The Swindler

     The unlikely heroes of the Spanish picaresque novels make their way by whatever means they can through a colourful and seamy underworld populated by unsavoury beggars, corrupt priests, eccentrics, whores and criminals. The swindler is determined to attain the trappings of the gentleman, but have little time for the gentlemanly ideals of religion, justice, honour and nobility.

     Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645) was a distinguished and prolific writer of prose and poetry but chose a political career. Towards the end of his life he was imprisoned in a monastery as a result of his writing. The Author of the “The Swindler”, who published the novel anonymously, is thought to come from sixteenth-century Erasmian or New Christian circles.

     Michael Alpert, Professor Emeritus of Modern and Contemporary History of Spain at the University of Westminster, has published several books and articles on Spanish history. (Michael Alpert, 1969)

     The hallmark of the Picaresco is that the picaro at some point chooses the criminal indolent life and becomes the cynical tough who is able to observe the hypocricies of his daily world from outside the margins of respectability. While both of the books mine this theme, Lazarillo is in some respects more interesting since his “choice” is less clear. He is clearly motivated by poverty and hunger. Even though flawed, the satire is sharper as his pathos is deeper.

     It is interesting to see how the genre evolves with The Swindler, written in 1608 by Francisco de Quevedo. The picaro in The Swindler, Pablos, is born bad. His father is a criminal barber and his mother is a witch.

     Every chance that he has to get money, he loses it or spends it and has to flee to a new situation with a new challenge. As with Lazaro, there is the strong sense that even if Pablo wanted to go straight, fate would be against him. Unlike Lazaro, however, Pablo has a real glee in wrong-doing that becomes nearly as much part of the point as the social satire. (Anonymous, Michael Alpert, 2003)

     The title of the book is internally contradictory. A Swindler, meaning ‘to search’, is one who searches in rubbish to see what he can find, perhaps like Shakespeare’s Autolycus, in The Winter’s Tale, a ‘snapper-up of unconsidered trifles’. From that it came to mean a petty criminal. (Peter N. Dunn, 1993)

     Quevedo, however, gives his buscon the title of respect: Don. This reflects the conflict, for Pablos wants to be gentlemen and gives himself airs, but he cannot or is not allowed to rise above his ancestry and his fundamental vulgarity, and becomes a common criminal. (Anonymous, Michael Alpert, 2003)

     The first half of the seventeenth century was an average of dillusion. Spain was bankrupt, unable to maintain the vast military and bureaucratic apparatus needed to govern the empire in America and to fight wars in Europe. Morally, the Court had reached its lowest point, although elaborate outward forms were maintained.

     The Swindler picaresque novel often claims to be written by its main character rather than it true author, because a low-class hero was not a fit subject for an established author to write about. Quevedo, indeed, refused to admit that he was the author of the        

     The forward of the book would give you the impression that the Spanish invented the picaresque novel, a point on which I would differ, given that Petronius’ The Satyricon, which whiles not a novel per se, is still the very spirit of the picaresque literary theme and is older by far.

     Nonetheless, I found this short novel entertaining and surprisingly educational, showing us if nothing else that human motivations and susceptibility to temptation and trickery really never change. The challenge of novel is to find and maintain a suitable register for their colloquial tone. Quevedo’s style of writing, however, presents additional, serious problems in translating the Swindler.

     Our mindset and outlook are so far apart from those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that it is difficult to judge the effect of this novel on the original readers. They have to be allowed to speak for themselves to us. So my aim in translating has been to try to use a contemporary English tone and idiom, comprehensible on both sides of Atlantic, while avoiding trendy language.

     Exiled to the margins of society and surviving by his wits in the course of his wanderings, the picaro marks a sharp contrast to the high-born characters on which previous Spanish literature had focused. In this illuminating book, writer offers a fresh view of the gamut of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish picaresque fiction. (Anonymous, Michael Alpert, 2003)

     The cons and tricks employed by the “heroes” of novel are easy to identify with, being as many are the Renaissance era equivalents of modern day identity theft and business fraud. And as smaller examples of the literary style of the time, they also fit well alongside the much more famous work of the period, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, in both the feel of the culture of that time and place and of the universal traits of human nature that transcend time and place.

     The translation is well done and reads quite smoothly, even though as it notes in the forward that some jokes, puns and other comic references were so tied to the language and the time that only lengthy footnotes could attempt to explain them in context, which would have marred the readability considerably. (Michael, 1969)

     One thing that can disappoint is that, The Swindler ends referring to a second volume which apparently was never written.     This may have been intentional, a literary device of sorts. Or, since DeQuevedo never intended The Swindler to be published in the first place, and when it did appear, never claimed authorship, it may simply be that he never got around to writing the alluded-to second volume. Still, that aside, this short novel is worth reading for anyone who has a fondness for the picaresque or for pieces of that period of Spanish literature.

     I would advise anyone who would accidentally fall upon this book to pick it up or buy it. It is that much fun! The idea of the Spanish picaresque novel is that there is always a character less than desirable in the eyes of others, usually he is the main character and a young thief, and the book follows this character as he begins to grow up and learn life-lessons... sometimes in very comical ways.