Rocinante in Flight, Dulcinea Infected: Quixotic Moves in James S. A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes.
In 2011, James S. A. Corey published Leviathan Wakes, the first book in the sci-fi series The Expanse: Leviathan Wakes depicts a solar system colonized by humans, where Earth and Mars are at odds, new superpowers in the guise of planets. While the United Nations rules the first, the second is a highly orderly and militarized planet whose inhabitants know little of their ancestors' home planet. Between inner and outer planets lies the asteroid belt, populated by cheap laborers controlled through an uneasy alliance by both Earth and Mars. In chapter seventeen of the novel, a crew on the run, led by earther Jim Holden, is given command of a state-of-the-art frigate, the Tachi. After being "pursued the entire time by one mysterious ship or another" (174), they are able to use a new transponder to disguise the ship: "Holden punched the comm system on the wall. 'Well, crew, welcome aboard the gas freighter Rocinante.' 'What does the name even mean?' Naomi said after he let go of the comm button. 'It means we need to find some windmills'" (179). A number of questions arise. Why give this fast frigate the name of Don Quixote's old nag? The knight's slow and skeletal horse in many ways echo his master's dried-up body and gaunt face. Together they create an image of impotence and impossibility in the face of adventure. (1) What are the windmills that the Rocinante is chasing? Are they the monstrous leviathan of the title? Will these quixotic characters replicate the knight's defeat?The Cervantine subtext of Corey's novel is given one more twist in the television series based on the novel and developed by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. The first episode of The Expanse (first aired on the SyFy channel in 2015) is entitled "Dulcinea." Furthermore, this article explores Corey's imitation of Cervantes, while confirming that the curious reference to Dulcinea points to an important mystery in the book. This essay emphasizes Corey's quixotic and romantic approaches to Cervantes's novel, while exploring what it is to be human, what are our aspirations--and how we deal with the non-human. The first section points to genre and parodie elements in the two novels. The second and third parts focus on the two lead characters: Jim Holden as a reluctant Don Quixote and Josephus Miller as a detective turned knight. Neither of them is a Sancho figure, but their conversations humanize them, offer different points of view, and animate the narrative. The fourth section is dedicated to riding Rocinante, now turned into a space frigate. As the windmills of war turn this way and that, the last two sections come closer and closer to Dulcinea. We soon encounter her as Dulcinea infected, and then discover that she becomes "enchanted."
Preliminaries
The prologue to the 1605 Cervantes's Don Quixote is a parodie attack of the authority of both the written word and the author of the novel, who finds himself unable to "adorn" his work, as a friend gives him mock-advice to cite authorities at random. (2) The questioning of authority is only implied in the paratexts of Leviathan Wakes. Although the author's name is given as James S. A. Corey, it actually hides a collaborative effort between Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. The pen name is an onomastic game where the first and last name are taken from Abraham's and Franck's middle names. Onomastics, as will be seen, is an important key to understanding Leviathan Wakes. The two authors come from very different backgrounds. While Ty Franck was interested in video games, and first developed the story in this manner, Daniel Abraham focused on writing science fiction stories. Indeed, the latter had collaborated with George R. R. Martin, whose series A Song of Ice and Fire was made into the hit television program, Game of Thrones. Like Martin, James S. A. Corey would see his/their books successfully transformed into a television series.
Both Martin and Corey make use of mainstream genres. The first turns to high fantasy, with its "epic" characters and plot, set in an alternative world. Corey utilizes old-fashioned "space opera," with interplanetary battles and chivalric daring. The term was first used in a derogatory manner (akin to soap opera), "as hackneyed SF filled with stereotypes borrowed from Westerns" (Hartwell and Cramer 11). Star Wars became the model for successful and inspired space operas and today it enjoys an enhanced status. In order to follow yet parody the genre, Corey first calls on Rocinante, now a spaceship, to bring to mind the old western "horse operas." At the same time, this text develops a striking yet plausible setting.
