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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
Welp, I got two CDs in (out of like . . . twenty-seven, I think?) and just . . . stopped. I was bored. Sorry, Don Quixote! It's just that the jokes weren't THAT funny, a lot of the stuff went over my head (I think because it was topical? I can't be sure as it went over my head) and he broke the fourth wall too many times. Oh well.
Also I was waiting for the line "they might be giants" but I guess that was from a different translation. Bummer.
Also I was waiting for the line "they might be giants" but I guess that was from a different translation. Bummer.
I will not make this a long review - although as I say that it probably will be - nor will I even attempt to write it in a formal style as with previous goodreads reviews. Even attempting to interpret this book is a daunting task. Its sheer breath and depth leads me to think one may require 10 or more separate reviews which interrogate its multiplicities and various narrative resonances to even come close. As Harold Bloom perceptively noted, the book acts as a mirror to the reader because the various interpretations of it do not resemble one and other.
Above all though, Don Quixote is a remarkable story and remains the single greatest treatment of the relationship between fiction and narratives on the hand and reality on the other ever conceived. Don Quixote and Sancho allow fictions to shape their perception of reality, but in doing so transform their reality into fiction. Sancho is acutely aware of this; in his own words, he knows "that I and my master are playing a role". Tragically, Don Quixote is not.
This central conceit operates on so many levels. It is at once both timeless and profoundly modern. The principles of Knight Errantry which consume Don Quixote are themselves a totalising belief system. A set of ideological precepts through which the world is refracted that both infuse his life with meaning, providing him with a guiding orientation and bringing about his destruction. Don Quixote's well-intentioned and unyielding commitment to destroying injustice is a tragic tale we are doomed to repeat. One in which inflicting our intentions on others, and even the notion of good intentions themselves, have unintended consequences and those who "wander the world righting wrongs and rectifying injuries" usually do more harm than good.
Yet, his descent into madness, which can very plausibly be characterised as the visionary attempt to achieve greatness and immortality, possesses real nobility. Don Quixote seeks to bend reality to his will and in doing so achieve lasting fame. Cervantes dissects the very notion of greatness itself. This seems, at least to me, to be the object of the Sorrowful Knight's quest. And Cervantes, it seems, posits that greatness itself, that desire to transcend, to be remembered, to be something more, is absurd, but it is nonetheless worthwhile and profoundly human.
And Don Quixote IS great because he takes the reader along for the ride. He believes so strongly in his reality that he wills it into existence. We come to believe it too. We want him to pursue it. The more self-referential and playful Cervantes becomes, the more real his characters begin to seem. By the end of the book it is no longer clear where belief ends and reality begins. Cervantes makes Quixotes out of all of us: fantasists who are no longer sure about the ground on which we stand.
Finally, it is impossible, after reading this book, not to comment on characterisation. Don Quixote and Sancho represent different ways of being in the world. The contrast between Sancho's grounded, pragmatic skepticism and Don Quixote's lofty, high-minded nobility/egotism lies at the core of everything. Their affectionate, ironic, and ultimately harmonious relationship, in its totality, is a probing examination of human nature and how we relate to those we value. These characters will live rent-free in my mind forever because they are more than dramatic personae. But it is in Sancho, and particularly Don Quixote's description of him as he is dying, where I think the core of this all may lie. Don Quixote says of Sancho that "he doubts everything and he believes everything". Sancho, it seems to me, is not only each and every reader of Don Quixote, but that thing which exists inside so many of us, that constant struggle between believing in something and questioning its value and veracity, which remains a defining feature of the human experience. To be human is to be Sancho, to want, desperately, to believe in things and people we love, but to know, all too often, that they are fatally flawed or misguided.
I will refrain from commenting at any length on style, structure, narrative techniques and so on because they are utterly brilliant and there's a reason which this book is considered the first modern novel.
Ironically, given what I said at the start of this review, what I have written may well tell you more about my character than it does Don Quixote and that alone is what makes this book one of the greatest artistic achievements there is.
Above all though, Don Quixote is a remarkable story and remains the single greatest treatment of the relationship between fiction and narratives on the hand and reality on the other ever conceived. Don Quixote and Sancho allow fictions to shape their perception of reality, but in doing so transform their reality into fiction. Sancho is acutely aware of this; in his own words, he knows "that I and my master are playing a role". Tragically, Don Quixote is not.
