Well, of course it is a classic, but I was struck by the fact when I read it that aside from a few of the famous early episodes like the windmills, much of it has a more serious tone. I have also been struck by the change in attitudes toward it.
Hendrik van Loon writing about 70 years ago (in Van Loon's Lives, which is well worth reading --dinner parties for great figures from history --
the one with Elizabeth I and Empress Theodora is priceless) said that outside of Spain, everyone thought it was hilarious satire on the foolish
Quixote, but inside Spain, Quixote was respected
for his noble ideals. By my own youth in the 60s, Man of La Mancha made the latter view much more popular in the US, and quixotic has ceased to be a common term of reproach.