Although Leviathan Wakes is "a fast-moving adventure story that makes you think about all sorts of issues in all kinds of spheres" (Walton n.p.), I would argue that it also parodies genre through its language and characters. It is a space opera written in very plain, colloquial language, while at the same time providing a feel of being present in spite of faraway settings. (3) Rather than taking advantage of the immense vistas of space, Corey's book turns to the everyday. We need only recall the Rocinante's galley, with its "full-size coffeepot that could brew forty cups of coffee in less than five minutes whether the ship was in zero g or under a five-g burn" (173). This attention to details parallels Cervantes, where Sancho is always worried about what they are going to eat as the pair travels the dusty trails of La Mancha. When Coronel Fred Johnson of the OPA claims that: "I don't know what you've heard, but we aren't a bunch of cowboys itching for a chance to shoot our way out to freedom" (97-98), the every-day language contrasts with the subtle machinations of his group which some condemn as "terrorist." (4)
Cervantes also uses contrasts as a means for parody when the pompous and archaic language utilized by the knight is set against everyday realities. Parody again arises when the main figures are incongruous vehicles for the task they set out to accomplish. The older and half-mad Don Quixote and his phlegmatic and rotund squire Sancho are not equipped to conquer new lands. Although the knight imagines himself the future emperor of Trapisonda, such a feat is far beyond his powers; and although he yearns to bring back a golden age for humankind, he is hard-pressed to battle "evildoers" and save kidnapped princesses.
Leviathan Wakes presents a similar sense of impossible tasks taken up by characters that lack Don Quixote's vision. Justus Miller is a rather uncaring and corrupt police officer in the Belt that just wants to keep a semblance of order; while Jim Holden is not at all interested in rising in rank in the century-old ice hauling ship the Canterbury. Neither of them knows nor seems prepared to deal with the huge menace that is about to threaten the solar system. This clash between characters and mission serves as vehicle for parody in both Cervantes and Corey. The latter adds a new level since his work also includes chivalric elements--it is not by chance that the small recovery ship used by the Canterbury is called the Knight. Indeed, Leviathan Wakes remakes Don Quixote into a hopeful text where ordinary characters can fulfill their quixotic quests.
Jim Holden: A Reluctant Don Quixote
Corey's novel highlights the two main characters from the start, as the fifty-five chapters alternate in focus between James Holden and Josephus Miller. The first one is entitled "Holden" and so is the last. We are thus invited to take a look at him first (and last) since he is the space-opera hero. We should look at these two characters as awakening to the possibilities of the quixotic. If leviathan wakes, so does the quixotic instinct. I use quixotic to refer to someone who takes on an impossible task, a realist turned idealist who ignores obstacles in the path to making a better world. In many ways, Corey moves away from the comic approach to Cervantes's novel, where he is a laughable madman.
Holden, a veteran of Earth's navy, is now the Executive Officer at the Canterbury, hauling ice from Saturn to Ceres, so that the inhabitants of the Belt would have enough water to survive. However, environmental problems rarely worry Holden as he glides along making easy decisions or handing them to others. The text suggests that he does not resemble knights of old; that he is not at all like the knight in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. (5) When the Canterbury receives an emergency signal from the Scopuli, he must abandon erotic pleasures and move to the command center. He then behaves more like a Sancho, craving material things rather than an altruistic rescue mission: "There may be salvage" (14). However, he has to pilot the aptly named Knight, a shuttle that will inspect the source of the distress signal (31). Aware of the hole on the side of the Scopuli, the Captain of the Canterbury echoes Holden's attitude: "If you see anything out there, don't play the hero again. Just pack up the toys and come home" (33). While Don Quixote seeks adventure, adventure pursues Holden. The Canterbury is blown up ("nuked") by a mysterious ship that seems to appear out of nowhere, and the shuttle is left in the midst of space with a damaged Scopuli without a crew and nowhere to turn. As the extensive Wiki on the events in the television series points out: "The 'Sirenum Scopuli' were the rocks upon which the Sirens lived and lured sailors to their deaths using their song. This is quite fitting since the vessel Scopuli was used to lure the Canterbury to its destruction using a false distress signal." (6) As noted, onomastic games occur throughout Corey's novel. Although similar name games are found in Cervantes's novel, the knight, one of whose acknowledged models is Ulysses, never imagines this particular threat.
