Monsignor Quixote

I haven’t read Don Quixote, so maybe I’m not getting the full depth of the references, but this seemed like a joke that got extended way past the point of being funny-a literary SNL skit that had about 20 seconds of humor tops. Father Quixote is a simple Spanish priest with a famous last name. He gets promoted to Monsignor through a chance encounter with a bishop and decides to go on a trip around Spain in his old car ‘Rocinante’ with his friend the Communist ex-Mayor, who he calls Sancho. They drive, drink wine, argue about Catholicism and Marxism, drink some more, argue about the state of Franco’s soul, get in trouble with the law, and drink more. It’s bleak in a Greene-ian way, but out of habit rather than any good reason. Greene seems to be having a conversation trying to square his Roman Catholicism and his Leftism, but I’m not sure anybody should listen. Read The Quiet American instead.