There is probably nothing more that I can say about Don Quixote that hasn't already been said. Only that among all the classics that I read Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra' s story makes me cry and makes me laugh. Not an easy achievement. Each time that I revisit this amazing book, I am conquered all over again.

For that and much more, it's of my all time favorites!

A book of parallels, Don Quixote by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, through two of the most emblematic characters ever conceived, discusses what's imagined and what's seen, the ideal vs. the real, the conflicts between illusion and actuality and how these solid lines start to blur by the influences Don Quixote and Sancho Panza inflict on each other through the course of this comic (yet sad sometimes...) tale.

A second-hand account translated from Arab historian Cide Hamete Benengeli - that's how our narrator describes it -, the book tells the story of Alonso Quixano, a country gentleman around fifty years of age, retired, who lives with his niece and a housekeeper in a village of La Mancha. A big chivalry tales enthusiast, he spends most of his time reading books (Amadís de Gaula, Orlando Furioso and Tirant lo Blanch, among others) about knights and their unending courage and dangerous quests. His excessive reading (is reading ever too much? :)) takes a toll on his mind - or "his brains got so dry that he lost his wits."

Wishing to seek for adventures and enforce peace and justice, he renames himself Don Quixote, designates Dulcinea del Toboso as the lady of his heart - "for a knight-errant without love was like a tree without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul" -, puts on an old armor that had belonged to his great-grandfather, gets on his horse (now called Rocinante) and, early in the morning, starts his enterprise as knight-errant. After some muddles, Don Quixote ends up being severely beaten and is returned to his home by a peasant who recognizes him. That is the end of his first sally.

At this point, you can't help but ask yourself: what really goes on inside of Don Quixote's head? Could he simply be deemed as crazy? In every aspect but his love for chivalry, it's noticeable how he's witty and sharp - and this becomes clearer as the story goes on. Putting aside the crazy card for a minute, it's impossible not to wonder if and why he's possibly trying to escape reality. Has he been unhappy or unsatisfied with his life? He often talks about how one day a book will be written about him, telling all of his great deeds. Does he feel he's lacking accomplishments in life and therefore embarks on his imbroglio? These are just a few of the superficial questions this apparently simple book raises.

After a short period of unconsciousness - during which his friends burn most of his books of chivalry in a funny yet unsettling scene where the parish curate judge one by one if they're appropriate or not -, our clumsy hero decides that he needs an esquire and convinces his neighbor Sancho of joining him on his quests, by promising him governorship of an ínsula. Here, we witness the birth of literary's best relationship between a protagonist and his sidekick.

Sancho Panza, described as a farm laborer, honest man but with very little wit in his pate, leaves his wife and children to serve as Quixote's esquire. Big-bellied, a mouthful of proverbs and the ever-faithful companion, Sancho follows his master and obeys his wishes, but not without speaking his mind - until he is forbidden to, since Quixote can't take his blabbering anymore; much to our amusement though, the knight lifts his ban. Matching Don Quixote's supposed insanity is Sancho's so-called stupidity. Sure, he's uneducated and illiterate, but could he be called stupid or dumb? He realizes very early that his master is delusional as far as his chivalry ways go and is often baffled by his actions - but still, never leaves his side; is that because of friendship and his unwavering loyalty?

One of the most striking aspects of the novel is its language: written in a playful and light tone, almost evoking innocence, Cervantes was able to make his readers go through moments containing some evil doings and violence without feeling any disgust; some punches and kicks were rather funny and amusing. And how was one supposed to witness Sancho's unfortunate encounter with the blanketers without any giggles? Even being an one thousand pages book, it never feels tiring to read it: its episodic format, constituted mainly of short chapters, keeps you going on just for one more. Before you realize it, you're three hundred pages deep already.

Contrary to popular belief that sequels are never as good as the original, a second volume of Don Quixote appeared in 1615 - first volume came out in 1605; nowadays it's mostly published as single work - and is just as good (and has often been regarded by critics as better) than the first installment for its greater character development and philosophical insights. Written by Cervantes partially as a response to an unauthorized continuation of the novel, this infamous part 2 is actually one of the matters discussed by Cervantes on his own sequel, as Don Quixote and Sancho find out through someone who recognizes their names that there's a book written about them. After hearing some of the book's contents, they dismiss it as being full of lies and injuries. This was one of Cervantes innovations where characters were aware that they were being written about.