Holden, on the other hand, is much more of a Ulysses. Although he falls for the siren's song (the distress signal), he suddenly decides to take action. He wants to chase the huge vessel that destroyed the Canterbury and killed his friends. Naomi asks him: "Now you want to chase them? And what will you do if they let you catch them?" (57). Overcome by a quixotic desire for justice, Holden suddenly becomes a true captain of the tiny shuttle, the Knight. Like Don Quixote, he would fight an impossible battle. Held back by his reasoning Sancho (Naomi), he sends a broadcast accusing the Martian navy of destroying the Canterbury, judging that they are the only ones to have stealth technology. Like Don Quixote's encounter with Andrés, he judges what has happened before having enough information. (7) His impulsive deed exacerbates the rivalry between Earth and Mars.
Having nowhere to go, the crew of the Knight must follow the dictates of the Donnager, the flagship of Mars' Jupiter fleet and the pride of the Martian Congressional Republic Navy. The plot thickens as the OPA and its leader Fred Johnson establishes secret communications with the shuttle. In the midst of key events, conversation turns to genital warts (93), deflating and thus parodying genre expectations. It recalls the moment when Sancho defecates next to his master as he is frightened by nocturnal eerie noises (1.20:181). Eventually, the Martian ship captures them: "It was also intimidating ... the massive battleship matched course with them, looming close and then seeming to stop above them ... Holden ... couldn't shake the feeling that the Donnager was swallowing them" (112). The narrative creates the impression that the Martian ship may be the monstrous leviathan.
In Chapter 20 of the seventeenth-century novel, Don Quixote, when faced with what he imagines as the most horrifying enemy, compares himself to Mars. He claims that what most imparts fear is what spurs him forward (1.20:175). Holden's demeanor contrasts with Don Quixote's boastfulness. As someone from Earth, he knows of Mars' technological prowess. He urges caution to his crew. In Cervantes, the horrid sounds that he and Sancho hear do not belong to a fearsome enemy, but to a fulling mill. In Coreys novel, the dreadful noises in the Donnager are those of six mysterious ships that are attacking the impregnable Martian ship. Holden and his crew soon realize that Mars is not the enemy and that an unknown foe seems to have ships that can overwhelm the Donnager.
Jim Holden mirrors and deflects Don Quixote. He does not boast, he is often careful where he treads, and he has common sense. However, as the novel advances, he seeks to undertake impossible adventures. While Don Quixote proclaims his martial powers, Holden insults Mars. While Don Quixote will continue to judge without reason, Jim Holden comes to learn that Mars is not necessarily an enemy. Invoking Thomas Greene's terminology, I would argue that Leviathan Wakes includes a heuristic imitation of Don Quixote (40), one that validates the importance of risk-taking. While upholding the dreams of the knight, it does so not in terms of war and empire building, but through an impetus for knowledge and concord--the golden age that the gentleman from La Mancha envisions.
Josephus Miller: A Detective turned Knight
In an interview, Corey tells how his story is composed of two main genres and two main characters: "It is definitely science fiction of the old-school space opera variety. That's the story I wanted to tell. But half of the story was a detective story, and as soon as Detective Miller hit the page, he told me in a loud voice that he was a classic noir character" (569). Josephus Miller is a perceptive and somewhat corrupt policeman in the Belt, a place as distant and as poor as La Mancha, somewhere between Mars and the habitable moons of the outer planets. Nevertheless, it is far from empty: "Ceres, the port city of the Belt and the outer planets [...] had more than six million people, permanent residents, and as many as a thousand ships docking in any given day, meant upping the population to as high as seven million" (19). Living in tunnels pressed one against the other, with shabby housing for those that could afford it, the crime, the bad air, the low gravity, and the scarcity of everything, even water and air, made its inhabitants unique. Corey, showing how some trade on it for profit, once again foregrounds the environment. If the Spanish picaresque novel was moved six or seven centuries forward, Ceres would become as likely a setting as Cervantes's Seville. If one could export the setting of hard-boiled detective fiction from the streets of the big cities in America, one would place it here.
