La vida del Buscón, libro segundo y libro tercero y último

La vida del Buscón (Crítica, sin fecha)
por Francisco de Quevedo
España, 1626

Aunque tuve algunos problemas entiendo Quevedo en castellano (la mezcla de sus juegos de palabras con la germanía de sus personajes, aunque divertida, fue realmente difícil a veces) y después descubrí que la traducción de la obra en inglés era de poca confianza, tengo que subrayar que vale la pena de leer al Buscón en cualquier lenguaje.  Es escandolasamente chistoso.  Al pensar en esto, me gustaría concluir este mini ciclo sobre el clásico con una mirada dirgida a unos ejemplos de su humor provocador.  En libro II, capítulo 3, por ejemplo, el buscón Pablos casi blasfema al contar la historia de cómo, contra todas las expectativas, un ermitaño estafa a él y a un soldado en un juego de naipes: "Nuestras cartas eran como el Mesías, que nunca venían y las aguardábamos siempre" (83).  En libro III, capítulo 3, el aire sacrílego con la descripción de un impostor que se gana la viva por pretender ser un penitente en busca de limosna.  "No levantaba los ojos a las mujeres," escribe Pablos, "pero las faldas sí" (123).  En otra parte, Pablos amenaza la frontera entre el buen gusto y el mal gusto al opinar que la "conciencia en mercader es como virgo en cantonera, que se vende sin haberle" (85) y al decir que sabe que su madre, una presa de la Inquisición en Toledo, "hará humo" a la hoguera (95).  Aunque Quevedo ha sido criticado por los eruditos modernos a causa de los elementos antisemíticos y misoginistas en esta novela, yo pienso que es importante recordar que nadie escapa sin daño en esta vida de un criminal impenitente del siglo decimoséptimo listo para viajar al Nuevo Mundo.  Sumamente chistoso.

*

Even though I had some problems understanding La vida del Buscón in Spanish (the combination of Quevedo's frequent puns and the characters' criminal slang, while amusing, was truly difficult at times) and then felt swindled by Michael Alpert's unreliable English translation of the work, I'd like to second Amateur Reader in acknowledging that the experience of reading the Buscón [The Swindler] in any language is well worth the effort.  It's just scandalously funny.  With that in mind, I'd like to wrap up this little miniseries on the Spanish classic with a look at some examples of its edgy humor.  In Book II, Chapter 3, for example, the swindler Pablos comes awfully close to committing blasphemy in telling  the story of how, against all expectations, a hermit cheats him and a soldier out of all their money in a game of cards: "Our cards were like the Messiah--since they never turned up, and we were always waiting for them" (83).*  In Book III, Chapter 3, the sacrilegious tone continues with the description of an impostor who earns a living by pretending to be a penitent in search of alms: "He wouldn't raise his eyes to look at women", Pablos writes, "but their skirts were another matter" (123).**  Elsewhere, Pablos flirts with the boundaries of good taste by describing how a "good conscience in a merchant is like virginity in a streetwalker since it's peddled without being possessed" (85) and follows it up with a remark about how he's sure that his mother--imprisoned by the Inquisition in Toledo--will "make sparks fly" at the stake (95)!***  Although Quevedo has been criticized by some modern scholars for the anti-Semitic and misogynistic elements in this novel, I think it's important to remember that nobody gets off unscathed in Pablos' crude vita of an unrepentant 17th century criminal ready to ship off for the New World.  Hilarious.

Quevedo

*My more or less literal translation of the line, "Nuestras cartas eran como el Mesías, que nunca venían y las aguardábamos siempre" (83). This definitely anti-Jewish and possibly anti-Christian dig doesn't appear in Michael Alpert's English translation of the work.

**My loose translation of the line, "No levantaba los ojos a las mujeres, pero las faldas sí" (123).  Alpert translates this as follows on page 169 of The Swindler: "When it came to women he didn't raise his eyes, but that didn't apply to their skirts."

***My translations of the following: "Conciencia en mercader es como virgo en cantonera, que se vende sin haberle" (85) and "hará humo" (95).  Although the latter remark actually expresses the notion that Pablos' mother "will make or create smoke" at the implied stake, I've followed Alpert's lead on page 147 of his translation ["she will make sparks fly"] to bring you a more vigorous rendering of Quevedo's Castilian in English.

Más sobre el Buscón

Libro primero

Lost in Mistranslation: Penguin's Underwhelming and Unreliable The Swindler

Otras opiniones

Katrina Van Dassos de O mejor...¡Denme el librillo enterno!