Don Quixote ranks really high on "best books ever written" lists - most of the time, it stands proudly at number one. Based on the number of adaptations alone - dozens of films, operas and ballets -, books that were influenced by it - Madame Bovary by Flaubert; The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Sterne and The Idiot by Dostoyevsky, to name just a few -, comics, cartoons and even a painting by Picasso and a sculpture by Dalí, it becomes quite clear that it isn't without reason that Don Quixote had an enormous artistic impact in the world and is considered to be one of the best works of fiction ever written.

Rating: simply put, Don Quixote is an undeniable masterpiece that's both amusing and thought-provoking that never let me down: 5 stars.

Mio caro don Chisciotte,
sono passati decenni dal nostro primo incontro. Bimbetta settenne, m’accompagnasti per mano nel tuo mondo incantato.
Imparai a vedere il bello grazie a te che, iniziata l’avventura, trasformasti in castello l’osteria. E sempre grazie a te capii che anche la più folle delle idee si può coltivare e nutrire come il fiore più bello.
Ridano pure gli stolti. Continuino a ravvisare mulini a vento al posto dei giganti.
Ci salutammo alla fine del viaggio. Sapevo che avrei potuto ritrovarti. E così è stato.
Oggi, ti ho seguito come feci allora. E ritrovo la dignità, la saggezza e la bontà che varcano i confini della follia, quella follia che appartiene esclusivamente ai puri d’anima. E che forse vien chiamata follia in luogo di saggezza o sapienza intrisa d’intelligenza e nobiltà. Vien chiamata follia la smisurata ambizione di sanare soprusi e ingiustizie. Perché solo quella follia fa nascere chi deve resuscitare quelli della Tavola Rotonda, i Dodici di Francia, i Nove della Fama. Solo quella follia dà vita a chi deve cacciare nell’oblio i Piatir, i Tablante, Olivante e Tirante, i Febo e i Belianigi e tutti i cavalieri erranti. E se per il tuo coraggio senti “scoppiare il cuore in petto per la voglia che ha di affrontare quest’avventura, quanto più essa si annunzia difficile”, a me che ti seguo fa lo stesso effetto.
Il cuore scoppia in petto ogni volta che la fantasia sfida con irriverenza la realtà, scoppia in petto quando l’ordinario si fa straordinario, quando la diversità se la ride della normalità. Il cuore scoppia in petto per ogni diversità che si fa vessillo e procede a testa alta senza piegarsi al volere dei “normali”.
Quei “normali” che vivranno savi e morranno folli, mentre tu, come tutti i puri di cuore, potrai fare il contrario. Non prima d’aver lasciato al mondo un segno indelebile. Un sogno. Non importa quale. Ognuno troverà il suo.
Viviamo folli finché possiamo, ché a morir savi siam sempre a tempo.

Giace qui l’hidalgo forte
il cui valore arrivò
a tal punto che ebbe in sorte
che la morte non trionfò
della vita con la morte.
Poco il mondo calcolò.
Se ebbe d’orco la figura,
un’insolita misura
la ventura in lui provò:
visse pazzo e morì savio.

Adiós, don Chisciotte. Un abrazo.

It was the first time I've read all Don Quixote. I can definitely appreciate the place it takes in the world literature. It gave the world its main character,a type of naive but courageous human being who believes into his fictional world to the point of embedding it into the reality. And since then Don Quixote travels from the country to the country, from the culture into the culture, from a book into a book. The book has been studied, interpreted, included into the numerous canons.

I would just focus on my few personal impressions. First, the writing is modern and fresh. Especially in the first part, I was laughing out loud in public places so many times as it was embarrassing. My reading was probably a bit superficial as I did not care too much whether Don Quixote, and Cervantes are pro-Christian or on the contrary, quiet rebels. For me it was more comparable to a Tarantino's movie or any other action comedy. For example this sentence (the scene of Claudia kills Don Vicente just to realise he was faithful to her after all):

"Claudia pressed his hand, and her own heart felt pressed, causing her to faint onto the bloody bosom of Don Vicente, who was shaken by a mortal paroxysm."