This central conceit operates on so many levels. It is at once both timeless and profoundly modern. The principles of Knight Errantry which consume Don Quixote are themselves a totalising belief system. A set of ideological precepts through which the world is refracted that both infuse his life with meaning, providing him with a guiding orientation and bringing about his destruction. Don Quixote's well-intentioned and unyielding commitment to destroying injustice is a tragic tale we are doomed to repeat. One in which inflicting our intentions on others, and even the notion of good intentions themselves, have unintended consequences and those who "wander the world righting wrongs and rectifying injuries" usually do more harm than good.
Yet, his descent into madness, which can very plausibly be characterised as the visionary attempt to achieve greatness and immortality, possesses real nobility. Don Quixote seeks to bend reality to his will and in doing so achieve lasting fame. Cervantes dissects the very notion of greatness itself. This seems, at least to me, to be the object of the Sorrowful Knight's quest. And Cervantes, it seems, posits that greatness itself, that desire to transcend, to be remembered, to be something more, is absurd, but it is nonetheless worthwhile and profoundly human.
And Don Quixote IS great because he takes the reader along for the ride. He believes so strongly in his reality that he wills it into existence. We come to believe it too. We want him to pursue it. The more self-referential and playful Cervantes becomes, the more real his characters begin to seem. By the end of the book it is no longer clear where belief ends and reality begins. Cervantes makes Quixotes out of all of us: fantasists who are no longer sure about the ground on which we stand.
Finally, it is impossible, after reading this book, not to comment on characterisation. Don Quixote and Sancho represent different ways of being in the world. The contrast between Sancho's grounded, pragmatic skepticism and Don Quixote's lofty, high-minded nobility/egotism lies at the core of everything. Their affectionate, ironic, and ultimately harmonious relationship, in its totality, is a probing examination of human nature and how we relate to those we value. These characters will live rent-free in my mind forever because they are more than dramatic personae. But it is in Sancho, and particularly Don Quixote's description of him as he is dying, where I think the core of this all may lie. Don Quixote says of Sancho that "he doubts everything and he believes everything". Sancho, it seems to me, is not only each and every reader of Don Quixote, but that thing which exists inside so many of us, that constant struggle between believing in something and questioning its value and veracity, which remains a defining feature of the human experience. To be human is to be Sancho, to want, desperately, to believe in things and people we love, but to know, all too often, that they are fatally flawed or misguided.
I will refrain from commenting at any length on style, structure, narrative techniques and so on because they are utterly brilliant and there's a reason which this book is considered the first modern novel.
Ironically, given what I said at the start of this review, what I have written may well tell you more about my character than it does Don Quixote and that alone is what makes this book one of the greatest artistic achievements there is.
I myself did not know I was going to give this book 5 stars until its final pages. It's wildly long and filled with insane digressions. Things happen that might be variously characterized as "highly unlikely," "kind of cruel," and "almost certainly unnecessary." And yet! It's a sprawling, wonderful mess, and I was not prepared for the upwelling of goodwill and affection that filled my heart when saying good-bye to these characters I had followed for hundreds of pages.
This is a book which is gargantuanly famous, and it obviously feels like an achievement, both to read and to have written. It is literally weighty when you hold it -- it's massive. But the content is not that of a stiff and stodgy classic (a lot of classics aren't all that stodgy, I guess, when you get into them). With the irrepressible gusto of Don Quixote tilting at his windmills, Cervantes takes aim at the entire tradition of medieval romance that came before him (a tradition grown stiff and stodgy, might we say?) and absolutely skewers it. In doing so, he paves the way for every novel you've ever read.
Ok, so that obviously deserves some major credit. But I didn't know how funny it would be! Or how meta! In this book, there's a narrator, but he's often translating the work of another (invented) author, who originally wrote the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in Arabic, and that author is looking critically at the research he's doing into the main characters and trying to decide which bits are apocryphal or not. There are so many layers! There are so many places for narrators to be unreliable and bits of story to be added in or taken out! Not to mention that the characters themselves are dealing with the reliability of story and the printed word, constantly discussing what they've heard or read about Don Quixote -- the whole second half is a giant middle finger to the (real-life) author who wrote an unauthorized sequel to the first half of Cervantes' work, and the number of times characters come across and/or discuss and/or burn copies of this false work! Don Quixote goes on an entire leg of his quest just to prove that he is the real Quixote, and not the fraudulent one (who maybe also exists as a character playing the role of Quixote within the narrative???). It's a level of complexity that you maybe don't expect from Europe's first modern novel but that maybe also makes a weird kind of sense when you stop to think about it? It's just so wild and great, ok, and I love it, and I want to take a class on it, because I could ramble on forever but I don't know what I'm talking about! People have written dissertations on this stuff!
