fool.
     Als ick kan.” (Pg. 190).

I am old, I am tired, I am trivial; my sensibilities are dead.

Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.

The first page of David Markson’s copy of Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia:

     On which Markson has written as an inscription:
     “Markson
     East Hampton – 1990”

—-

This post is my 200th scan of Markson marginalia that I’ve put on this tumblr Reading Markson Reading!
(So far they’ve all been from the Markson books I found at the Strand and personally own, but I would be more than happy to feature scans of books other people picked up during the Markson Treasure Hunt. My intent wasn’t to just make this a catalogue of my personal collection, but a place for Markson marginalia to be seen by all, for leisure reading and research purposes.)

I chose a rather boring scan today—just one with an inscription—so that I could delve into a specific topic that arose recently in the comments to my blog. The topic is quite pertinent to what I discuss on this blog and how I discuss it.

The other day I received a comment reminding me that when I am constantly mentioning Markson’s tetralogy, I am, in some way, going against Markson’s wishes.
Or at least going against the wishes of the semi-autobiographical Novelist (of Markson’s The Last Novel).

In that novel Markson wrote:
“Wondering if there is any viable way to convince critics never to use the word tetralogy without also adding that each volume can be readily read by itself?” (Pg. 161).

In answer to your question, Mr. Markson (since you did phrase that in the form of a question): No.

It unfortunately isn’t really plausible for critics to mention every time they use the word tetralogy in describing your tetralogy that “each volume can be readily read by itself.”

Of course, it is true that the books can be “readily read” individually and don’t need each other to make sense or be enjoyable, but I would argue that though obviously each book can stand alone and be “readily read by itself,” when viewed together they each grow. To let these four texts play off each other only deepens their meaning, and their context in Markson’s entire ouevre.

Of course, each novel in the tetralogy is quite different, even if on the surface level they appear rather similar. But they do belong together.

     So…
     Sorry to Mr. Markson, and to the commenter who brought this to my attention, but I cannot help but keep talking of them as a tetralogy.
     Or as a quartet.
     (My name for them is actually The Notecard Quartet.)

     And I am not alone, Mr. Markson…
     Your friend and fellow novelist, Ann Beattie, when introducing you for a reading at the 92nd Street Y, called them a quartet.
     Qualmless then.
     Françoise Palleau-Papin, who you gave your blessing to write the first full book-length study of your work, also continually makes mention of the books together, calling them—what else?—a tetralogy.
     Qualmless then.
     Catherine Texier’s New York Times review of your final novel, which you called “a lovely review,” says The Last Novel could be considered “the coda to the trilogy.”
     Qualmless then.
     Even you, Mr. Markson, thought of these four novels as going together:
     “After the first one, Reader’s Block, anything I read I would read in a normal way, but I would say, ‘I didn’t know that about Chaucer. Or Rembrandt. Or Spinoza.’ The next thing I knew I had three more books.”
     Said in the Conjunctions Interview.
     And you admit that the four books also concern the same character with different names in each:
     “My one character, who in this book is called Novelist.”
     Said at 92nd Street Y of The Last Novel.

     My guess, which admittedly is just an educated guess, is that you are actually fine with them being seen as a tetralogy or a quartet.
     After all, in the above quote from The Last Novel you don’t tell critics not to call them a tetralogy, but rather that they should, when doing so, always tack on that they can be “readily read” individually.
     Something I try to explore as well: I think all Markson’s books can be read individually and stand alone, but also the entire oeuvre, not even just the tetralogy, benefit from being seen and studied together.

So yes, the four final books (Reader’s Block, This Is Not A Novel, Vanishing Point and The Last Novel) are as individually enjoyable as any of Markson’s earlier fiction.
But they also form a tetralogy or quartet.

A Notecard Quartet.
If you will…

Pgs. 66-67 of David Markson’s copy of His Exits and His Entrances: The Story of Shakespeare’s Reputation by Louis Marder:

     On which Markson placed two checks next to the following two sentences re: Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean:
     “Before the sun of Kemble had set, Edmund Kean (1789-1833) had already begun to take his place in the Shakespearean firmament.”
     And:
     “Every emotion was rendered naturalistically by Kean, about whom Coleridge made his famous comment that seeing him act was like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.”

—-

Markson mentions Edmund Kean, and Coleridge’s assessment of him on pg. 33 of his novel(?) This Is Not A Novel:
“Watching Edmund Kean. Like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning, Coleridge said.”

Pg. 189 of David Markson’s copy of The Spirit of Tragedy by Herbert J. Muller:

On which Markson wrote “F.D.” in the margins next to the sentence:
“The passion of the tragic hero is always likely to verge on madness.”

—-

I would assume that the “F.D.” stands for “Fyodor Dostoevsky,” a writer greatly admired by Markson, and whose writing is perfectly described by that line:
“The passion of the tragic hero is always likely to verge on madness.”

Dostoevsky, whose name can be spelled a number of ways—Markson always spelled it either “Dostoievsky” or “Dostoievski” (with an “i” in the middle, and an “i” or “y” on the end)—was one of Markson’s favorite writers, and one who had quite an influence on him.

Donald Hogin wrote in “Markson’s Progress”:
“Lowry was undeniably one of the significant influences upon Markson’s own creative life, the most obvious others being Joyce, Dostoyevski and Faulkner.”

As Françoise Palleau-Papin wrote in her This Is Not A Tragedy:
“Dostoyevsky’s influence on Markson is clear in Going Down, but the homage to the master is not an imitation.” (Pg. xxx).

     Or in his own words:
     “The Dostoievsky novel I cared about most is The Possessed, sometimes translated in English as The Devils. The first 200 pages can be a bore (a satire on Turgenev)—but after that I was always overwhelmed. And just incidentally, Crime and Punishment may have been the first book ever to suggest to me how stunning an experience literature could be.”
     As told to Françoise Palleau-Papin, and relayed in her This Is Not A Tragedy (pg. xxix).

     “The Shakespeare of the lunatic asylum.
     An early French critic called Dostoievsky.”
     – The Last Novel, pg. 29.

The passion of the tragic hero is always likely to verge on madness.

Last week I made a post about madness in Markson’s tetralogy.

In that post, I mentioned Markson’s Bookslut interview where he was asked whether or not “there is something about people at the edge of sanity” that appealed to him, and he responded:
“No, not at all, it’s just inviting. What the hell, craziness is a lot more dramatic to handle than sanity. Which Dostoevsky proved all those years ago—trying to write a book about a perfectly good person and it’s the one volume among all his major works that’s a total botch. Unlike all his others, filled with lunacy and suicide and murder, et cetera. Or think about ninety percent of all the literary protagonists we find most memorable—Ahab, Heathcliff, Stavrogin, even all the way back to Don Quixote—every one of them is certifiable.”

The passion of the tragic hero is always likely to verge on madness.

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