La vida del Buscón, libro primero

La vida del Buscón (Crítica, sin fecha)
por Francisco de Quevedo
España, 1626

Hace seis meses, escribí un post dedicado a mi aprecio por el principio del Buscón y mi decepción con la traducción de la obra (abajo).  Después de un enorme intervalo, por fin lo terminé hoy y puedo decir que era un verdadero encanto aunque la traducción era malísima.  En el Libro Primero de la novela, el narrador se nos introduce como el hijo de una familia segoviana en cual el padre trabaja como barbero y ladrón y la madre trabaja como bruja y puta.  Aunque sus padres naturalmente quieren que el joven Pablos siga en sus propios pasos, él quiere convertirse en un "caballero" y por eso sale de Segovia en busca de un futuro mejor.  Escrito como el bildungsroman de un vago profesional, la primera parte de la obra incluye un sinnúmero de escenas cómicas como aquellas donde Pablos sufre a las manos de un avaro (del hambre) y de los estudiantes crueles (casi se ahorca durante una tormenta de saliva) antes de ponerse al tanto y convertirse en un buscón en Alcalá.  "Confieso que nunca me supo cosa tan bien", declara luego de su epifanía (52).   Sin obstante, al final del séptimo capítulo Pablos recibe noticias de un tío que su padre ha muerto y que su madre está una presa con la Inquisición a causa de su brujería.  Mientras tanto, Pablos regresa a Segovia para recoger la herencia.

Six months ago, I wrote a post about how jazzed I was by the beginning of the Buscón [The Swindler] and about how disappointed I was by Michael Alpert's English translation of the work (below).  After a long break, I finally finished the book today and am happy to report that it was a sheer delight even though the translation was a dud.*  In Book I of the novel, the narrator introduces himself to us as the son of a Segovian family in which the dad works as a barber and a thief and the mom works as a witch and a part-time prostitute.  Although his parents naturally want young Pablos to follow in their respective criminal footsteps, he wants to become a "gentleman" or a "nobleman" and thus leaves Segovia in search of a better future.  Written as the bildungsroman of a professional ne'er-do-well, the first part of the work includes an endless variety of comic scenes such as the ones where Pablos suffers at the hands of a miser (from starvation) and cruel students (he almost drowns under a hailstorm of spit and phlegm) before wising up and becoming a swindler in Alcalá.  "I must confess I never felt better in my life," he declares after his wake-up call (117).  At the end of the seventh chapter, though, Pablos receives news from an uncle that his father has died and that his mother is in danger of following suit since she's become a prisoner of the Inquisition for practicing witchcraft.  At this point, Pablos returns to Segovia to collect his inheritance.

Aunque he dicho más acerca del argumento de lo que intentaba, tengo que subrayar que lo mejor de la novela tenga que ver con el malévolo sentido de humor y los juegos verbales de Quevedo.  La madre de Pablos, por ejemplo, se introduce en una escena donde se enoja tanto que por descuido rompe "un rosario compuesto de los dientes de los muertos que siempre lleva consiga" (mi traducción, véase la nota**). Y mientras que el autor es capaz de hacer los juegos de palabras inocentes ("Dicen que era de muy buena cepa", el narrador dice de su padre al principio, "y, según él bebía, es cosa para creer" [9]), parece preferir el humor más arriesgado.  Mira, por ejemplo, a la escena en el capítulo VII donde una descripción del tío de Pablos es seguido con la descripción de la muerte del padre de Pablos por parte del tío:

"En este tiempo, vino a don Diego [el amigo y "maestro" de Pablos] una carta de su padre, en cuyo pliego venía otra de un tío mío llamado Alonso Ramplón, hombre allegado a la justicia, pues cuantas allí se habían hecho de cuarenta años a esta parte han pasado por sus manos.  Verdugo era, si va a decir la verdad, pero una águila en el oficio; vérsele hacer daba gana a uno de dejarse ahorcar" (55).

Hasta este punto, ningún problema. No obstante, en el próximo párrafo, el tío de Pablos dice con aire de naturalidad que "vuestro padre murió ocho días ha con el mayor valor que ha muerto hombre en el mundo; dígolo como quien lo guindó" (56).  Y después le coup de grâce: "Yo lo hice así.  Cayó sin encoger las piernas ni hacer gesto; quedó con una gravedad que no había más que pedir.  Hícele cuartos y dile por sepoltura los caminos.  Dios sabe lo que a mí me pesa de verle en ellos, haciendo mesa franca a los grajos.  Pero yo entiendo que los pasteleros desta tierra nos consolarán, acomodándole en los de a cuatro" (57).*** Para un blogger, es difícil superar una secuencia donde el humor negro se sigue de el humor canibalístico.  Por eso, voy a parar para el momento y regresaré más tarde en la semana con más reflexiones sobre el re-divertido Buscón.

