Чем ближе читатель по возрасту к Дон Кихоту, а по фигуре — к Санчо Пансе, тем прекраснее кажется этот роман. Великолепный.

n   “Que trata de lo que verá el que lo leyere o lo oirá el que lo escuchare leer” n

Pues así es, que no todo el mundo le saca el mismo provecho. Me dirán que eso ocurre con cualquier libro, y es cierto, pero el caso de este es muy especial.

Los muchos años que lleva en el universo literario juegan a su favor, y si durante un buen número de ellos fue considerado simplemente un libro cómico y de aventuras, después ha dado lugar a multitud de interpretaciones a cual más sesuda, con lo que Cervantes acabó saliéndose con la suya, que no es otra que la que explicitó en el prólogo: que leyéndolo, “el melancólico se mueva a risa, el risueño la acreciente, el simple no se enfade, el discreto se admire de la invención, el grave no la desprecie, ni el prudente deje de alabarla”. Un propósito encomiable y peliagudo que quizá le turbó en demasía si tenemos en cuenta la cantidad de errores, olvidos o contradicciones que contiene, al menos en su primera parte.

En cualquier caso, no deja de sorprender que un Ortega considere al Quijote como “el eterno esfuerzo en el que se debate la cultura toda por dar claridad y seguridad al hombre en el caos existencial en que se halla metido” y un Tom McCarthy piense que se trata de “alguien que quiere ser auténtico… y descubre que para lograrlo ha de sumergirse en ficciones”. Parece que fue Friedrich W. J. Schelling quién estableció la teoría de que la novela confrontaba el idealismo con el realismo, siendo don Quijote el defensor de un ideal inalcanzable en contra de una realidad tozuda y desagradable. Hay quién solo ve en la novela una sátira de las costumbres de la época o, yendo un poco más allá, de la idiosincrasia española. Hasta hay quién ve en la novela una Biblia que tiene a Don Quijote como a un nuevo Cristo.

Me pregunto si Cervantes era consciente de todo esto que ahora se le atribuye, o si no era más que, como algunos argumentan, un genio irreflexivo, vamos, algo así como el burro al que le suena la flauta por casualidad (aunque bien es verdad que, al menos, la tocó dos veces).

Por mi parte creo que tampoco es descartable que la dolencia de don Quijote no fuera más que una fuerte crisis de los cincuenta y, de igual forma que hay quién se compra una moto y se cree el rey del mambo, éste, consciente de pronto de la potencia de su brazo, decidió montárselo a lo grande y ponerse el mundo por bacía de barbero.

n   “Todo es morir, y acabóse la obra” n

Two books, really, one written ten years after the super-popular sensation of the first three Sallies of our intrepid Knight Errant, the collected stories here are something really special.

It doesn't even matter that I read a translation from the Spanish of 1605. Or that the numerous references to Chivalry are half-super obscure or relegated to fantasy (or possible fantasy, for you historical purists and hopefuls).

Once we start this comic masterpiece, it becomes something a lot more than a chivalric romance tempered by sheer sarcasm, optimism, delusion, realism, or idealism writ large. It cleverly becomes anything you want as a reader. :)

For idealists and the imaginative at heart, Don Quixote is the hero that never gives up on his dreams no matter what anyone says. Assumed mad by everyone around him, he still manages to be perfectly rational about EVERYTHING except the idea of Chivalry. It consumes everything he does and while it does get him into a LOT of trouble... like getting beat up by a windmill... it also charms the living hell out of almost everyone he meets. The pursuit of his dream fascinates everyone even as they laugh at him.

For the sarcastic and the sardonic among us, we laugh at Don Quixote for the way he shines a spotlight on our own stupid crap and we are shocked and amazed when we discover that he might be RIGHT in his decisions when compared to what "normal", "regular" society thinks and does. His lunacy is almost a divine lunacy. Satire? Absolutely.

For the realist in us, we despair because NO ONE lives by sane rules. Not our neighbors, society, nor the holy idealists that shoot their arrows into the void of absurdity. Sancho Panza fights and fights, trying to keep his old friend alive despite everything, getting beat over the head repeatedly by the lunacy... until he gives in. Broken. And just goes along with reality, taking whatever scraps he can in hopes that the emperor's new clothes will start to fit him.