In the second part, it feels that Cervantes becomes a celebrity, as well as his characters. In the stories of the part, he made them aware of their existence and their status. This metafictional element is fascinating. I am sure, it was very innovative 400 years ago as well. However, to me, it felt Cervantes carried a burden of his glory. I felt he has tired a bit of his characters. Or more likely, I am tired of their adventures which became a little too predictable. As a result, apart from a few vivid incidences, I did not enjoy the second part as much as the first. And I found the growing eloquence of Sancho with his verbosity a little trying.

I am very glad I've read the whole book though. It also gave me the opportunity to read a few essays devoted to the book starting from intro by Harold Bloom and finishing Lectures on Don Quixote. I flipped though it reading bits and pieces. He included the short summary by the chapter which I found useful. In general he was his usual snobbish and a tiny bit spiteful self, but informative as well. The translation by Edith Grossman is the masterpiece.

I walked into bar a week back and was served a beer by a 20 something girl with a strong accent. What part of the world are you from I asked. Spain she said. After a bit of small talk about her backpacking etc I mentioned I was nearing the end of Don Quixote. Why would you read that she asked? Forced to read it at school and hated it. Interestingly I had had the same conversation a while back with a friend of mine who had been made to read it at school and had bad memories.
I know I too would have hated it back in the day. So now into my fast approaching old age I can honestly say Don Quixote has been a long but enjoyable adventure and I understand its place in literary history but yeah, glad I did not read it at school. Reckon I would have detested it.

But what do I write after 400 years of everyone else writing about it? I suppose I could put it into a modern context.

Don Quixote suffers from a delusional form of mental illness, lives in the past. Old white males of my generation in western society seriously suffer from a form of this by pining for their youth. His attacking windmills, as one example, was a form of mad slapstick that I read took the Spanish speaking world by storm. Think the same with say Charlie Chaplin at the turn of last century. Recently in South Australia windmills were blamed for the entire power blackout of the state. Maybe they needed to call their massive storm Don Quixote.

There is a hint of sexual liberalism that back when written would have been the equivalent of say the 60's cultural revolution. An aghast older generation and a younger reader know that sex sells. The tale of Anselmo, Lothario and Camilla would have been a sensation I would have thought, a wife swapping tale for the times. It has certain Soap Opera connotations that parallel modern life, everything from Dallas through to Neighbours. Did I say wife swapping? Forget that, this is the journey into the world of asking your best mate to shag your wife.

A few others? The Captive tells another tale that would have taken in the religious tensions of the time and are not far from being, again, a parallel for our times. Love conquering all with an enthralling adventure of religious intolerance. But then we go to the other extreme of a journey into sado-masochism by a couple of wealthy aristocrats mistreating the mentally ill for their own personal kicks. This gets lots of columns in the tabloids nowadays. I even read an item by an economist talking monetary theory within this book.

Something for everyone it seems.

I've finally read Don Quixote. I got to tell you Don Quixote is one of my favorite characters ever! Don Quixote was a noble fool, but he was surrounded by complete jerks who take advantage of his inclinations. I will say he was the most noble in all of Spain despite his flights of fancy. I for one have no problem with his knightly adventures. But I'm probably missing something because I'm just a simple squire (i mean butcher) from Georgia!

There is so many character interactions and romantic subplots i can't accurately describe them here. The famous windmill scene which happened really early in the story. Don Quixote wins some and loses many more. Does good and a little bad. Don Quixote dispenses with great wisdom as Sancho Panza spouts parables like a fish spits water. i will say the one thing i notice about books on the Greatest books list is they all talk a little about other books and literary arts in general that seems to be the link to teach it in schools. There is even a little story of plagiarism which seemed kinda modern. In the End Don Quixote is defeated and returns home dejected and depressed. where his friend's who were so against his knight errantry. Conspires to become shepherds group that seems no different than his knightly pursuits to me. He end up dead sad and repentantant of his crazyness. A very sad end for our valiant knight!

As far as greatest Books of all time i think it's a must read and a great read but not really a favorite of mine. Don Quixote is very entertaining for a classic!

Don Quixote is truly a literary treasure. With such vivid characters, and an incredibly witty, and modern feeling sense of humor, Don Quixote is so easy to read, and flows like any modern novel. A beautiful work.