Although I've said more about the plot than I'd intended to, I should stress that the best part of the novel has to do with Quevedo's wicked sense of humor and wordplay.  Pablos' mom, for example, is introduced in a scene where she gets so angry that she inadvertently smashes "a rosary of dead people's teeth that she always carried around with her" (86).**  And while the author's capable of making an innocent pun from time to time ("They say he came from very good stock," Pablos says about his father at the outset, "and that's not hard to believe considering how much liquid he consumed!" [85]), he usually seems to prefer a more devilish approach.  Note, for example, how Pablos' description of his uncle in Chapter 7 is mercilessly followed by the uncle's description of Pablos' father's death afterward here:

"About this time Don Diego [Pablos' friend and "master"] had a letter from his father and in the same envelope one from an uncle of mine named Alonso Yobb, a very virtuous man and well-known in Segovia for his passion for justice, especially final justice, because he'd been responsible for all those who had experienced it in the last four years.  In other words, he was a hangman, and a very able one too.  Seeing him at work made you feel like being hanged yourself" (120).

So far, so good.  In the next paragraph, though, Pablos' uncle casually reveals that "your father died a week ago as bravely as any man ever did.  That I can guarantee as I topped him myself" (120).  And then the coup de grâce: "One could not have asked for a more dignified death.  I quartered him and buried his remains along the roads.  God knows I can't bear to see the crows getting a free meal from him.  Still, I reckon the pastry-cooks will cheer us up by putting his bits in their four-real cakes" (121).***  For a blogger, it's awfully tough to top a sequence initiated with gallows humor and then followed up by cannibalistic humor.  With this in mind, I'll stop here for now and then return later in the week with more thoughts on the über-entertaining Buscón.

Don Francisco de Quevedo

*Los defectos de la traducción en inglés será un tema de uno de los otros post./The English translation's shortcomings will be a topic of one of the other posts (unless otherwise noted, all translations above are Alpert's) .

**No se puede encontrar esta descripción del rosario en mi edición de La vida del Buscón, basada en el manuscrito B según Fernando Cabo Aseguinolaza.  Es posible que es un variante que se puede encontrar en uno de los otros dos manuscritos, pero el traductor británico nunca (Michael Alpert) nunca menciona sus "fuentes"./This description of the rosary isn't to be found in my edition of La vida del Buscón, which is based on manuscript B according to Fernando Cabo Aseguinolaza.  It's possible that it's a variant that can be found in one of the other two manuscripts, but British translator Michael Alpert never mentions his "sources."

***Cabo Aseguinolaza tiene una nota informativa sobre este punto: "Esto es, en los pasteles de a cuatro: 'especie de empanadillas, hojaldradas y, por lo general, rellenas de carne, que costaban cuatro maravedís'.  Eran los pasteles más baratos; por ello, en la literatura de la época abundan las insinuaciones, o bien acusaciones directas, sobre la dudosa calidad y naturaleza del relleno."/Cabo Aseguinolaza has an enlightening footnote on this point: "This means, in the case of the pasteles [pastry] de a cuatro, 'a type of little empanada, or puff pastry, generally filled with meat, that cost 4 maravedís.'  They were the cheapest pastries; because of this, insinuations or even direct accusations about the questionable quality and nature of the filling abound in the literature of the era" [my translation].

*****

• Francisco de Quevedo (edición de Fernando Cabo Aseguinolaza).  La vida del Buscón.  Barcelona: Crítica, n.d.
• Michael Alpert, ed.  Two Spanish Picaresque Novels: Lazarillo de Tormes and The Swindler (El Buscón).  London: Penguin, 1975.

Francisco de Quevedo, autor del Buscón

TO THE READER

DEAR Reader or Listener (for the blind cannot read) I can just imagine how much you want to read about my delightful Don Pablos, Prince of the Roving Life.

Here you will find all the tricks of the low life or those which I think most people enjoy reading about: craftiness, deceit, subterfuge and swindles, born of laziness to enable you to live on lies; and if you attend to the lesson you will get quite a lot of benefit from it.  And even if you don't, study the sermons, for I doubt if anyone buys a book as coarse as this in order to avoid the inclinations of his own depraved nature.  Let it serve you as you like; praise it, for it certainly deserves applause, and praise the genius of its author who has enough common sense to know it is a lot more amusing to read about low life when the story is written with spirit, than about other more serious topics.

You already know who the author is.