Gorgeous stuff. Any of us could take any kind of read we want out of this, and there's a lot more than just these three ways to read it. But above all, it's all funny as hell, timely even now, and smart in a way that only the most brilliant books are smart. And timeless.

Anyone upon reading this can see how it influences a vast stream of books that came after. Or TV shows. I think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Confederacy of Dunces, and even American Psycho.

Of course, I'm sure most people will think of more standard titles, but from TS Eliot to the Dark Tower to Spaghetti Westerns to the Seven Samurai, the influence is still insanely clear. :)

A true classic.

(Book 992 from 1001 books) - Don Quixote = Don Quijote de La mancha (Don Quijote de la Mancha #1-2), Miguel de Cervantes

The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha, or just Don Quixote, is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published.

Don Quixote shows the life of an individual who is delusional and spends his time reading forbidden works.

At the time of telling the story, writing and reading works dealing with knights were forbidden. And the main character of the story considers himself the place of one of these knights, and sees hypothetical enemies in front of him, which are, of course, mountains and trees. Don Quixote is an imaginary hero, helpless and stubborn who considers himself invincible.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «دن کیشوت»؛ «دون کیخوته»؛ نویسنده: سر وانتس؛ انتشاراتیها: (روایت، نیل، وستا، روزگار و ...) ادبیات اسپانیا؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش در یکی از روزهای سال 1972میلادی

عنوان: دون کیشوت؛ نویسنده: سروانتس؛ مترجم: محمد قاضی؛ تهران، انتشارات نیل، 1349؛ دو جلد جمعا در 1286صفحه؛ یکی از کتابهای مجموعه ی ده رمان بزرگ جهان

عنوان: دون کیشوت؛ نویسنده: سروانتس؛ مترجم: ذبیح الله منصوری؛ ...، چاپ دیگر تهران، کتاب وستا، 1389؛ در 564ص؛ شابک 9786009104475؛

عنوان: دون کیخوته (دن کیشوت)؛ نویسنده: سروانتس؛ مترجم: کیومرث پارسای؛ تهران، روزگار، 1390؛ دو جلد حدود 1300ص؛ شابک دوره 9789643741259؛

این اثر از کهنترین رمانها، در زبان‌های نوین «اروپایی» است؛ بسیاری آن را بهترین کتاب نوشته شده، به زبان «اسپانیایی»، می‌دانند؛ «سروانتس» بخش نخست «دن کیشوت» را، در زندان بنوشتند، و نخستین بار در سال 1605میلادی، در «مادرید» منتشر کردند، و بخش دوم آن، ده سال بعد در سال 1615میلادی، به چاپ رسید؛ «دن کیشوت» زندگی فردی را به خوانشگر نشان می‌دهد، که دچار توهم است، و اوقات خود را با خواندن آثار ممنوعه می‌گذراند؛ در زمان روایت داستان، نوشتن و خواندن آثاری که به شوالیه ها می‌پرداخت، قدغن بود؛ و شخصیت اصلی داستان، خود را جای یکی از همین شوالیه‌ ها میشمارد، و دشمنانی فرضی را، در برابر خویش می‌بیند، که البته کوه‌ها و درخت‌ها هستند؛ «دن کیشوت» پهلوانی خیالی، و بی‌دست‌ و پاست، که خود را شکست‌ ناپذیر می‌پندارد؛ او به سفرهایی طولانی می‌رود، و در میانه ی همین سفرهاست، که اعمالی عجیب و غریب، از وی سر می‌زند؛ وی که هدفی، جز نجات مردمان، از ظلم و استبداد حاکمان ظالم، ندارد، نگاهی تخیلی به اطراف خویش دارد، و همه چیز را، در قالب ابزار جنگی می‌بیند؛ تاکنون هیچ کتابی، به اندازه ی «دن کیشوت»، این‌همه مورد عشق و علاقه ی ملل گوناگون نبوده‌ است؛ بسیاری از کتاب‌ها هستند، که تنها به یک قوم و ملت اختصاص دارند؛ و از حدود مرز یک کشور فراتر نمی‌روند، بسیاری دیگر نیز هستند، که در میان ملل دیگر هم خوانشگر دارند، اما تنها مورد پسند طبقه ی روشنفکر، یا مردمان عادی، یا طبقات ممتاز جامعه هستند؛ اما «دن کیشوت» تمام حصارهای «جغرافیایی»، «نژادی»، «اجتماعی»، و «طبقاتی» را، در هم شکسته، و عنوان خود را با دنیا و بشریت، گره زده است

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 20/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 17/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

One day, a waspish wag who was a friend of the Parnassian poet W.H. Auden said to the sly old master, “Well then, Wystan! Tell us, for a change, that you’ve FINALLY finished Cervantes!”

