The Greatest Books discussion

Spanish being my mother tongue, I had the fortune of reading Don Quixote from the original. While the language is definitely quaint and at times slightly difficult to understand, I could enjoy most of it.

I'm very curious to know how well it's translated into other languages, in particular into English: to what extent all the innovative aspects of it (meta-references, Cervantes as a character, breaking the fourth wall, irony, word plays…) could be preserved when translating it.

In other words, I'm afraid that a lot of what makes this novel so brilliant would be lost in translation. (And then, isn't that always the case?)

Have you read it in English? What did you think?