At the police station, Captain Shaddid gives Miller a new assignment: "It's a little lost-daughter case" (23). She is the rebellious daughter of a prominent family, and the case is a favor, off the books. The Captain orders Miller: "Find Julie Mao, detain her, and ship her home" (24). The clever and street-wise detective can easily read between the lines: "A kidnap job, then" (24). Her file includes her picture, a kind of ekphrastic moment that does not quite impress Miller: "There was a picture of her at eighteen in a tailored vac suit with the helmet off: pretty girl with a thin, lunar citizen's frame and long black hair. She was grinning like the universe had given her a kiss" (25). At first, then, Miller's attitude is far from quixotic. Even though he embodies the law, in Cervantes's novel he would be one of the enemies of the knight, one who would kidnap a lady or a princess.
Miller has to put his search on hold, for when Jim Holden's announcement on Mars as culprit is heard, he is immediately called to quell unrest and protect the Martians on the Belt. Not at all fond of Holden, Miller exclaims: "He just declared war on Mars for us" (61). Finally, after the riots subside, he makes it to Julie Mao's home, where he discovers "a wide armband with the split circle of the OPA" (85). He must thus engage with the rebellious group at this very tense time. Slowly but surely his off-the-books case becomes more complex: "He dreamed of Julie Mao laughing, and he woke up late with a headache" (109). Julie Mao has entered his dreams--but the case may create major headaches for the easygoing police officer. As the mystery deepens and becomes associated with tensions in the solar system, Miller's attitude changes. He no longer wants to kidnap her. Instead, he worries about her: "I think she's in trouble." Asked why he cares, his answer is "I just do" (127). This is the kind of empathy found throughout Cervantes's novel. (8) In many ways, he is becoming a Don Quixote, trying to rescue the woman in chivalric fashion. More than that, he begins to care for her. Her elusive presence starts to reconfigure her as a new Dulcinea. He also begins to sense danger. The OPA confirms that she worked for them. They ask the detective to "Stop looking for Julie Mao" (131). Such a statement makes even the worst of detectives (at least in fiction) redouble their efforts. Corey's novel takes us through Miller's transformation in a gradual and engaging fashion.
Now that Miller's curiosity and his quixotic impetus reach a peak, the author brings together the intertwined plots. Julie/Dulcinea was on the Scopuli, the ship that sent the distress signal; Jim Holden investigated the signal (132). The mystery becomes a puzzle: how did she get off the Scopuli? Forbidden to look for her by the OPA and now by his own Captain, she is the needed clue, the hidden mystery and the woman that dominates Miller's imagination. (9) Like Don Quixote, he will keep re-imagining this new Dulcinea as if she were his chivalric ladylove.
Riding Rocinante: Tychonic Visions
In chapter 17, the small crew of hostages search for ways to escape the now compromised Martian ship. Led to a small and speedy freighter, they board it. As noted above, Holden calls it Rocinante, a name no one seems to know. When asked its meaning, he replies: "It means we need to go find some windmills" (179). The first "windmill" they engage is Tycho Station, the Belt's headquarters of an engineering company. Its architecture resembles the circumference of the sails of an immense windmill: "The two counter-rotating habitation rings that circled the sphere had enough space for fifteen thousand workers and their families" (179). Don Quixote perceives the windmills as akin to Briareus, a giant with a hundred swinging arms (1.8:76). While Don Quixote may be battling technology, since inventions such as gunpowder and firearms would make knights obsolete, Holden marvels at what technology has brought about--marvels that will soon show their dangerous facets. (10)
Tycho Station calls to mind the sixteenth-century Danish astronomer and astrologer Tycho Brahe. Corey describes the immense station where the Rocinante docks: "four generations of the smartest people in the solar system had been living and working here as they helped drag humanity into the outer planets almost through sheer force of will" (180). In many ways, it is a testament to Brahe's immensely difficult task to establish with accuracy the position of stars and planets, and thus advance the science of astronomy. Tycho Station is building a spaceship with religious purpose, the Navoo, combining faith and science. Similarly, Tycho Brahe sought to balance scientific Copernican theories and elegantly conceptual Ptolemaic ones. It led him to the creation of the Tychonic system where the Moon and Sun revolve around the Earth while the other known planets revolve around the Sun. Cervantes may have handled the Tychonic system. It would be difficult to ascertain if he viewed it as a quixotic attempt at solving the mysteries of the cosmos. (11) Holden must also balance ingrained ideas with new ways of viewing what is occurring.
