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Tilting at Windmills: A Novel of Cervantes and the Errant Knight
In seventeenth-century Valladolid, Spain’s new capital, Miguel Cervantes is busy writing his comic masterpiece, Don Quixote , which is being issued in installments. It is quickly making him the most popular author in the country, when three potential disasters Cervantes discovers that there is a real Don Quixote, just like the character he thought he’d invented; a jealous poet concocts a scheme involving one of the novel’s other characters to make Cervantes a laughingstock; and Cervantes falls in love with a beautiful, widowed, but un-available duchess. Many duels, misunderstandings, politicking, and betrayals later, Don Quixote himself comes to Cervantes’ rescue.
This sparkling tale of crazed knights, thwarted love, and literary rivalry is set against the back-ground of a mighty empire suffering from a century of reckless wars and a ruling hierarchy stultified by patronage and ritual. Peopled with an engagingly idiosyncratic cast that ranges from a Machiavellian duke to a misanthropic poacher, this charming story is imbued with the spirit, verve, and humor of the great novel to which it pays playful tribute. Tilting at Windmills is a dazzling evocation of Cervantes’ life and times, and a brilliant weave of fact, fiction, and farce.
This sparkling tale of crazed knights, thwarted love, and literary rivalry is set against the back-ground of a mighty empire suffering from a century of reckless wars and a ruling hierarchy stultified by patronage and ritual. Peopled with an engagingly idiosyncratic cast that ranges from a Machiavellian duke to a misanthropic poacher, this charming story is imbued with the spirit, verve, and humor of the great novel to which it pays playful tribute. Tilting at Windmills is a dazzling evocation of Cervantes’ life and times, and a brilliant weave of fact, fiction, and farce.
- GenresFiction
315 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 28, 2025
Miguel Cervantes begins this novel speaking from beyond the grave: "an individual has been elected to deliver another addition to my life’s work, intended as a companion to the originals, both in spirit and humor. And as my main character has already found an end, then this freshest episode must make an addition without intruding into the exploits of the noblest buffoon in history. The deliberation of this newest episode is the work of this author to engender." The individual, Julian Branston, is described by Cervantes as a "flawed pupil" and while flawed compared to Cervantes he does an excellent, amusing, enjoyable and thought provoking job by today's standards.
The novel centers around Miguel Cervantes, a man who is scribbling away trying to make it as a writer in defiance of his family's desire that he get more honest work. He has just created a crazy knight who he thinks is a creation of his imagination when he ends up meeting him in person.
The plot thickens when a terrible writer aspiring to be the court poet becomes intensely jealous of Cervantes and hatches a plot to discredit him by commissioning a duchess to write a satire of Don Quixote from the perspective of Dulcinea.
The plot thickens more and more but culminates in the publication of Don Quixote, then the many imitators, and the eternal fame of Cervantes.
An interesting part of it was the description of the publishing industry and the character of a publisher, I would have been happy to have even more of that as it is interesting to imagine a world where rival printers in different cities were publishing knock off works in an effort to juice their own profits.
(I should note, this was not quite as good as a book with similar themes, Cervantes Street.)
The novel centers around Miguel Cervantes, a man who is scribbling away trying to make it as a writer in defiance of his family's desire that he get more honest work. He has just created a crazy knight who he thinks is a creation of his imagination when he ends up meeting him in person.
The plot thickens when a terrible writer aspiring to be the court poet becomes intensely jealous of Cervantes and hatches a plot to discredit him by commissioning a duchess to write a satire of Don Quixote from the perspective of Dulcinea.
The plot thickens more and more but culminates in the publication of Don Quixote, then the many imitators, and the eternal fame of Cervantes.
An interesting part of it was the description of the publishing industry and the character of a publisher, I would have been happy to have even more of that as it is interesting to imagine a world where rival printers in different cities were publishing knock off works in an effort to juice their own profits.
(I should note, this was not quite as good as a book with similar themes, Cervantes Street.)
December 20, 2013
How much more time do you need? This year marks the 400th anniversary of "Don Quixote," and you still haven't read it. Harold Bloom is shaking his hoary head: "Where shall wisdom be found, indeed!" And don't even bother trying to hum "The Impossible Dream." A few diverting hours with "Man of La Mancha" are no substitute for working through 1,000 pages of the world's first novel.