This review got away from me. (How could I help it?) The moral of the story is, Cervantes changed the face of literature and also entertained me; well done. I can't necessarily recommend his book to everyone, because it's really a lot. But I think that if you make your way through it, you'll find something in it worth your while.
This is a book which is gargantuanly famous, and it obviously feels like an achievement, both to read and to have written. It is literally weighty when you hold it -- it's massive. But the content is not that of a stiff and stodgy classic (a lot of classics aren't all that stodgy, I guess, when you get into them). With the irrepressible gusto of Don Quixote tilting at his windmills, Cervantes takes aim at the entire tradition of medieval romance that came before him (a tradition grown stiff and stodgy, might we say?) and absolutely skewers it. In doing so, he paves the way for every novel you've ever read.
Ok, so that obviously deserves some major credit. But I didn't know how funny it would be! Or how meta! In this book, there's a narrator, but he's often translating the work of another (invented) author, who originally wrote the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in Arabic, and that author is looking critically at the research he's doing into the main characters and trying to decide which bits are apocryphal or not. There are so many layers! There are so many places for narrators to be unreliable and bits of story to be added in or taken out! Not to mention that the characters themselves are dealing with the reliability of story and the printed word, constantly discussing what they've heard or read about Don Quixote -- the whole second half is a giant middle finger to the (real-life) author who wrote an unauthorized sequel to the first half of Cervantes' work, and the number of times characters come across and/or discuss and/or burn copies of this false work! Don Quixote goes on an entire leg of his quest just to prove that he is the real Quixote, and not the fraudulent one (who maybe also exists as a character playing the role of Quixote within the narrative???). It's a level of complexity that you maybe don't expect from Europe's first modern novel but that maybe also makes a weird kind of sense when you stop to think about it? It's just so wild and great, ok, and I love it, and I want to take a class on it, because I could ramble on forever but I don't know what I'm talking about! People have written dissertations on this stuff!
This review got away from me. (How could I help it?) The moral of the story is, Cervantes changed the face of literature and also entertained me; well done. I can't necessarily recommend his book to everyone, because it's really a lot. But I think that if you make your way through it, you'll find something in it worth your while.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Genuinely looney toons!
¡Por fin lo terminé! Me puso muy contento haberlo terminado después de meses y meses de lectura. Me dijo mi mamá que cuando ella lo terminó también se puso muy feliz, y me sentí bien de que a ella le hubiera pasado lo mismo.
¿Qué puedo escribir de reseña del libro más estudiado del habla hispana? Muy pocos conocidos lo han leído, y de estos, a la mayoría no les gustó. Alguno de ellos me dijo que era muy jocoso y que en algunas partes incluso se carcajeaba en voz alta, esto último lo puedo confirmar ya que a mí me pasó igual. En ocasiones los personajes me daban mucha lástima y sufría con ellos y en ocasiones lo contrario, me festejaba con sus victorias.
Contiene ideas que creo que hace 400 años no eran muy usuales, en algunos casos hasta podría ver trazas de feminismo en el caso de personajes mujeres con mucha iniciativa, fuerza y liderazgo.
La razón por la que la mayoría de la gente no lo ha leído es porque cree que no le va a entender. De aquí puedo decirles dos cosas:
1.- Si el miedo es a que contendrá ideas muy elevadas o filosóficas, no tienen de qué preocuparse, fue escrito hace más de 400 años y no contiene ninguna teoría difícil, más bien es jocoso y en ocasiones solemne.
2.- Si el problema es por las palabras antiguas en desuso, aquí si se debe considerar el leer una versión con notas al pie de página. De hecho este fue el mayor problema que tuve, por cada capítulo había hasta más de 60 notas de pie, y era muy tedioso interrumpir la lectura para leer la nota y volver al texto. De cualquier forma, creo que si hubiera leído una versión con español más contemporáneo, hubiera sentido que no lo leí como debía ser.
En cuanto a la literatura, ahí se encuentra todo, ahí están las bases de toda la literatura moderna, el enfoque en los personajes y sus sentimientos en lugar de sucesos o acción. Cada personaje con una voz y personalidad definidas y que incluso evolucionan con el tiempo. Y en la 2a parte incluso se encuentra con que los personajes ya leyeron la 1a parte y que conocen al personaje (algo muy moderno para la literatura de ese tiempo).