As the solar system teeters on the verge of war, Holden retreats to his ship: "Even though he'd only had possession of the ship for three weeks, climbing back into the Rocinante felt like going home" (201). Earlier, Holden had valiantly "ridden" or commanded the Knight. Now, he seems at home in a state-of-the-art Martian ship that is nothing like the enfeebled horse of Cervantes's novel. (12) The irony in naming the Martian frigate Rocinante may not have escaped Holden, nor perhaps the notion that the ship is too small to battle a whole solar system--and that his endeavor is a quixotic one. Ship and horse also serve as vehicles for adventure. Holden's Rocinante "sang him a lullaby," as he listens to the air recyclers (202). Cervantes's horse serves as a place to rest whenever beaten. The knight can easily ride the half-dislocated beast (1.8:76). While Cervantes explores the non-human animal, creating one of the most engaging portraits of a horse in literature, (13) Corey considers the relation between human and machine, and how it too can acquire "human" characteristics through an anthropomorphic view. Steven Wagschal advances the notion that "human exceptionalism is becoming less pervasive and less defensible in many regards" (16). Corey leads his reader to the next step, contact with an alien substance.
Looking for possible escape routes from the Martian ship that is about to be destroyed, Detective Miller smiles when he comes up with a ship called the Rocinante: "'That you, Holden?' Miller said to the screen. 'You out tilting at windmills?"' (207). The stage is set for the convergence of the two characters: Miller following a woman he was told no longer to pursue and whom he kept recreating in his imagination; (14) and Holden, tilting at the windmills of a pugnacious and confusing solar system as he maneuvers a small frigate.
Dulcinea Infected
The OPA leader sends Holden to Eros in order to find a person that may have been in the mysterious Scopuli. Miller also travels there to find an old friend and obtain information. This asteroid is a small enclave. However: "The internal caverns of Eros had been the birthplace of the Belt" (226). Once important, now almost forgotten, with a population of one and a half million, its name is also important. Eros stands for desire. Once there, Holden goes looking for the former occupant of the Scopuli, while Miller follows. The dingy hotel where the individual is registered becomes a trap, as Holden and his crew are attacked. Miller defends them and after they have disposed of this unexpected enemy, they move to the room where the person may be hiding. This convergence, and the consequent discovery, occurs almost at the center of the novel, in chapter 24: "In the shower stall Juliette Andromeda Mao lay dead.... She was nude, and barely human. Coils of complex growth spilled from her mouth, ears, and vulva.... Tubes stretched from her back and throat, crawling up the walls behind her" (246). (15) Holden and Miller have run into the very mystery they were looking for, except that what they find is even more horrid, unexplainable and unimaginable.