Don Quixote -- A Book Review in Three Sallies


The First Sally

The story of Don Quixote is one that plays itself over and over again. In real life and in literature, to the point where it is hardly clear where one story ends and another begins.

Manager: Customer renewal rates!

Me: Señor, are you referring to those windmills.

A story of a person fighting metaphysical monsters only he can see. At this very moment, I’m typing this review as if it’s the most important thing in the world. Meanwhile, a mere ten feet away, my boss in contemplating other things – operating expenses, renewal rates – that to me seem fantastic, the ramblings of a lunatic.

Don Quixote is raging against the death of chivalry. My own quest is to preserve that which is beautiful and sacred in the written word.

The book does bring up uncomfortable questions about the nature of one’s reading life to one’s real life. What happens when the stories you read become more real than the real world? (These days, people tend to worry more about kids playing video games or becoming absorbed in social media).

It’s fitting that the book begins with Don Quixote neglecting the matters of his day on account of books. Books are what draw him into his fantasy world and into the ideal life of chivalry.

Toward the end of the book, especially, we see Don Quixote, the fan-boy of chivalry and adventure, on full display with his knowledge of history and chivalric know-how. So much so, that I want to abandon my suit and tie and don full armor just like Don Quixote.

The old question – who is to say who is the lunatic and who is the realist? For me, the fantasy of books is necessary to validate the mundane lunacy of an office environment.


The Second Sally

The tale of Don Quixote has gotten me interested in other reality/fantasy hybrids – Joe the Barbarian, I Kill Giants, Tough Girl, The Wizard of Oz. At the foundation of these stories is the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world as it is presented. Their stories are one of redemption by a lonely outsider. (Think Batman! You will see many similarities between Don Quixote and Batman!)

When I was growing up, there was an oil painting in my living room. It showed Don Quixote with his brilliant lance and shining armor facing a field of windmills. By his side was his trusty Sancho Panza (Alfred Pennyworth!). My thought was that this was “classical” romantic literature.

I actually had no idea what classical literature was. I also wasn’t very romantic. I was only in third grade at the time. But that Christmas I received a box set of illustrated kid’s versions of classical literature. And there my adventure began! Huck Finn, Wizard of Oz, Oliver Twist…

My mom, being from Cuba, had of course read Don Quixote many times in its original Spanish. That was why the picture was on our wall. And that’s also why – and this I kid you not – in an earlier house we had a suit of knight’s armor. (I don’t know what happened to it. And we didn’t have it long enough for me to grow into it.)

I wanted to read this book partly for my mom; partly to make my workday feel normal. It’s fitting that I stole 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there to read this book. It’s fitting that I neglected adult life to do this.

My mom would be proud.

Jason, a reviewer on Goodreads, writes: “I’ve discovered that Don Quixote is not a bumbling idiot – far from it, in fact. He is highly intelligent, highly perceptive and observant, and most surprisingly, and in spite of all his delusions of being a knight-errant, he is actually self-aware.” This makes me feel better about the lunacy that is my life. After all, I’m in my mid-thirties. I’m unmarried; have cultivated a romantic anti-career, and have fed my book addiction in a way that would make Mr. Quixano blush.

And yet, I am self-aware. I realize that books have driven me further and further to the fringes – like other lunatics of fantasy. And without the crutch of a Sancho Panza or Alfred Pennyworth.

If I am a lunatic, I am a self-aware lunatic. And while my writing and reading habits have made me quite poor and circumspect to managers who look at renewal rates and other such seemingly realistic fantasies, they also make me better.

Of his chivalry affliction, Don Quixote said, “For myself I can say that since I have been a knight-errant I have become valiant, polite, generous, well-bred, magnanimous, courteous, dauntless, gentle, patient, and have learned to bear hardships, imprisonments, and enchantments; and though it be such a short time since I have seen myself shut up in a cage like a madman, I hope by the might of my arm, if heaven aid me and fortune thwart me not, to see myself king of some kingdom where I may be able to show the gratitude and generosity that dwell in my heart.”

And now I find myself a king! These words – found on the Gutenberg digital library – have given me a kingdom to myself.

