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A review by frostbitsky
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Did not finish book. Stopped at 20%.
This was part of the included catalogue on Audible and I added it to my library some time ago.
Then I saw that after May 3rd it wouldn't be included anymore so I moved it up the queue.
It's 36 hrs and 42 mins long. As of April 26th I am giving up with 23 hours and 15 mins left (at 1.2x speed.) So I got up to Book 4 of Volume 1.
I really wanted to like it but it cannot hold my attention for long. My mind drifts. Were they (writers) getting paid by the word back then? The titles to the chapters alone are as long as an essay. Where were the editors with a red quill?
I did some reading about it so I could understand the history. Apparently Cervantes originally intended this story to be a satire on traditional popular ballads and he parodied the romances of chivalry. I like satire and parodies, yet this is a story was just endless, overly wordy vignettes. There is no plot. It's just one delusional adventure after another. Don Quixote is a man of low nobility with too much time on his hands.
It's funny, all his talk of knight errantry made me want to read another book and graphic novel that's been on my TBR for over 10 years, Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller.
Some parts were funny. There was a part where Don Quixote corrects a goatherd about something and the goatherd says something about 'St. Paul was no chicken' and 'stop correcting my words.' That made me laugh.
Some of the prose was really poetic: "But let the sorrows I deplore sleep with me in the silent death."
Then other parts were just really long epic poems, and I would stop listening.
I think this would work best as a live action production. I think I would enjoy it more that way.
But I am not enjoying this and I got too many books to knock off the TBL and TBR to waste on books that are a chore.
1 out of 5 Knights.
Then I saw that after May 3rd it wouldn't be included anymore so I moved it up the queue.
It's 36 hrs and 42 mins long. As of April 26th I am giving up with 23 hours and 15 mins left (at 1.2x speed.) So I got up to Book 4 of Volume 1.
I really wanted to like it but it cannot hold my attention for long. My mind drifts. Were they (writers) getting paid by the word back then? The titles to the chapters alone are as long as an essay. Where were the editors with a red quill?
I did some reading about it so I could understand the history. Apparently Cervantes originally intended this story to be a satire on traditional popular ballads and he parodied the romances of chivalry. I like satire and parodies, yet this is a story was just endless, overly wordy vignettes. There is no plot. It's just one delusional adventure after another. Don Quixote is a man of low nobility with too much time on his hands.
It's funny, all his talk of knight errantry made me want to read another book and graphic novel that's been on my TBR for over 10 years, Star Wars: Knight Errant by John Jackson Miller.
Some parts were funny. There was a part where Don Quixote corrects a goatherd about something and the goatherd says something about 'St. Paul was no chicken' and 'stop correcting my words.' That made me laugh.
Some of the prose was really poetic: "But let the sorrows I deplore sleep with me in the silent death."
Then other parts were just really long epic poems, and I would stop listening.
I think this would work best as a live action production. I think I would enjoy it more that way.
But I am not enjoying this and I got too many books to knock off the TBL and TBR to waste on books that are a chore.
1 out of 5 Knights.