The Magic and Promise of Cervantes

 The Magic and Promise of Cervantes, with apologies.

Who among us has not, at one time or another, entertained the dream, the idea, of a life dedicated to overcoming even one of the many injustices inflicted on the human race in this fractured and tortured world? To try, despite uncountable odds, to right even one unbearable wrong? To fight fiercely and fairly for a just and noble cause? To dedicate ones heart and soul and body to the challenge. To… to, but wait, I hear the orchestra tuning their instruments.

But there are other worthy challenges, some within the grasp and capabilities of mortals.

I have spent most of my life in, and with books - blame that, if cause be needed, on my father. (If only every child was so afflicted). And, occasionally, out of the tens of thousand books that have passed through my hands and eyes, the words of some of the authors have resonated with a frequency approaching the hum of gravitational waves rippling through the cosmos. It is the sound of no hand clapping, but of harmony. But the desire to read more of their works, and to know more about their lives and times, is for some of us overwhelming.

Thus are we disposed to accept the challenge.

May I set the stage? I shall become a knight errant and impersonate a lonely man of books. Come, enter into my imagination and see him! His name... Lorenzo Hawkins, a country bibliophile, no longer young ... bony, hollow-faced... eyes that burn with the fire of inner vision. Being retired, he has much time for wine and books. He reads and studies books from morn to night, and often through the night as well. And all he reads excites him, yet oppresses him... fills him with indignation at man's murderous ways toward literature and books. And he conceives the strangest project ever imagined... to become a knight-errant and sally forth into the world and search out all publications extant written by, or in some way connected to the authors of his dreams. No longer shall he be plain Lorenzo Hawkins… but a dauntless book sleuth known as… Lorenzo cercatore di libri.

He will seek out the hidden, the blatant and obscure. Thrift shops, garages, barns. junk stores, abandoned cars, storage units, boats moored at marinas, bedrooms, igloos, foot lockers, yard sales, the tents of the homeless, and anywhere else a book might hide.

Somewhere he feels certain he will find his Dulcinea del Taboso.