The mad king in his mad kingdom finds willing participants in the manufacture of passages such as these: “the reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your beauty;” and, “the high heavens, that of your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the desert your greatness deserves.” Yes, I know why Don Quixote donned the armor.

To what other kingdom can these treasures be exported?

If these passages sound so beautiful in translated English, to think what they must sound like in the original Spanish. As I say these words, I am happy to read this book and think of my mom, who came from Cuba loved this book and read it frequently in Spanish.

Not Dulcinea. No, her name was just Dulce.


The Third Sally

The history of the third sally to this book review could not be found. It is thought that there were many historic deeds done during this third attempt at a book review. However, due to poor historical records, the writer of this actual book review has only hearsay. Some say that he developed a callous on his right middle finger from all the typing he was doing and had to apply for worker’s compensation or some other such fantastical concept that could only exist in the 21st century before the rise of Literary Society as we know it today.


Epilogue

The book ends with Don Quixote apologizing for all the harm he has caused and forswearing anything to do with chivalry or knighthood. It is an ending decisively against the idealism and fantastic adventures that the reader has indulged in with Don Quixote. One wonders what to make of it.

Despite this finale, I like to imagine the book hanging on a razor’s edge between proselytizing the virtues of idealism and warning against its dangers. I also imagine it questioning who the realist is and who the madman.

But first, dangers! For there are many dangers in our age. For every benign lunatic like me, there are other idealists, some of them rulers of real kingdoms living in bizarre fantasy worlds denying some realities (climate change, electoral results) while extolling their favored fantasies (media conspiracies); these people would reverse the usual order of these words as we know them and claim us of the literary society as the lunatics.

An appreciation of the relativism of lunacy, truth, fact, and other not so trivial things (artistic or otherwise) only works in their favor.

The battle is not new.

Manager: Look at these renewal rates. What do you see?

Me: Nothing. Nothing in comparison to the heartfelt tale of this man of La Mancha (Don Quixote / Miguel de Cervantes). Nothing in comparison to the tale of Joe and his trek amongst the barbarians (Joe the Barbarian / Grant Morrison). Nothing in comparison to the epic story of the girl and toughness (Tough Girl / Libby Heily). Nothing compared to my own adventures in the land of literature.

The famous epic Don Quixote by Cervantes, known as the first modern novel, is considered by many to be a must-read classic. So, I considered it's about the time that I read it. It was with some trepidation that I get into the book because of its length. But I shouldn't have worried. The short episodic chapters were easy and quick to read.

Don Quixote is the story about the adventures of a man who calls himself Don Quixote de la Mancha, a self-proclaimed knight errant. He is accompanied by his squire Sancho Panza. The book contains two parts, the second part is sort of a sequel to the first, having been written after a period of ten years. Both books are written in the episodic style and describe the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The adventures in the first part were so ridiculous that I found them humourous and highly entertaining. The second part, however, takes a more serious tone although the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were still touched with absurdity. The first part I found to be more interesting and entertaining than the second. Although the themes of this book were fully expounded in the second part, I enjoyed the light-hearted entertainment of the first part more. The continuous monotony of the ludicrous conduct of Don Quixote kind of lost its charm towards the middle of part two. And thereafter, it was a mere drudgery. I even lost focus on the final adventures.

The themes presented here can be summed up in one quotation. “When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!” From this, we can see that Cervantes working on the themes of reality and fantasy, mad and sane, and truth and lies. And he is questioning where to draw the line between these opposing ends. What is reality? What is fantasy? How to draw the line between these two ends? What is madness? Is believing in the old ways, madness? Or is denying the inevitable progress, madness? And what is truth and what are lies? Isn't the line between them blurred? And isn't the drawing line our own perception, how we see the difference? These themes provide food for thought. And there is also a good discussion on literary idealism and realism, and Cervantes seems to be advocating the latter.

Keeping my personal reading experiences aside, I agree that this book is an important one, especially in its day to influence a different style of literature. So, it is all but right to say that this pioneering modern novel is a must-read for those interested in classical literature.