And of course Auden famously retorted to this (with his favorite deus ex cathedra - playful pedantry), “One is NEVER finished with Quixote!”

No, there’s simply no end for us slowpokes. So I’ve gotta admit here and now that I’ve never finished it, either.

But that doesn’t stop me from opening Cervantes’ magical gearbox with a little fairytale, to reveal the mechanism by which he forces everyone’s attention to the simple fact that, with this one book, he has written the Magnum Opus of modern lit...

One day, God looked around him in Heaven and was mightily perturbed.

He said to his Archangel Gabriel, “Don’t tell me that simple, practical soul Sancho has again beat a retreat from the body of that mad Don Quixote to slum around up here in undisturbed peace?”

“Alas, Almighty, that’s just the way it is on Earth. When a soul can no longer tolerate its master it retreats up here during the madman’s sleep.”

“Hmmm,” said the Lord. “And isn’t the pace of life on earth now becoming more and more intolerable for everyone? Isn’t in-your-face reality in itself becoming unbearable?”

“Yes, Lord,” conceded Gabriel. “But isn’t that the reason You inspired the man Gutenberg to create BOOKS?”

“I know, I know. But just look what READING has done to the mad Don! And isn’t holy Heaven an unsuitable rest stop for an unshriven soul like Sancho?”

“I’ve got a plan, Lord. What about inspiring that wrongly impugned just man Cervantes to put the story of their misadventures together into a colossal book? And making up a happy ending for this Desperate Duo in which the hapless knight Quixote finally comes to his senses? And can now die a holy death...

“THAT way both master and servant, body and soul, can be happily united in Paradise!”

And God was pleased, because He saw it was Good.
***

And now, can I rest my case?

For the object, surely, is not to slog tirelessly through Cervantes’ prolixity...

But to unite Reality and Fantasy in our minds with a life dedicated to Unalloyed Goodness!