In Cervantes, Dulcinea is a creature of the knight's imagination. At one point, she may have been Aldonza Lorenzo, a peasant woman' from nearby, but she had become a knights ideal woman. Deep into the wilderness of Sierra Morena, Don Quixote wishes to do penance for his beloved. While Corey deals with Eros in Chapters 24-30, Don Quixote is ensconced in Sierra Morena, dreaming of Dulcinea also in chapters 24-30. Before engaging in penance, the knight sets out to draw her in his imagination (1.25:244). He creates Dulcinea from the most perfect models, perhaps following the ancient painter Zeuxis, who chooses five models in order to paint Helen at a temple. While the artist chooses live models, Don Quixote thinks of literary and legendary figures. Pairing Helen and Lucretia is in itself difficult. Although the knight might think of Helen as a lady in distress, abducted to Troy; many Renaissance writers and painters saw her as wanton, and wanting to go with Paris. Lucretia, on the contrary, was considered the paragon of chastity, as she kills herself when raped by Tarquin. There are other models that the knight finds in these chapters: Oriana, Amadis's beloved, is loyal and chaste; while Angelica, pursued by Orlando, is immensely alluring but of suspicious character, preferring to love a Moor. If we add to these four figures that of Aldonza, we come up with the five models required by Zeuxis. Dulcinea, then, has many facets for contemplation: Lucretia the martyr, the woman in distress; Helen, the most beautiful, seeker of erotic pleasures; the sinned against Oriana of virtuous beauty; the sinful Angelica, attracted by Moorish pleasures; and Aldonza, an almost forgotten peasant (De Armas, Quixotic Frescoes 170-88). Has the knight created a perfect image for contemplation or a grotesque and monstrous figure whose disparate parts cannot form a harmonious whole?
First through a photograph and a file and then with new information, Detective Miller creates in his mind an engaging portrait of a rebellious young woman who fled her parents to help the OPA. She is also a mysterious figure that seems to move with ease from ship to ship. He now sees this lively and beautiful figure murdered and dismembered. Her disparate parts no longer fit, as she has been infected by something truly threatening. Soon Miller and Holden discover that all of Eros is being purposefully infected by a company known as Protogen so as to discover the full effects of the virus. Cameras are left to record the suffering and death of its people. Miller and Holden slowly abandon any suspicion of each other as they seek to exit the infected asteroid and return to the Rocinante. During these difficult moments, Miller sets aside the monstrous Dulcinea/Julie. Instead: "She had become the part of him that was capable of human feeling. The symbol of what he could have been" (285). Julie/Dulcinea becomes a symbol of what is best in humanity: "Consoling. Forgiving" (285). She is the embodiment of those that accept the "romantic" approach to Cervantes's novel. (16) She also becomes a pointer to humanity's worst inclinations. Her monstrous body demonstrates the nature of amoral corporations; in this case, one that would profit from every experiment, even the most gruesome, inhumane and deadly. From now on, Miller and Holden will ride the Rocinante in an effort to stop the madness. The non-human animal, the non-human ship and a Dulcinea no longer human become a space for hope.
Dulcinea Enchanted
While in the second part of Cervantes's novel, the knight slowly loses his drive and willpower as Dulcinea becomes enchanted, in the second half of Coreys book, Julie, although deceased, whispers back to Miller, keeping him on the right path. Together with Holden, who captains the frigate Rocinante, they tilt at windmills turned giants and giants turned windmills in order to piece together the politics of the solar system and attempt to stop a sadistic experiment. Although the novel now teeters on the apocalyptic, quixotic echoes provide relief.
In part one, chapter 8 of Cervantes's novel, the knight assures Sancho that the enchanters turned giants into windmills. Miller, acting like Sancho, tries to convince Holden not to act without careful planning. After all, someone is transforming events into what they are not: "They made the Canterbury look like Mars. It wasn't. They made the Donnager look like the Belt. It wasn't. Now it looks like the whole damn thing's Earth? Follow the pattern. It probably isn't!" (329). Cervantes's enchanters have become the incarnation of fake news. At Asteroid BA834024112 they find their next clue: a hidden ship, the Anubis, with its crew and that of the Scopuli rendered into a monstrous mass by the terrifying virus, the "protomolecule" (335). Names, again, come to the surface and affect our reading. Anubis is the Egyptian god of the dead, protector of tombs. Our tomb raiders discover the back-story. The protomolecule had been sent by aliens to Earth but had been caught in Saturn's orbit. Discovered by an amoral corporation, Protogen, the false flag destruction of the Canterbury had been a distraction that would start a war and hide their "experiment" with over one million people at Eros. Holden and Miller come to understand that the mad scientists at Protogen are placing all of humanity at risk in order to possess and manipulate the ultimate weapon. They mimic the evil enchanters in Cervantes's novels. While these exist only in Don Quixote's mind, the amoral scientists of the future are very real.
