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chris_chester 's review for:
Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes
How is one supposed to review a book more than 400 years old? The first truly modern novel? The inspiration for hundreds of years of tropes in Western literature? And while reading an English translation, at that?
The contemporary reader really is at a disadvantage here. But what is remarkable is that enough of what made the book a classic when it was first released shines through that it remains a worthwhile endeavor, albeit a trying one.
Let's be clear: you will not have truly read Don Quixote if you read this in anything other than the original Spanish. There is a lot of wordplay, especially out of the mouth of squire Sancho Panza, and having that pointed out in a footnote is the palest of substitutes. There are also a myriad of references both to then-contemporary Spain as well as to the classics of Greek art that few but the most learned will ever really understand Cervantes' wit.
And yet, Don Quixote still made me laugh, probably more than any contemporary work of literature I can remember reading of late. It's just funny! A man reading too many works of fiction and then just deciding to live out his fantasies is just to solid a premise to be anything otherwise. His tilting at windmills is the image that seems to have stuck with the popular imagination, but there are countless others.
Those with a taste for postmodernism will especially enjoy the second part of the novel, where our eponymous hero has to reckon with the fame elicited by the publishing of the first half of the story as well as a knock-off sequel whose characterization are a poor counterfeit for Cervantes' own.
And Sancho! Sancho Panza may have been the inspiration for every wisecracking sidekick that came after him, but he still outshines them all. I considered adopting his personage as my own, but he wants a corpulent Spanish peasant as his Twitter theme?
What makes it more than a mere comedy, however, and what contributes to it standing the test of time are the sincere considerations it makes for the question of the value of the real and the imagined. Don Quixote is widely regarded as a fool and a clown, but his sincere intentions often have a greater effect than other characters approaching situations the "proper" way. As characters frequently remark -- Quixote is simultaneously a madman and a man of genius.
It's a rebuke of classical romanticism, but its subtle anticipation of modernism helps it hold up. I am smitten.
The contemporary reader really is at a disadvantage here. But what is remarkable is that enough of what made the book a classic when it was first released shines through that it remains a worthwhile endeavor, albeit a trying one.
Let's be clear: you will not have truly read Don Quixote if you read this in anything other than the original Spanish. There is a lot of wordplay, especially out of the mouth of squire Sancho Panza, and having that pointed out in a footnote is the palest of substitutes. There are also a myriad of references both to then-contemporary Spain as well as to the classics of Greek art that few but the most learned will ever really understand Cervantes' wit.
And yet, Don Quixote still made me laugh, probably more than any contemporary work of literature I can remember reading of late. It's just funny! A man reading too many works of fiction and then just deciding to live out his fantasies is just to solid a premise to be anything otherwise. His tilting at windmills is the image that seems to have stuck with the popular imagination, but there are countless others.
Those with a taste for postmodernism will especially enjoy the second part of the novel, where our eponymous hero has to reckon with the fame elicited by the publishing of the first half of the story as well as a knock-off sequel whose characterization are a poor counterfeit for Cervantes' own.
And Sancho! Sancho Panza may have been the inspiration for every wisecracking sidekick that came after him, but he still outshines them all. I considered adopting his personage as my own, but he wants a corpulent Spanish peasant as his Twitter theme?
What makes it more than a mere comedy, however, and what contributes to it standing the test of time are the sincere considerations it makes for the question of the value of the real and the imagined. Don Quixote is widely regarded as a fool and a clown, but his sincere intentions often have a greater effect than other characters approaching situations the "proper" way. As characters frequently remark -- Quixote is simultaneously a madman and a man of genius.
It's a rebuke of classical romanticism, but its subtle anticipation of modernism helps it hold up. I am smitten.