Don Quixote

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Edith Grossman (Translation)

Don Quixote (/ˌdɒn kiːˈhoʊtiː/; [ˈdoŋ kiˈxote] ( listen)), fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha ( El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha), is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It follows the adventures of Alonso Quixano, an hidalgo who reads so many chivalric novels that he decides to set out to revive chivalry, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthly wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Don Quixote is met by the world as it is, initiating such themes as intertextuality, realism, metatheatre, and literary representation.

Published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. It has had major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844) and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). In a 2002 list, Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary work ever written".

Paperback

Published April 4, 2024

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

[George Ellingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

O happy Don Quixote, O funny Sancho Panza. May both of you together and each of you in your own right, live on forever for the pleasure and entertainment of everyone in the whole world.

Part 1: 2*
Part 2: 4.5*

At the start, I’d go 100 pages sometimes without a crum of enjoyment and it was a real slog.

In the middle I started to lose my mind and/or I actually started to find it funny.

In the last 300 pages or so, I began to understand the reverence and started to really enjoy it.

What began as fairly shallow portrait of an idiot in my opinion became something almost moving. The humour remains but in enters a profound sadness at the fading of dreams, the failure of idealism, and the price of seeing the world too clearly. I have no doubt these characters (mainly Sancho) will become a piece of me I carry forward in the way only the best books can claim.

[Noah McMillen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crazy how Cervantes hated the Don Quixote 2 fan fic so much that he wrote his own Don Quixote 2, constantly broke the 4th wall to trash the author, and killed off Don Quixote to make sure no one else writes another fan fic. That is dedication.

I didn’t love this book towards the beginning, and the story still feels pretty one-note for how long it is, but the characters grow on you, and eventually, it sort of feels like a sitcom. By the end, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza feel like friends you’ve bonded with.

[Namiko]

There are some people like Don Quixote - who only believes himself. It is good to think that way - he must have a great life.

[Adriana Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fresh

[Brendan Sheehan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greatest book of all time.