Once they "nuke" the Anubis in order to destroy the growing protomolecule there, the crew of the Rocinante swiftly returns to Tycho Station and then moves on to more discoveries. In desperation, a truly quixotic plan emerges. They must capture the immense generational ship, the Navoo, send it crashing into Eros at the right speed in order to propel it into the Sun. However, Eros, now fully infected by the protomolecule is able to autonomously change course and turn instead towards Earth. The path of the two quixotic heroes diverges as we approach the finale. Miller stays on Eros with bombs that are meant to destroy its maneuverability. Aboard the Rocinante, Holden keeps him updated--Earth is sending all its nuclear warheads towards Eros. In Cervantes, love and hope lose out to the enchanters. Don Quixote will let himself die, having been defeated by treachery (Sansón Carrasco) and by Dulcineas enchantment. In Leviathan Wakes, Holden believes in his friend Miller in spite of his extravagant imaginings. Miller comes to believe that Julie is alive in Eros. The asteroid of desire brings them together. She is not just part of the protomolecule, she seems to be "riding" it to earth: "Her brain, her emotions are all over this thing" (531). Miller must reach her, and so he does: "Not human, but still Julie" (543). Holding on to her, he makes her realize what is happening; he enlivens her rebellious spirit; he tells her that she must change course and go to Venus. Once there, "if we don't die, then ... well, that'll be interesting" (545).
Leviathan Wakes contains an engaging and extended conversation with Cervantes's Don Quixote, having to do with what it is to be human, what are our aspirations, and how we deal with the non-human. In Corey's novel, the parodie and romantic approaches to Don Quixote come together. As a heuristic imitation, Leviathan Wakes advertises a Cervantine subtext, but distances itself from it, asking us to recognize differences. Corey uses parody to deflate the high style of space operas, turning to the quotidian, much like Cervantes turns to rustic La Mancha. Rocinante is, in both novels, a place of security and communion; it is also a means of transport to places of adventure. A state-of-the-art non-human machine replaces the emaciated non-human animal, both partaking of anthropomorphic sympathies. Only the sleek Rocinante is set to succeed in spite of its parodie relation to horse opera. Focusing on the romantic visions of Cervantes's novel, Corey develops two main characters that, through different motivations, come to accept the quixotic impetus. They follow an impossible dream of saving the solar system from evil enchanters in the guise of scientists, corporations, and politicians. Corey also turns to Dulcinea, now called Julie Mao, a rebellious young woman idealized by Miller. Dulcinea becomes many things: a dream-like ideal, a dead woman, a woman infected, a monster and, finally, the consciousness that guides Eros. As Julie becomes Eros, Miller comes to her, risking his own life. He gently leads her towards Venus, Eros' mother, the goddess of love. As many witness the stunning conjoining, Earth is saved, love is saved, and something new is born. Miller and Julie are now truly enchanted. They have become part of Venus and part of a substance from beyond the solar system.
University of Chicago
fdearmas@uchicago. edu
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Marin Ruiz, Ricardo. "Revisiting Rosinante: Reinterpretations of the Cervantine Character in Rosinante to the Road Again, Monsignor Quixote, and Travels with Charley." EPOS 31 (2015): 437-52.
Nadeau, Carolyn A. Women of the Prologue: Imitation, Myth and Magic in Don Quixote I. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2002.
Rivers, Elias L. "Narrators, Characters and other Readers in Don Quixote." Cervantes 2.1 (1982): 96-98.
Smith, Wendell P. '"Ver Mundo': Enchanted Boats, Magic and Imperial Atlases in the Second Part of Don Quijote." Cervantes 32.2 (2012): 37-81.
Wagschal, Steven, Minding Animals in the Old and New Worlds. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2018.