More of my reviews can be found in http://piyangiejay.com/

امان از روزی که گوشیت بیوفته دست بچه مهمونت

Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago….
…
The truth is that when his mind was completely gone, he had the strangest thought any lunatic in the world ever had, which was that it seemed reasonable and necessary to him, both for the sake of his honor and as a service to the nation, to become a knight errant and travel the world with his armor and his horse to seek adventures and engage in everything he had read that knights errant engaged in, righting all manner of wrongs and, by seizing the opportunity and placing himself in danger and ending those wrongs, winning eternal renown and everlasting fame.
…
“Oh, Señor,” said Don Antonio, “may God forgive you for the harm you have done to the entire world in wishing to restore the sanity of the most amusing madman in it! Don’t you see, Señor, that the benefit caused by the sanity of Don Quixote cannot be as great as the pleasure produced by his madness?”

Find any list of the 100 greatest novels of all time, and the first one on the list chronologically is usually Don Quixote. It’s considered the first “modern” novel for doing something that seems unremarkable today: fully developing more than one character, and using the relationships between those characters to explore the world. I’ve read a fair number of books that have made the Pop Chart 100 Essential Novels Scratch-off Chart because they are the first this or the first that, but it can be pretty hit or miss whether the book still holds up today (like  Frankenstein and  Jane Eyre) or does not (Robinson Crusoe). Some credit probably goes to the excellent translation done by Edith Grossman, but Don Quixote not only holds up, but is an incredibly readable, entertaining, apparently timeless novel.

Don Quixote tells the story of Alonso Quixano, a man driven mad by obsessively reading the stilted chivalry fiction of the time until he decides at the age 50 to become a knight errant. He renames himself Don Quixote of La Mancha, though he will soon be known as The Knight of the Sorrowful Face. With his old nag Rocinante, and his neighbor farmer-turned-squire, Sancho Panza, he roams the countryside looking to right wrongs, and help the oppressed, all to win the love of a beautiful woman he calls Dulcinea of Toboso. But because he’s mad, his adventures are usually misadventures—there’s a reason this novel gave birth to the expression “tilting at windmills.”

So what makes Don Quixote feel like contemporary fiction? First of all, Don Quixote is an incredible character, constantly keeping the reader and the other characters off balance. One minute he is completely mad—especially in the first part, he sees a distorted, romanticized version of what’s happening, like an imaginative toddler, seeing adventures and dangers where they aren’t, and spinning up identities and backstories for all he meets—and the next he says something completely intelligent, even profound. Sancho Panza is likewise a richly detailed, multifaceted character, both simple and calculating, capable of deceiving Don Quixote but always loyal and with proverbs for every occasion. Don Quixote’s idealism constantly clashes with Sancho’ realism, and they are both full of contradictions, just like real people. They are also surrounded by a host of entertaining secondary characters: the innkeeper, the priest, and the barber; the lovers Cardenio, Luscinda, Don Fernando, and Doretea; Doña Clara and Don Luis; Bachelor Sansón Carrasco and Tomé Cecial; the fair Quiteria, rich Camacho, and desperate Basilio; the Duke, the Duchess, and Altisidora; Roque Guinart, Claudia Jerónima, and Don Vicente Torrellas; Ana Félix and Don Gaspar Gregorio.

Also, the structure of Don Quixote was ahead of its time and adds to the richness of the story. The narrator is telling a history researched by a historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli, which was a narrative trick of the time, but one that gives the story a feeling of authenticity. What we think of now as the first part of the novel was published in 1605. Though it ends with references to a possible follow up if more of Cide Hamete’s writing were found, this too was apparently a not uncommon way to end the chivalric fiction that Cervantes was deconstructing. But then Cervantes actually decided to write a sequel novel, which was published in 1615 and is now just considered the second part of the novel (Cervantes also used this opportunity to fix a couple of plot holes in the first part, and respond to certain criticisms as well). In a stroke of genius, and in what have been the first meta move ever in a novel, everyone in the second part of Don Quixote is aware of the original novel and most have read it. They all already know who Don Quixote is when they meet him, and have their own motivations for interacting with him, all of which gives the second part of the novel a different feel from the first part. And in an even more meta, more bizarre twist, while Cervantes was writing the true second part of Don Quixote, someone wrote and published a false second part. So not only does Cervantes open the true second part with a take down of the false second part, but he makes references to it through the rest of the novel. And the ending feels modern too, and certainly fulfills the novel’s stated goal of rejecting the conventions of chivalric fiction.

