Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Tobias Smollett (Translator), Carole Slade (Introduction)

Genres: Fiction, Classics

Paperback

First published March 1, 2013

About the author

Miguel de Cervantes y Cortinas, later Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His novel Don Quixote is often considered his magnum opus, as well as the first modern novel.

It is assumed that Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares. His father was Rodrigo de Cervantes, a surgeon of cordoban descent. Little is known of his mother Leonor de Cortinas, except that she was a native of Arganda del Rey.

In 1569, Cervantes moved to Italy, where he served as a valet to Giulio Acquaviva, a wealthy priest who was elevated to cardinal the next year. By then, Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by Algerian corsairs. He was then released on ransom from his captors by his parents and the Trinitarians, a Catholic religious order.

He subsequently returned to his family in Madrid.
In Esquivias (Province of Toledo), on 12 December 1584, he married the much younger Catalina de Salazar y Palacios (Toledo, Esquivias –, 31 October 1626), daughter of Fernando de Salazar y Vozmediano and Catalina de Palacios. Her uncle Alonso de Quesada y Salazar is said to have inspired the character of Don Quixote. During the next 20 years Cervantes led a nomadic existence, working as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada and as a tax collector. He suffered a bankruptcy and was imprisoned at least twice (1597 and 1602) for irregularities in his accounts. Between 1596 and 1600, he lived primarily in Seville. In 1606, Cervantes settled in Madrid, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Cervantes died in Madrid on April 23, 1616.
-Copied from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am glad that I used the translation by Tobias Smollett, author of such 18th-century classics as Roderick Random and Humphry Clinker. Though I generally favour translation into contemporary idiom, Cervantes lived at the same time as Shakespeare, and there are many of mock-epic touches in Don Quixote. As a once-upon-a-time literary scholar, I realised I should have read Don Quixote long ago for its influence on Henry Fielding especially. Sometimes listening to the Audible version, I imagined I was hearing not just Quixote and Sancho Panza, but Tom Jones and Partridge. And I've long found Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote utterly delightful. Like Lennox's imitation - which she breaks off abruptly after the 2nd Part, Cervantes' original suffers badly from basically having only one joke. Volume I has the familiar episodes like 'tilting at windmills' caused by the Don's delusions; vol II consists mostly of coarse practical jokes played on Quixote and Panza by the Duke's servants. Personally I detest humour that makes fun of simple persons. Galley slaves and Barbary corsairs remind us that it was a cruel age. Yet the love of pageantry, especially the allegorical figures, was attractive. I thought often of Spenser as well as Fielding, and realised that Catholics and Protestants in that time had more in common (however much each enjoyed roasting or disemboweling the other) than they would with us secular persons. All the different degrees and orders were most fascinating. Having Don Quixote on his deathbed complaining of hack writers who had 'appropriated' his history seemed like a flaw in the days when Flaubert and James were the icons for the art of fiction. Now it seems most 'postmodern'.

[Brenna Cumming · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hope I never hear the name Dulcinea del Toboso ever again. Reading this was excruciating but the audiobook (Tantor Unabridged Classic version read by David Case) was enjoyable. A grand adventure I suppose. This classic is just very wordy and meandering. I enjoyed it but also very over it by this point.

[James Saint-John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe I need to read a different translation of this because, despite the excellent premises and approach, I didn't enjoy this story as much as I had hoped to.

[Emily Strom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: did not read all 900 pages but read large chunks of it with my students

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and I do want to go back and read some of the parts that we missed, but I'm also ready to be done with it.

[Antonio Mears · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abysmal. Meandering. Boring. I've never been more disappointed in all my life. I don't know if I can bring myself to read Part II.