But nagging guilt is a poor motivator for reading (or you'd have finished Ron Chernow's "Hamilton" by now). So here's something to tempt you toward this intimidating classic of Spanish literature: a debut novel called "Tilting At Windmills" that reimagines Miguel Cervantes and Don Quixote as friends in a beguiling blend of biography and fiction.
The author is Julian Branston, whose vague and exotic life story would fit comfortably in, say, a picaresque comic romance. He was born on a sugar plantation in South America. He's lived in Taiwan. His publicist told me he has a wife and children, but then wrote back to say that he doesn't. He divides his time between England and California. Pressed for details, his agent reports that he's something of "a man of mystery." In light of his wonderful first novel about the errant Knight, this is all too good to be true, like finding out that J.K. Rowling is a witch.
"Tilting At Windmills" opens with a beyond-the-grave blessing from Cervantes, giving Branston permission to write "a companion to the original, both in spirit and humor." Branston is a "flawed pupil," Cervantes admits, but he "has the same wildness, uncertainty, and manifest despairs that once afflicted my soul." And as he reminds us, producing an authorized sequel was a major concern as his own life drew to a close in the early 17th century.
Advances in technology and rising literacy rates ignited a revolutionary demand for stories during this period. Returning from military adventures with a mangled hand, Cervantes supported his family by writing comedies for the theater. In the last decade of his life, he produced a parody of chivalric tales called "Don Quixote" about a man who had been driven mad by reading chivalric tales.
It was an immediate bestseller, which spawned a host of knockoffs and a raucous publishing battle. (Disney lawyers would have us forget that most of the world's great literature was written without the benefit of intellectual property rights.) To defend his creation, just before he died, Cervantes wrote a sequel that included more adventures, along with flourishes of self-referential gamesmanship about himself, his book, and the act of publishing that could challenge any modern-day poststructuralist.
Branston's new "companion" volume borrows liberally from the details of Cervantes's life and works, but he blends them in a way that's wholly original and delightful. He pares the sprawling scope of "Don Quixote" into something significantly less demanding and - excuse this heresy - more enjoyable.
We meet an honorable veteran named Cervantes, who infuriates his family of harridans by writing instead of pursuing honest work. His latest obsession is a series of popular stories about a crazy Old Knight he heard of from a friend. The knight, we learn, was driven insane by witnessing the carnage of Spain's wars. Released from an asylum after 20 years, he now rides around the countryside, attacking villains, searching for the Holy Grail, and counseling Cervantes, who didn't realize when he started writing that the Old Knight actually exists.
Much of the comedy here is familiar - the willful misinterpretations, the silly confusions, the misguided jousting - but Branston has blunted the melancholy of Cervantes's satire, while maintaining a gently ironic tone. Decorated with kitchen utensils and armed with a black pot, this reimagined Old Knight still looks pretty silly riding his old horse backwards, but he's spared the pathetic absurdity he endures in the original. Years of fighting have left him a resourceful soldier, and his innocence repeatedly shields him from harm.
Besides, the real battle in this new version is literary. The popularity of Cervantes's comic tales has inflamed the ferretlike rage of a handsome poet named Ongora, who's suffering from chronic writer's block. Stoked with envy, this villain is determined to win a place in the emperor's court by destroying Cervantes's literary reputation. But as he pursues his maniacal scheme, he must fend off the crazy Old Knight who keeps denouncing him - with flawless chivalric courtesy - as the Evil Magician of Bad Verse.
This is all great fun, and, what's more, it's surprisingly sweet and intelligent. Branston pulls off some witty slapstick between the Old Knight and Ongora, but he's just as deft with the subtler moves of a debate about the ethics of publishing when "the craze for printing is like a plague."
The village printer finds himself at the center of a battle between competing authors: the decent populist and the venal snob. Cervantes argues that Ongora's attack is "malicious and persuades others of an untruth," but the printer insists that he prints whatever he's paid to publish. He's a disinterested party, not "an adjudicator of quality." Moral neutrality is a quality of the new business reality, he explains.
It's startling to hear this modern argument set at a time when the publishing industry was just beginning, expanding as quickly and disruptively as the Internet is now. Ultimately, Cervantes can't persuade the printer to exercise his critical judgment or take sides, but that doesn't disturb the writer's equilibrium and kindness.
Yes, the Old Knight is far spent, but with his Cervantes, Branston has created an author who never loses sight of others' goodness or his own humility. Even his satire is meant only as "a genial reminder of the folly of all humanity, written with a divine spirit that he could not deny, and it would be foolish to try."
