A brief appreciation for the pathetic in literature

Today I finished reading a work I had been looking forward to for a few years already, namely the novel El anacronópete (1887) by Enrique Gaspar. Unfortunately, as I was unable to obtain a physical copy in the original language, and since I do not like to read on a screen and therefore preferred to use the file on Project Gutenberg mainly as a control text against the English, I had to rely on the excellent translation The Time Ship by Yolanda Molina-Gavilán and Andrea Bell from 2012. I first learned of this book thanks to the third season of one of my favourite TV series, El Ministerio del Tiempo (The Ministry of Time), which is an excellent way to become introduced to both major and minor aspects of Spain’s rich, layered, complicated and varied cultural history.       

There are many interesting things to say about the novel, more things than I as a neophyte in science fiction literature can embark on and still do them justice, at least within the confines of a blogpost. But one thing of which the novel did remind me was an aspect of the speculative literature of the nineteenth century that I greatly appreciate, namely the pathetic protagonist. And in this blogpost, I wish to provide a brief explanation of what I mean by this description, and why I appreciate it so much. 

As far as the novel goes, Gaspar does not hold back in his construction of pathetic figures when fashioning the two main male protagonists of the tale. Chief of these two is the scientist Don Sindulfo García, maker of the time ship or the anacronópete, who is a man in his forties. The second is Benjamín, a man in his thirties, a humanist polymath who has studied a vast array of languages, and who serves as Don Sindulfo’s assistant. Together with the two female protagonists – Clara, the fifteen-year-old ward and niece of Don Sindulfo and Juana her nineteen-year-old maid – they travel back in time. The two male protagonists, however, have very different key motives for doing so, and both these motives are in their way pathetic because they are founded on pettiness and selfishness. Benjamín is mainly concerned with obtaining the recipe for immortality rumoured to be found in Han China, while Don Sindulfo is in search for a less liberal age in which it will be legal for him to marry his own niece. The selfishness of these two individuals plays out in different ways that endanger both themselves and other characters, but to go into any detail on this here would spoil too much. The point is that in their efforts to indulge in this selfishness, the two scientists are displayed as the all-too-human, all-too-foibled individuals that they are.     

I appreciate such protagonists greatly, because they are the opposite of hero-worship, and their fallible nature gives a sheen of realism even to the wildest and most absurd stories (two categories to which El anacronópete definitely belongs). It is that kind of human realism that makes it much easier to suspend any disbelief concerning other aspects of the story, and that allows me to heartily enjoy all kinds of unrealistic coincidences or even the use of deus ex machina. As I generally abhor any kind of hero-worship and as I prefer to emphasise the human aspect of even those individuals whom I consider the greatest and the best among us, I like seeing the pathetic aspect of humanity written large on literary protagonists.            

It is this kind of pathetic humanity that has made me enjoy certain speculative novels – novels that explore ideas and that are not confined to neither fantasy nor science fiction but can easily be classified as both – from the nineteenth century. A few memorable cases can be listed here. In George Sand’s Laura, a Journey into the crystal (Laura, Voyage dans le cristal) from 1864, a poor geology student is dragged along on an unlikely expedition by his megalomaniac and demonic uncle. In Jules Verne’s masterpiece Journey to the centre of the earth (Voyage au centre de la Terre) from 1864/67 a similar uncle-nephew dynamic is notable, one which might be explained by Verne’s apparent inspiration drawn from George Sand’s novel, as noted by William Butcher in his 2008 translation. In Verne’s story, however, the uncle is not as theatrically demonic, but his obsession and stubbornness come very close and do give the scientist in question a very pathetic touch to his otherwise evident resilience. The nephew, who is also the novel’s first-person narrator, is more traditionally pathetic in that he is doubtful, scared, yet too much in his uncle’s thrall to rebel, and this is why is all-the-more relatable and, indeed, likable. (Note that I do not use pathetic as a pejorative but as a neutral, if not downright objective, description.) Two final examples here will be Henry Rider Haggard’s protagonist Allan Quatermain, of whom I have read in King Solomon’s Mines (1885) and Allan Quatermain (1887), and Horace Holly from She (1887). Both these men are pathetic in different ways, but in each case they are pathetic by not conforming to the ideals of their society, one by being frail and emotional, one by being ugly and eremitic.          

Due to the pathetic nature of the protagonists of these novels, the reader, at least in my case, is drawn all the more vividly into the story-world because there is something very human and therefore relatable about them. In some cases this humanity makes them also likable, although that is not always a given. (I will state that I detest Horace Holly with a vengeance because of his misogyny.) The pathetic element of these figures gives both the characters and the novels they inhabit greater depth, and it is that kind of depth that in my mind is one of the many possible hallmarks of great literature.  

Or, perhaps I appreciate these pathetic literary figures because they remind me of myself, and we all, I suspect, appreciate seeing ourselves reflected and represented in the works of culture that we imbibe.