Walton, Jo. "More like this, please: S. A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes! Tor.com. Web. https://www.tor.com/2012/01/12/more-like-this-please-james-sa-coreys-leviathan-wakes/ January 12, 2012.
Weimer, Paul. "Review: Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey." SFSignal.com. Web. May 21, 2012.
(1) On the relationship between horse and knight, see Cull (37-53).
(2) Robert B. Alter asserts, "the novel begins out of an erosion of belief in the authority of the written word" (956). For authorship and authority in the Prologue, see also Nadeau (30); and De Armas (Quixotic Frescoes 36-38).
(3) "From the variable pseudo-gravity found in the various asteroids to the feel of life aboard various spaceships, Leviathan Wakes puts you there and makes it feel real" (Weimer n.p.).
(4) .Corey's novel reflects contemporary struggles to define who is a "terrorist," while Cervantes's fiction seeks to problematize what is a "just war."
(5) There is much more to discuss regarding Chaucer's text and Leviathan Wakes, but this would take us away from Cervantes. To further the onomastic games of the work, the vessel is often called the Cant. This may bring to mind its negative aspects and that it "can't" escape its tragic fate.
(6) See "The Expanse Wiki" (https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Scopuli).
(7) Pointing to other episodes, Amy Williamsen asserts: "Cervantes seems to warn us against naively accepting appearances (or stated intentions) at face value" (176).
(8) Amy Williamsen asserts: "He provides readers myriad opportunities to empathize with others, tangibly embodying their suffering--whether it be Don Quixote's dismay at the sad state of his stockings, Sancho's lament for his ass, or Ricote's passionate love of a country lost. Amidst laughter, there lies an awareness of the depth of human suffering" (177).
(9) Drunk one night, he is found by Hasini who informs him that "You've been talking about her all night" (172).
(10) On Cervantes's Briareus and the indebtedness to Virgil and Dante and Giulio Romano, see De Armas (Quixotic Frescoes 147-52). On Cervantes and technology, see Jaksic (75-96).
(11) Almost nothing has been written on Cervantes and Tycho Brahe. Enrique Garcia Santo-Tomás notes that his planetary theories were espoused by Juan Caramuel y Lobkowizt and Juan Eusebio Nierenberg in Spain (55, 231). John Beusterien discusses Tycho Brahe in his book on Cervantes and Velázquez, but it is the painter rather than the writer who is chosen for comparison (79). As for Cervantes's stance on the heliocentric theory, Wendell P. Smith asserts that he revels in the "clash of ideas" without taking sides (69). For Cervantes's knowledge of cosmography, see Dominguez (139-57).
(12) "Thus, the singularity of this horse does not lie in his strength, bravery or powerful and fast galloping, but in his being deprived of these qualities, just as it happens to human characters" (Marin Ruiz 440).
(13) For Steven Wagschal, Rocinante and the unnamed donkey in Cervantes yield "a new way of representing human-animal relationships, unlike any before it across Europe" (20-21).
(14) "He tried to explain why hed given up everything to find her. After his discovery of the Rocinante, he could hardly avoid the word quixotic" (210).
(15) Julie's middle name, Andromeda, advances onomastic and symbolic games. In mythology, she was tied to a rock and was to be devoured by a monster. Is Miller a new Perseus that "saves" her?
(16) For Close, one of the characteristics of the "romantic approach" is: "The belief that the novel is symbolical and that through this symbolism it expresses ideas about the human spirit's relation to reality or about the nature of Spanish history" (Romantic Approach 1). Javier Herrero counters criticism on the romantic approach, stating: "if Romanticism had created a dogma which made of Don Quijote a tragic hero in a world too small to understand his greatness, the Anglo-Saxon and-Romantic reaction created a new dogma which reduced Don Quijote to a buffoon, a victim of Cervantes' relentless mockery" (33).
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| Author: | de Armas, Frederick |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America |
| Article Type: | Ensayo crítico |
| Date: | Sep 21, 2020 |
| Words: | 6352 |
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