You are well aware of the price of the book, as you already have it, unless you are looking through it in the bookshop, a practice which is very tiresome for the bookseller and ought to be suppressed with the utmost rigour of the law.  You see, there are people who steal a free read as sparrows pick at a meal, and some who read books here and there and then piece the story together; and this is a great pity because they criticize the book even though it hasn't cost them anything; which is a mean swindle, as foul as anything I described in my Knights of the Princess.  Dear Reader, may God protect you from bad books, police, and nagging, moon-faced, fair-haired women.

(Francisco de Quevedo, The Swindler [translated from the Spanish by Michael Alpert], 83)

Although Borges mentions Francisco de Quevedo two or three times in "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote," that's not my main reason for "introducing" him here now (the timing, I'll agree, was fortuitous).  In fact, I have two or three essentially disconnected reasons for mentioning Quevedo at all.  The first is that I've finally started reading Quevedo's 1626 El Buscón [usually translated in English as The Swindler] and am heartily enjoying its post-Lazarillo de Tormes approach to the picaresque novel format.  Gotta love those early explorations in first-person storytelling that build up laughs at the expense of the series of misfortunes that befall their poor, beleagued narrators!  The second reason has to do with the excerpt above.  I'm an extreme sucker for the captatio benevolentiae and other forms of writing where the writer directly addresses the reader, and this one's insult-laden tone ("I doubt if anyone buys a book as coarse as this in order to avoid the inclinations of his own depraved nature") and acknowledgement that readers can be swindlers, too, displays more genius to me than all the Man Booker prize winners combined.  The only catch is that the excerpt above doesn't appear in my Spanish-language version of the text.  In fact, it's kind of bogus.  Which brings us to the third thing I wanted to talk about, translations.  Although the extra "Quevedo" introduction that appears in the English version of The Swindler likely has to do with an editorial decision rather than a translation decision (see note below* if interested), I'm still bothered by at least two choices that translator Michael Alpert has made.  In chapter four, for example, the narrator Pablos arrives at an inn of ill repute on the road to the university town of Alcalá de Henares.  In Spanish, the text reads: "Metióme adentro, y estaban dos rufianes con unas mujercillas, un cura rezando al olor" (33).  In English, Alpert's translation reads: "I went inside where there were a couple of roughs with some whores, a priest saying his prayers to protect himself from their stink..." (101).  While the casual reader could read the English translation without finding anything much amiss, there's a small but not inconsequential joke missing in Alpert's reproduction.  My lovingly-annotated Spanish version of the text explains that the priest's act of praying "al olor" or "to the smell or scent" of the prostitutes actually means to say that the priest was "atraído por la presencia de las mujeres" ("attracted by the presence of the women") rather than praying to protect himself from their stink (33).  In other words, the priest is a target of Quevedo's barbs and not just an innocent bystander at the scene.  While I'd like to think that this was just an innocent mistake that could happen to anyone, Alpert's introduction to the work leaves me concerned that so-called good taste might have competed with accurate translating on his list of priorities: "Oaths and obscenities are a problem as Spanish uses them in profusion," he writes in the 1969 edition.  "I have tried to produce the same effect without being either crude or mealy-mouthed.  I have certainly not been afraid to use four-letter words when I thought they were what the author intended" (16).  Am I reading too much into Alpert's thoughts about translation strategies?  Perhaps.  But it bothers me that a professional translator would be worried about being "crude" when he or she should really be more concerned with being faithful (a slippery concept, I know) to the source text.  Thanks to Quevedo and/or "Quevedo" for the timely reminder.

*There are three source manuscripts for Quevedo's text.  In his edition of the Buscón, Fernando Cabo Aseguinolaza writes that "La 'Carta dedicatoria' que figura en los manuscritos S y C y el prologuillo 'Al lector', incluido en la primera edición, tampoco parecen deberse a Quevedo" ("Neither the 'Dedicatory Letter' appearing in manuscripts S and C nor the little prologue 'To the Reader' included in the first edition appear to owe themselves to Quevedo") [8].

**To add to the "Pierre Menard"-like atmosphere surrounding the apocryphal note to the reader above, I should note that Quevedo, considered one of Spain's greatest Siglo de Oro poets, wouldn't own up to authoring The Swindler even though it was commonly attributed to him by both his contemporaries and most modern scholars.

• Francisco de Quevedo (edición de Fernando Cabo Aseguinolaza). La vida del Buscón.  Barcelona: Crítica, n.d.
• Michael Alpert, ed.  Two Spanish Picaresque Novels: Lazarillo de Tormes and The Swindler (El Buscón).  London: Penguin, 1975.