Most of us will get no closer to "Don Quixote" than this witty and deeply humane remaining, but that's reason enough to hope that chivalry and good books aren't dead after all.
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/p...
But nagging guilt is a poor motivator for reading (or you'd have finished Ron Chernow's "Hamilton" by now). So here's something to tempt you toward this intimidating classic of Spanish literature: a debut novel called "Tilting At Windmills" that reimagines Miguel Cervantes and Don Quixote as friends in a beguiling blend of biography and fiction.
The author is Julian Branston, whose vague and exotic life story would fit comfortably in, say, a picaresque comic romance. He was born on a sugar plantation in South America. He's lived in Taiwan. His publicist told me he has a wife and children, but then wrote back to say that he doesn't. He divides his time between England and California. Pressed for details, his agent reports that he's something of "a man of mystery." In light of his wonderful first novel about the errant Knight, this is all too good to be true, like finding out that J.K. Rowling is a witch.
"Tilting At Windmills" opens with a beyond-the-grave blessing from Cervantes, giving Branston permission to write "a companion to the original, both in spirit and humor." Branston is a "flawed pupil," Cervantes admits, but he "has the same wildness, uncertainty, and manifest despairs that once afflicted my soul." And as he reminds us, producing an authorized sequel was a major concern as his own life drew to a close in the early 17th century.
Advances in technology and rising literacy rates ignited a revolutionary demand for stories during this period. Returning from military adventures with a mangled hand, Cervantes supported his family by writing comedies for the theater. In the last decade of his life, he produced a parody of chivalric tales called "Don Quixote" about a man who had been driven mad by reading chivalric tales.
It was an immediate bestseller, which spawned a host of knockoffs and a raucous publishing battle. (Disney lawyers would have us forget that most of the world's great literature was written without the benefit of intellectual property rights.) To defend his creation, just before he died, Cervantes wrote a sequel that included more adventures, along with flourishes of self-referential gamesmanship about himself, his book, and the act of publishing that could challenge any modern-day poststructuralist.
Branston's new "companion" volume borrows liberally from the details of Cervantes's life and works, but he blends them in a way that's wholly original and delightful. He pares the sprawling scope of "Don Quixote" into something significantly less demanding and - excuse this heresy - more enjoyable.
We meet an honorable veteran named Cervantes, who infuriates his family of harridans by writing instead of pursuing honest work. His latest obsession is a series of popular stories about a crazy Old Knight he heard of from a friend. The knight, we learn, was driven insane by witnessing the carnage of Spain's wars. Released from an asylum after 20 years, he now rides around the countryside, attacking villains, searching for the Holy Grail, and counseling Cervantes, who didn't realize when he started writing that the Old Knight actually exists.
Much of the comedy here is familiar - the willful misinterpretations, the silly confusions, the misguided jousting - but Branston has blunted the melancholy of Cervantes's satire, while maintaining a gently ironic tone. Decorated with kitchen utensils and armed with a black pot, this reimagined Old Knight still looks pretty silly riding his old horse backwards, but he's spared the pathetic absurdity he endures in the original. Years of fighting have left him a resourceful soldier, and his innocence repeatedly shields him from harm.
Besides, the real battle in this new version is literary. The popularity of Cervantes's comic tales has inflamed the ferretlike rage of a handsome poet named Ongora, who's suffering from chronic writer's block. Stoked with envy, this villain is determined to win a place in the emperor's court by destroying Cervantes's literary reputation. But as he pursues his maniacal scheme, he must fend off the crazy Old Knight who keeps denouncing him - with flawless chivalric courtesy - as the Evil Magician of Bad Verse.
This is all great fun, and, what's more, it's surprisingly sweet and intelligent. Branston pulls off some witty slapstick between the Old Knight and Ongora, but he's just as deft with the subtler moves of a debate about the ethics of publishing when "the craze for printing is like a plague."
The village printer finds himself at the center of a battle between competing authors: the decent populist and the venal snob. Cervantes argues that Ongora's attack is "malicious and persuades others of an untruth," but the printer insists that he prints whatever he's paid to publish. He's a disinterested party, not "an adjudicator of quality." Moral neutrality is a quality of the new business reality, he explains.
It's startling to hear this modern argument set at a time when the publishing industry was just beginning, expanding as quickly and disruptively as the Internet is now. Ultimately, Cervantes can't persuade the printer to exercise his critical judgment or take sides, but that doesn't disturb the writer's equilibrium and kindness.
