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sarahrigg 's review for:
Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes
Translation by Edith Grossman, introduction by Harold Bloom. I'm not sure what to say about this nearly 1,000-page book that's more than 400 years old except that it stands the test of time. Grossman's translation is wonderful and easy to read, and the introduction by Harold Bloom puts it in historical context and clarifies some of the themes about the decline of Spain in the early 1600s and Cervantes theories and feelings about literature. My only regret is that my Spanish isn't good enough to read in the original, because some of the puns and wordplay don't come through and you have to read a footnote to get the gist of them in Spanish.
DQ is so embedded in pop culture that most people know he's a self-proclaimed and slightly deluded knight who has a squire named Sancho Panza and that he tilted at windmills. The windmill adventure actually happens pretty early in the book, and there are lots of other adventures. I read "The Decameron" earlier this year and they are alike in a few ways, namely that there are many mini-stories within the larger wrap-around story. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza have little adventures as they travel the countryside, and they hear the stories of the people they encounter. There's even an incident where a novella is found in manuscript form in an inn they stay at, and you get to read that story too. Cervantes and Shakespeare were contemporaries, and apparently Shakespeare admired one of the short stories in DQ enough that he based a (now lost) play called "Cardenio" on it.
The book is very silly, but it's also pretty sad in a way. Don Quixote is a gentle soul who just wants to do good in the world, and Sancho is simple but wise (and full of ridiculously inappropriate aphorisms and proverbs), but they constantly get beat up, teased, wounded, imprisoned, and otherwise maltreated for trying to make the world a better place. It's likely that was Cervantes view of the world, since he was a war hero who tried to do good but twice wound up in jail. An interloper wrote and published a part 2 of Don Quixote as well, and Cervantes, in response, finished Part 2 of his own book just a year or two before he died. There's a lot to like about the book, but it's very long, so it's a bit of a commitment.
DQ is so embedded in pop culture that most people know he's a self-proclaimed and slightly deluded knight who has a squire named Sancho Panza and that he tilted at windmills. The windmill adventure actually happens pretty early in the book, and there are lots of other adventures. I read "The Decameron" earlier this year and they are alike in a few ways, namely that there are many mini-stories within the larger wrap-around story. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza have little adventures as they travel the countryside, and they hear the stories of the people they encounter. There's even an incident where a novella is found in manuscript form in an inn they stay at, and you get to read that story too. Cervantes and Shakespeare were contemporaries, and apparently Shakespeare admired one of the short stories in DQ enough that he based a (now lost) play called "Cardenio" on it.
The book is very silly, but it's also pretty sad in a way. Don Quixote is a gentle soul who just wants to do good in the world, and Sancho is simple but wise (and full of ridiculously inappropriate aphorisms and proverbs), but they constantly get beat up, teased, wounded, imprisoned, and otherwise maltreated for trying to make the world a better place. It's likely that was Cervantes view of the world, since he was a war hero who tried to do good but twice wound up in jail. An interloper wrote and published a part 2 of Don Quixote as well, and Cervantes, in response, finished Part 2 of his own book just a year or two before he died. There's a lot to like about the book, but it's very long, so it's a bit of a commitment.