Υπάρχουν βιβλία στα οποία γίνεται συχνότατα αναφορά, αλλά εξίσου συχνά δεν έχουν διαβαστεί από το ευρύ κοινό και των οποίων η αξία είναι αναμφίλεκτη. Ο "Δον Κιχώτης" είναι σίγουρα το πλέον αναγνωρίσιμο από αυτά. Ο τίτλος του "1ου σύγχρονου μυθιστορήματος" προσδίδει ιδιαίτερη αξία σε ένα κείμενο που χρονολογείται τα σωτήρια έτη 1605-1615.
Η πλοκή και οι ήρωες είναι ως επί το πλείστον γνωστά, οπότε δεν έχει νόημα να αναφερθώ σε αυτά. Θα σταθώ σε κάποια μόνο σημεία, εν τάχει, τα οποία με ενθουσίασαν:
Εν αρχή, η μεταφορά σε πεζό λόγο του έμμετρου έπους με σκοπό την αποδόμησή του. Εν προκειμένω, η χιουμοριστική αποκαθήλωση ενός ολόκληρου είδους (ιπποτικό μυθιστόρημα) μέσω της κριτικής ματιάς στο ηρωικό και στο ένδοξο, όπως μπορεί ταυτόχρονα να ιδωθεί ως ιλαρό και τραγικό, "σκιάζοντας" με γκρίζους τόνους τη μέχρι τότε -μα και μετέπειτα- μανιχαϊστική οπτική.
Ακόμα, η χρονική αποστασιοποίηση, απαράμιλλη για την εποχή εκείνη (αλλά και όποια εποχή τελικά), η οποία τοποθετεί έναν καθρέφτη μπροστά στο οικείο, μετατρέποντάς το σε κάτι ανοίκειο και τούμπαλιν, υποχρεώνοντας τον εν γρηγόρση αναγνώστη να σταθεί με αυτοκριτική διάθεση απέναντι στα ειωθότα, θεώμενος εξ αποστάσεως τα δρώμενα.
Και βέβαια, τεχνικές όπως η συμπερίληψη άλλων βιβλίων εντός του αρχικού κορμού του "Δον Κιχώτη" και η υποκατάσταση του συγγραφέα από άλλα "προσωπεία"-συγγραφείς, η οποία υποσκάπτει καθ' εαυτήν την έννοια του πανταχού παρόντος Δημιουργού αποδομώντας την εξουσία του, αποδεικνύουν τη μεγαλοφυία ενός συγγραφέα Προ-Μηθέα σε σχέση με την εποχή του.
Ακόμα και στο τέλος που ο "γνωστικός" πλέον Δον Κιχώτης αποσύρεται άδοξα και δια παντός από τη σκηνή της "Ανθρώπινης Κωμωδίας" που ο ίδιος βίωσε ως "Ηρωικό Δράμα", η σκιά του πλανόδιου ιππότη, η "Δύναμις και η Δόξα", θα συνεχίζει να περιφέρεται στον "απομαγεμένο" κόσμο της Νεωτερικής λογοτεχνίας, "στοιχειώνοντας" δημιουργικά τους επιγόνους.
Εν τέλει, στην αναπόφευκτη ερώτηση (κάθε φορά που τη διαβάζω εξοργίζομαι!): "Μα τι έχει να προσφέρει ένα τόσο παλιό βιβλίο στον σύγχρονο αναγνώστη;" η απάντηση σε αυτόν που την κάνει είναι ξεκάθαρη: "Απολύτως τίποτα!" Όχι γιατί -θυμίζω ξανά τον Χέγκελ- ο ήρωας δεν είναι ήρωας, αλλά γιατί ο υπηρέτης είναι υπηρέτης. Οι λοιποί ενδιαφερόμενοι, δεν χρήζουν νουθεσίας - έχουν ήδη προστρέξει.

So, Don Quixote was that slow and disappointing, and lost my attention about four chapters in, that it has taken me about four months to read it. This an anomaly for me, and I'm afraid I'm not the least bit impressed.

People rave that this book is a classic. Why? I have no idea why this could be in the classic category. Apart from a handful of amusing quotes, this book failed me, in every way possible.

The beginning was readable, and one could almost say I was interested, but then things started getting crazy, and I nothing made any sense. The story didn't really flow, and I just couldn't gel with any of the characters, it was entirely monotonous, and to state that I had to drag myself through this would be an understatement.

Funnily enough, I mentioned to my Mum a few days ago that I was tackling this book, and her reply was "You do read some weird books, Jo." Weird? This is the good lady that has read Wolf Hall five times.

So, for a book with a page count such as this one, I will say, I'm relieved to be done, but I feel like I've wasted four months of my life in doing so.

The Transcendent Yearning Space

"Creativity and desire have always been inextricably linked for me....I think this is why religion and the erotic are often indistinguishable from each other in my writing – they both inhabit the same yearning space, are both transcendent acts of wishfulness, and both require the imagination to make them function in any meaningful way. [There might] not be any difference between them at all."

Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/desir...


Adventures and Misadventures

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza embark on hundreds of adventures and misadventures in this novel, but they are probably its least interesting feature.

Of greater interest, for me, at least, are the metafictional structure, and the implicit criticism of Christianity and religion.

Pre-Modern Metafiction

Way before modernism and postmodernism (which disputes the prior contribution of modernism), Cervantes created a fiction that explored (and toyed with) the authorship of the novel.

In the first of two parts, Cervantes suggests that it was an account actually written in Arabic by the Arab historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli. The unnamed narrator (not necessarily a proxy for Cervantes) finds a copy of the original work in a market in Toledo, and then commissions a Morisco interpreter to translate it into Castilian. Eventually, this translation is translated into English and then most recently into this very accessible version by Edith Grossman.

Quite apart from the possibility that Cervantes might have come from a Jewish background, you could argue that the fictional interposition of two Moslem contributors to the finished product explains the critique of Christianity. However, this might equally be a ruse on the part of Cervantes to disguise the appearance of his own religious views, as expressed in the novel.