En cuanto a las críticas a los libros de caballerías no podría decir mucho ya que nunca leí ninguno. Pero no es necesario, ya que se explica claramente en el texto.
Puedo concluir con que valió mucho la pena leerlo y que posiblemente nunca lo vaya a olvidar.
¿Qué puedo escribir de reseña del libro más estudiado del habla hispana? Muy pocos conocidos lo han leído, y de estos, a la mayoría no les gustó. Alguno de ellos me dijo que era muy jocoso y que en algunas partes incluso se carcajeaba en voz alta, esto último lo puedo confirmar ya que a mí me pasó igual. En ocasiones los personajes me daban mucha lástima y sufría con ellos y en ocasiones lo contrario, me festejaba con sus victorias.
Contiene ideas que creo que hace 400 años no eran muy usuales, en algunos casos hasta podría ver trazas de feminismo en el caso de personajes mujeres con mucha iniciativa, fuerza y liderazgo.
La razón por la que la mayoría de la gente no lo ha leído es porque cree que no le va a entender. De aquí puedo decirles dos cosas:
1.- Si el miedo es a que contendrá ideas muy elevadas o filosóficas, no tienen de qué preocuparse, fue escrito hace más de 400 años y no contiene ninguna teoría difícil, más bien es jocoso y en ocasiones solemne.
2.- Si el problema es por las palabras antiguas en desuso, aquí si se debe considerar el leer una versión con notas al pie de página. De hecho este fue el mayor problema que tuve, por cada capítulo había hasta más de 60 notas de pie, y era muy tedioso interrumpir la lectura para leer la nota y volver al texto. De cualquier forma, creo que si hubiera leído una versión con español más contemporáneo, hubiera sentido que no lo leí como debía ser.
En cuanto a la literatura, ahí se encuentra todo, ahí están las bases de toda la literatura moderna, el enfoque en los personajes y sus sentimientos en lugar de sucesos o acción. Cada personaje con una voz y personalidad definidas y que incluso evolucionan con el tiempo. Y en la 2a parte incluso se encuentra con que los personajes ya leyeron la 1a parte y que conocen al personaje (algo muy moderno para la literatura de ese tiempo).
En cuanto a las críticas a los libros de caballerías no podría decir mucho ya que nunca leí ninguno. Pero no es necesario, ya que se explica claramente en el texto.
Puedo concluir con que valió mucho la pena leerlo y que posiblemente nunca lo vaya a olvidar.
adventurous
dark
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
As you can probably tell by the 4-stars I gave this book, I like it quite a lot. However, there were times when it grew somewhat tedious reading page upon page of pointless rhetoric, or the pointless views of self-important characters (the Curate discussing the books of Knight Errantry to be burnt comes to mind!).
However, the good points in this classic novel outweigh the bad, and I found myself actually laughing at some of the more humorous situations - something that I never expected!
However, the good points in this classic novel outweigh the bad, and I found myself actually laughing at some of the more humorous situations - something that I never expected!
The book is quite good and the protagonist's madness is really what kept me interested. I thought it slowed down drastically in the 2nd half which is why it took me so long to complete, I was reading other books instead because of the change of pace presented in the latter half but this novel is well worth the read.
An essential of literature. I was apprehensive about reading this because of its length, but when I did, I didn’t want it to end. On a basic level it was entertaining, silly and funny, but on a philosophical level it plumbs the depths of the absurdity of life and shows that living out one’s imagination is less ridiculous and more rewarding than the mundane existence we all submit ourselves to. Sancho Panza’s proverbs were a constant source of both drollery and erudition, and through them he demonstrates that one can put one’s ideas into action, or one can talk about it: a good hope is better than a bad holding. The first part was good, but the second part was great, and Cervantes’s regular jibes against the false second part (which was published by another author between the interval of the two parts, 1605 and 1615) typified the super-literary theme of the book and justifies why it is sometimes called the first modern novel. Don Quixote, ironically, is a true hero.
One of the best books I've read. Part 1 definitely exceeds Part 2. It seems like Part 2 was written solely to roast the author of the fake Part 2.
All of my reviews are just for my own benefit in remembering the books. Apologies for anyone reading the base level review.
All of my reviews are just for my own benefit in remembering the books. Apologies for anyone reading the base level review.