Don Juan – His Own Version (2004, English translation 2010) is set in 17th
century France in Port-Royal-des-Champs, southwest of Paris, in a country inn
with no guests. The anonymous narrator is the innkeeper, chef, reader, and
failed businessman.
Don Juan is a fictional character – a Spanish lover and womanizer – in the
1630 Tirso de Molina novel ‘El bulador de Sevilla’ – The Trickster of Seville.
In this novella, Don Juan arrived in May, hurtling over the wall and into
the gardens of the inn – without any luggage. He was escaping the wrath of two
lovers on motorbike. The innkeeper knows immediately that it is the famous Don
Juan. He stopped for a meal, and stayed a week.
During the week Don Juan recounts his stories about women. He begins in
Tbilisi, Georgia, at a wedding, coming face-to-face with the bride, and
continues with women in Damascus (Syria), Ceuta (a Spanish region near
Morocco), Holland, and Norway. The innkeeper says that ‘Don Juan was no
seducer. He had never seduced a woman. He had certainly run into some who had
accused him of doing so.’ But neither were the women the seducers – there was
no seduction involved – amorousness just happened!
Don Juan, who sighs a lot throughout his storytelling, was aware of his
power with women, but insists that it was not in his appearance, but in his
eyes – his gaze. One look and women were smitten. And not only women – their brothers,
fathers, and uncles took quite a liking to the Don too.
What do readers learn about Don Juan? It did not occur to the famous lover
to count the number of women, he had other cultural interests (such as theatre,
concerts, and social engagements), and he was continously on the move, travelling
from one country to another, staying little more than a week at a time.
What do readers learn about the women involved, briefly, with the great Don
Juan? All of the women were ‘natives of their respective countries … all
radiated something dark, even menacing … all of unspecific age … each of them
was on the lookout for the man who would be worthy of her … [ready] to leap
into action ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ … they all had the capacity to become
dangerous’ and all were wearing white.
Don Juan’s driver comes to pick him up at the end of the week. The
narrator’s inn was suddenly surrounded by six or seven women – all wearing white!
The innkeeper concludes that Moliere’s and Mozart’s versions of Don Juan ‘were
all false’ because the Don Juan that he knows is certainly a very different
character.
This is a 101-page novella, with a succinct, tight writing style, full of
descriptive language – from the labiate flowers (having lip-like parts) to the
bar in Ceuta – the ‘edge of the steep promontory where the African continent
fell off, high above the channel, where the tavern keeper was a former Mr.
Universe, still somewhat higher in rank than the local beauty queen, and for
the benefit of Don Juan, his only guest, the man rippled his muscles one after
the other.’ It’s an interesting account of the great attraction for the great
lover.
MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:-
The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends
(2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan
Curse (2009).
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