From a structural point of view, the novel that we read today consists of two parts that were written separately, the latter of which followed (and responded to) an unauthorised attempt to continue Don Quixote's original adventures that was purportedly written under the pseudonym of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda in an attempt to take advantage of the commercial success of the first part.

In the legitimate second part written by Cervantes, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza meet Avellaneda and various of his illegitimate characters. Fictional characters encounter a fraudulent author and his fictional sidekicks.

A Trick of the Light (The Enchantment of Christianity and Religion)

Don Quixote is consistently described as enchanted, mad, insane, or a fool and a lunatic. This is not just the judgment of the implied author or narrator, but we are told that this is how he is perceived by the entire community, which by the time of the second part includes people who have read or heard the first part of the novel. This is his reputation.

The origin of his madness is his obsession with books of chivalry:

n  
n  "His fantasy filled with everything he had read in his books, enchantments as well as combats, battles, challenges, wounds, courtings, loves, torments, and other impossible foolishness, and he became so convinced in his imagination of the truth of all the countless grandiloquent and false inventions he read that for him no history in the world was truer."n  
n

Don Quixote has read so many of them that he has come to believe that he is a knight errant, who must go on his own adventures, the purpose of which is to “defend maidens, protect widows, and come to the aid of orphans and those in need”, in other words, to right all manner of wrongs:

n
“There were evils to undo, wrongs to right, injustices to correct, abuses to ameliorate, and offenses to rectify.”
n

In effect, he is a surrogate for God, a proxy doing God's work.

Cervantes even says, "Chivalry is [a] religion."

The inspiration for his adventures is the books of chivalry he has read. Many of his adventures are comic parodies of the contents of these books. Cervantes attacks “the absurdities of chivalry" purveyed in these “false and nonsensical histories".

A fictional associate of his suggests that “this work of yours intends only to undermine the authority and wide acceptance that books of chivalry have in the world and among the public.”

Perhaps, by undermining the authority of chivalry, the intent of the novel is also to undermine the authority of Christianity and religion.



The Errant Knight (The Religious and the Erotic)

The word “errant" has two connotations, one (the more common) means to wander or to stray, while the other means erroneous or prone to error.

This might suggest that Don Quixote has been enchanted or misguided by his Christian mission to do good. Knights errant are convinced that their good deeds will lead them closer to God and eternal life. Meanwhile, Don Quixote “realized that the only thing left for him to do was to find a lady to love; for the knight errant without a lady-love was a tree without leaves or fruit, a body without a soul.”

Don Quixote's devotion to a woman such as Dulcinea of Toboso sublimates his desire and eroticism in a manner which makes it almost unnecessary to consummate the relationship (which never happens in Cervantes’ novel). The point is to yearn or “long without satisfaction".

The Enchanted Knight

The mythology of chivalry distracts the knight errant from real life, poverty and suffering. Chivalry is a fiction designed by religion or the Church to mitigate discontent and dissatisfaction. Don Quixote desires to be written about and therefore to be famous. He sees giants where there are windmills. He wants to live on in literature, in fiction.

To the extent that knights errant lose touch with reality, the community regards them as enchanted, mad or insane. Nabokov has commented on the cruelty to which Cervantes subjected Don Quixote. However, it's arguable that this cruelty derives more from religion. Chivalry might therefore be a trick of the light, “a trick and a dream", a symbol of how Christianity enchants and deludes its congregation.

Disenchanting the Enchanted

Don Quixote can only regain his reason and free himself of “the absurdities of chivalry" by preparing to die.

In the moments before his death, he says, "I was mad, and now I am sane," and reverts to his original name, Alonso Quixano. He regains his identity, retrieving it back from religion.

It’s this metamorphosis that finally “disenchants the enchanted.” Ironically, Don Quixote, the fictional character, lives on in literature. His reputation and his fame are perpetuated by this book, a daring and transcendent work of fiction.


VERSE:

I Saw Don Quixote
[Apologies to Robyn Hitchcock]

I saw Don Quixote
On the cusp of
Religion
And desire.
I caught his eye
And he caught mine.
He said, "Think and you'll survive."
I said, You're deep.
He said, "No deeper than
A shallow sleeper."
I saw Don Quixote
Outside the chapters
Of this novel fiction,
And he was very much alive.

Robyn Hitchcock - "I Saw Nick Drake"

https://youtu.be/Z2tHVzeaarQ


SOUNDTRACK:

The Triffids - "A Trick of the Light"

https://youtu.be/IFoD2LTCEmg

https://youtu.be/Uhhb3I6gYAk

Cervantes, Don Quixote. "In a certain corner of la Mancha, the name of which I do not choose to remember, there lately lived one of those country gentleman, who adorn their halls with rusty lace and worm-eaten target, and ride forth on the skeleton of a horse, to course with a sort of a starved greyhound."

Don Quixote is one of my favorite comedies of all time. This opening phrase is steeped with irony and sarcasm. We are introduced to the loser town which the author is obviously embarrassed to have known and an out of date (rusty) and poor (worm-eaten) country gentleman (read "redneck") and given a less than a complimentary portrait of his magnificent steed, Rocinante (starved greyhound). Cervantes chooses to reveal himself from the get-go ("I") and stays with us during the entire two volumes of time-enduring text that is his literary legacy to us. This is also evident from the long and rambling sentence form. There is gallantry (ride forth) and pretention (adorn their halls) and yet a sort of hopelessness (skeleton of a horse) that infuses this sentence with a life of its own. And, the rest only gets better.

I think my favorite moment - and one of the more existential moments which make this truly a modern book - was when Don Quixote is suspended in air at Dolcinea's window, Riconante having wandered off eating grass. The entire work is full of comedy and humor. And don't miss the second part which he wrote because after publishing Part 1, life dealt him some harsh cards (soldiering wounds, prison, bankruptcy, exile...) during which a grifter wrote a sequel using his name and his characters. He was so insensed that he wrote a sequel and killed off Quixote so that there could be no more imitators. Incredible stuff.

Dissatisfaction with Society, Aggression towards Oneself

Don Quixote, God's minister on earth, the great knight errant who rights the wrong, is disappointed with the world of his time. He has a half-nostalgic half-progressive vision of a world where people don't tell between thine and mine, where maidens in their modesty wander wherever they wish, where there is no deceit or malice but pure justice and truth. But reality is disappointing. The pastoral harmony is degenerating while Christian faith has nothing but an empty form; thus, our Don Quixote with his moral compass and grand ambition sets out to right the wrong by imposing his Chivalric idealism on the pastoral world. However, dissatisfaction with society very quickly turns violent and aggressive. Don Quixote's enemy is the entire society/humanity outside himself; every aggression he commits, he does so by pushing his own natural boundary towards madness; and with only imaginary/metaphysical enemies, he turns aggression towards himself. He infects some imaginative/daring ones with his idealism and stirs them into action, but most of the world with its existential boredom only stares at Don Quixote like a passively smirking windmill, perhaps recognizing in him its own mad idealism behind the monotony of pastoral tranquility. The world laughs at Don Quixote, while Don Quixote laughs at the world (more honorably).

Our hero Don Quixote ultimately surrenders, but his legacy lives on as medieval men step forward into modernity.

"Mother Earth only gave me a finite number of heartbeats, and I'll be buggered if I’m going to waste them reading a book like this."

(Written, unhappily at 12.25am)

I’ve read 300 of the 1000+ pages of this classic and had a few laughs because there’s no doubt Don Quixote is a tool of the highest order. I was fully strapped in for a farcical romp.

But there are periods of dense discourse about nothing in particular that seem to go on interminably, driving me to despair.

Time to bale out. DNF, no rating.

This is my third reread, at the moment it looks like I read it one year, have one year break then pick it u back again. Although I really enjoyed the story again it's not one of my favorite classics anymore. It was interesting reading about Don Quixote and Sancha. It took a long time to read and I wasn't always in the right mind place for it but overall it didn't feel dragging even if it took almost the whole month of February to read.

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I read it the first time back in 2019 and I've always had in my mind since then that this is one of my favorite classic and I was slightly worried when I decided to reread it that my thoughts would have changed. But there was definitely no need to worry. Loved it even more this time around. Such a fun and engaging story and while it has the cozy, slightly dusty feel and charm of a classic it's hard to imagine it's so old. It's a big book but definitely a classic that shouldn't be unread!