Yes, the Old Knight is far spent, but with his Cervantes, Branston has created an author who never loses sight of others' goodness or his own humility. Even his satire is meant only as "a genial reminder of the folly of all humanity, written with a divine spirit that he could not deny, and it would be foolish to try."
Most of us will get no closer to "Don Quixote" than this witty and deeply humane remaining, but that's reason enough to hope that chivalry and good books aren't dead after all.
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/p...
February 25, 2026
This is an inventive and well-written homage to that pillar of Western literature, Don Quixote Julian Branston's premise is that the famous fictional knight errant actually exists. He has great fun with the political implications of poetry in seventeenth-century Spain, and the story takes on shades of Amadeus when he makes a rival to Cervantes the villain of the plot.
I looked in vain for the “foul-mouthed Iberian babes” singled out by a reviewer from Britain’s Guardian newspaper. While a pair of beautiful Spanish women do have prominent roles in the story (as the widowed patroness of a literary salon and the wife of Cervantes’ friend and printer Robles, respectively), neither of them seems particularly foul-mouthed.
Don Quixote come to life has all of the serenity and comic detachment you’d expect (think Peter Sellers in the movie Being There), but my favorite character is Branston’s update of Sancho Panza in the person of a merchant named Pedro.
Pedro is loyal as a dog, always looking to make a peso, and prone to generalities about the import/export business if you insist on asking what he does for a living. Pedro gives resonance to one of the great throwaway lines from William Goldman's screenplay for The Princess Bride, when the swordsman Inigo is waiting to kill a cliff-climbing Wesley, and pledges safe conduct to the cliff top "On my honor as a Spaniard," only to have Wesley answer "No good. I've known too many Spaniards."
I looked in vain for the “foul-mouthed Iberian babes” singled out by a reviewer from Britain’s Guardian newspaper. While a pair of beautiful Spanish women do have prominent roles in the story (as the widowed patroness of a literary salon and the wife of Cervantes’ friend and printer Robles, respectively), neither of them seems particularly foul-mouthed.
Don Quixote come to life has all of the serenity and comic detachment you’d expect (think Peter Sellers in the movie Being There), but my favorite character is Branston’s update of Sancho Panza in the person of a merchant named Pedro.
Pedro is loyal as a dog, always looking to make a peso, and prone to generalities about the import/export business if you insist on asking what he does for a living. Pedro gives resonance to one of the great throwaway lines from William Goldman's screenplay for The Princess Bride, when the swordsman Inigo is waiting to kill a cliff-climbing Wesley, and pledges safe conduct to the cliff top "On my honor as a Spaniard," only to have Wesley answer "No good. I've known too many Spaniards."
August 5, 2009
A charming, amusing book. The main character is Miguel Cervantes at the time he was writing & publishing serially Don Quixote. A mad old soldier much like Quixote is another character in what is really a parallel story. The book, an homage to Cervantes & Don Quixote, addresses many of the same issues as the original, but still manages to be delightfully original itself.
June 29, 2023
This book started well but bogged down a bit when we began to follow the doings of two particularly unsympathetic characters; a power hungry marquise and a power hungry poet. Fortunately I had passed my cut-off point and continued reading. The good characters took on more of the burden of the story and the unsympathetic characters became lovingly hateful. At some point the book became quite enjoyable, even difficult to put down.
Cervantes, as a character in the book, is a popular author writing and selling his story in instalments to a ready public. His family life is chaotic; his wife and daughters harass him as do his visitors, Friend Pedro is one. He is a trader distrusting money but making a good living out of trading goods and information and whatever he comes across for other goods and information... He acts as agent between Cervantes and his printer.
The printer Robles will not do business with Pedro himself as he trades only in currency. He is an older man and savvy and makes a good living. He is married to a beautiful young wife who attracts the attention of all the eligible young men around, including the nasty poet. He prints Señor Cervantes story but also prints a satire of the same with a vitriolic introduction. Business is still business.
Friend Pedro is the first of the main characters to meet the old mad-man who is a living Don Quijote. He was not driven mad by reading romances however but by witnessing innumerable atrocities. A soldier feted by the Emperor, Philip II I think, he was promoted to the staff of the Duke of Alba who made him a miserable witness and participant in his sadistic and bloodthirsty chastisement of the Netherlands. Retiring from the army he retires from the world. But, all things pass. After a couple of decades in an asylum he begins a quest to cleanse the country of demons – of which their are many – and to find the Holy Grail.