Most of all, Don Quixote works today because it’s very funny, full of entertaining stories and occasional madcap action. It keeps the narrative flowing with asides to the reader and cliffhangers. There are interesting philosophical discussions, and endless stories about a different types of love—requited and unrequited, instant and deep, lustful and filial—and even a couple of novellas told within the novel, including “The Man Who Was Recklessly Curious,” about a man Anselmo who wants his best friend Lothario—yes, that Lothario—to test his wife Camila’s virtue and instead they fall in love and eventually run away together. Finally, it’s a novel that discusses and celebrates the importance of books, writing, and stories.

Don Quixote has something for everyone. Were there times I wished it were a bit shorter? A few, but the pieces all come together (often with fun, serendipitous reunions between characters) in a way that I couldn’t decide what I would cut. It’s a remarkable novel, richly deserving its place at the beginning of lists of the greatest novels ever. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5. Highly recommended.

Bonus quotations, because there were too many for the start of the review:

“You should know, Sancho, that a man is not worth more than any other if he does not do more than any other. All these squalls to which we have been subjected are signs that the weather will soon improve and things will go well for us, because it is not possible for the bad or the good to endure forever; from this it follows that since the bad has lasted so long a time, the good is close at hand.”
…
“Do not eat garlic or onions lest their smell reveal your peasant origins. Walk slowly; speak calmly, but not in a way that makes it seem you are listening to yourself, for all affectation is wrong. Eat sparingly at midday and even less for supper, for the health of the entire body is forged in the workshop of the stomach. Be temperate in your drinking, remembering that too much wine cannot keep either a secret or a promise.”
…
To believe that the things of this life will endure forever, unchanged, is to believe the impossible.

n  “Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”n

Why did no one tell me this book is hilarious? I can't believe it took me so long to finally pick it up.

Don Quixote is densest in the early chapters, which are packed full of footnotes that should be read for full context. I highly recommend using two bookmarks-- one for your place in the story and one for in the notes. If this seems too much like hard work, I want to reassure you that the notes become less frequent as you progress through the book, but they add some very helpful background information in the beginning.

If you don't know what it's about, Don Quixote follows the titular character and his lovable squire, Sancho Panza, as the former declares himself a knight-errant and goes looking for noble adventures. The context is important here because, at the time of the novel, chivalry romances like Amadis De Gaula had become so popular in Spain that monarchs of the time feared the influence of them on the impressionable minds of young people.

Cervantes responded by writing a parody of these knightly adventures. Don Quixote has read so many of these books that they have had a profound effect on his mental state. He gets caught up in a fictional world created by his imagination and truly believes that not only is he a knight, but the inns he encounters are castles, the prostitutes are princesses, and the windmills are... giants. This latter is, apparently, an iconic moment in the novel and I can definitely see why-- it is so funny. I read it through about five times and laughed each time. I think it's the way I hear Sancho saying "What giants?" in my mind that cracks me up.

The adventures do feel repetitive at times, and I don't feel like either Part 1 or Part 2 needed to be as long as it was. The buffoonish squabbles get old after a while. However, I really enjoyed the switch to a more meta style in the second part, which the notes will tell you was published some ten years after the first. In this, Cervantes explores the idea of characters knowing they were being written about, and the book takes a more philosophical - and arguably darker - turn.

I read some critical interpretations alongside the book, and I found Edith Grossman's especially interesting. She says she saw Don Quixote as a terribly depressing book. Nabokov, too, called it "cruel and crude" (that's the guy who wrote about the stalking and raping of a child). And though there are many moments of humour, I don't disagree with them. There is something undeniably sad about this book, too.

Maybe it is sad because this man is so deluded, so wrapped up in fictions. Maybe it is the way he allows himself to be deceived, and the ways others take advantage of this chance at deception. But I think, personally, that it is sad because none of it is real. Don Quixote wants something admirable, to do good, defend the weak and defeat the bad guys, but it is all in his naive imagination.

I don't know what was truly intended by the ending but, unlike some, I don't see it as a final victory. Instead I see it as a sad loss of something important. Either way, I am glad to have finally read this book. We can argue about interpretations, but Don Quixote's impact on western literature cannot be overstated.

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