There is also a duchess, beautiful, rich, honoured, who has turned her mansion into an academy for classical literature. There we find the wily marquise and the evil poet in attendance. Her husband, also a soldier, was killed in service to the empire and she blames the king, the empire, and pretty much everyone else for this tragedy. Theirs was a happy marriage, her widowhood is a burden. Fortunately she finds some comfort where she would never think to look
Some of this seems to be based on historical fact – the adventurous life of Cervantes, for example. Much else is a romantic dream of how things ought to be. And that makes it better.
Cervantes, as a character in the book, is a popular author writing and selling his story in instalments to a ready public. His family life is chaotic; his wife and daughters harass him as do his visitors, Friend Pedro is one. He is a trader distrusting money but making a good living out of trading goods and information and whatever he comes across for other goods and information... He acts as agent between Cervantes and his printer.
The printer Robles will not do business with Pedro himself as he trades only in currency. He is an older man and savvy and makes a good living. He is married to a beautiful young wife who attracts the attention of all the eligible young men around, including the nasty poet. He prints Señor Cervantes story but also prints a satire of the same with a vitriolic introduction. Business is still business.
Friend Pedro is the first of the main characters to meet the old mad-man who is a living Don Quijote. He was not driven mad by reading romances however but by witnessing innumerable atrocities. A soldier feted by the Emperor, Philip II I think, he was promoted to the staff of the Duke of Alba who made him a miserable witness and participant in his sadistic and bloodthirsty chastisement of the Netherlands. Retiring from the army he retires from the world. But, all things pass. After a couple of decades in an asylum he begins a quest to cleanse the country of demons – of which their are many – and to find the Holy Grail.
There is also a duchess, beautiful, rich, honoured, who has turned her mansion into an academy for classical literature. There we find the wily marquise and the evil poet in attendance. Her husband, also a soldier, was killed in service to the empire and she blames the king, the empire, and pretty much everyone else for this tragedy. Theirs was a happy marriage, her widowhood is a burden. Fortunately she finds some comfort where she would never think to look
Some of this seems to be based on historical fact – the adventurous life of Cervantes, for example. Much else is a romantic dream of how things ought to be. And that makes it better.
May 9, 2010
This took me oddly long to read. It's quite dense. It wasn't quite as full of hijinks as I'd expected, really, given that the summary is that Don Quixote was a real character who Cervantes met and who got involved in his life. But it's enjoyable, in any case. Cervantes as characterised here is likeable and fun. Ongorra is comically villainous. And the old Knight is quite batty and yet also noble, particularly in light of his back story. Cervantes' family made me laugh a little, though they're so... tumultuous that really there's only an impression of the whole of them, not any particular character that stands out. There's a lot of small details that I rather like.
I'm ambivalent on the little bit of romance. It's nice, but also somewhat out of the blue, and it doesn't really go anywhere, either. The Duchess disappears from the text, just like that.
Perhaps more editing would have made this an easier, more enjoyable read -- it certainly had the potential for me to give it four stars, at some points.
I'm ambivalent on the little bit of romance. It's nice, but also somewhat out of the blue, and it doesn't really go anywhere, either. The Duchess disappears from the text, just like that.
Perhaps more editing would have made this an easier, more enjoyable read -- it certainly had the potential for me to give it four stars, at some points.
July 3, 2017
I really loved this book.
November 4, 2011
Full of wit, easy to read and yet retaining a high-brow aire, 'The Eternal Quest' was a book which I enjoyed more and more with each turn of the page. Having never read Don Quixote, I don't know how much of its interest came from the original tale, but it certainly held echoes of a romantic and chivalrous era.
January 8, 2010
This book really deserved 3 stars....but I really enjoyed it so I gave it 4. It's not a great book, but it's cute, smart, funny and well written. It made me laugh and I enjoyed getting to know the different characters.
Currently Reading
January 9, 2009I just started this book and am enjoying it. It is Don Quixote told from an observer's point of view--the man who publishes the installments by Cervantes. Quixote is delightful.
March 11, 2009
As a huge fan of Cervantes, I had my doubts about this one. But I enjoyed it and found it entertaining. It is worth reading just to see Cervantes meet his knight errant.
Want to Read
August 27, 2009Having seen both the musical "Man of La Mancha" (Linfield College) and "Don Quixote" (Oregon Shakespeare Festival) in the past year, this sounds interesting.
January 19, 2010
A wonderful world of imaginative interpretation. Slow to get started but worth it in the end. A great view of early 17th century Spanish life. This one's a keeper.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews