Steve’s Reviews > Don Quixote > Status Update

Dang! I wanna know how it is...

Finally finished, after about three months of effort. This book is amazing when considered in context: it basically invented the idea of a novel, it created perhaps the single greatest literary character of all time, and it remains relevant hundreds of years after it was written. It is at times laugh-out-loud funny and at times heartrendingly pathetic. Thoroughly enjoyable.

All of that said, it can hardly stand up to its own reputation. After a thousand pages, I know little more about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza than I did prior to having picked the book up. Those characters have become so ubiquitous in our literature and even our culture that their essence is understood by just about everyone, with an alarming degree of accuracy. They are honest, they are noble, and they are mad. Did I really need to read each and every one of the myriad sallies in the book to find the deeper perspective I sought by reading this now? I'm not convinced. But maybe that's the point. The very act of consuming the entire story, at times, felt as though I was tilting at windmills, but by the end, I found Don Quixote the character no less amusing or endearing. I'm sad to have him leaving my life after this prolonged contact.

One last thought: Edith Grossman is just hands down the best Spanish language translator in the business right now. Having read passages from various other translations of Don Quixote in the past, none were in the same zip code as far as capturing the spirit and humor of the characters. If you read Don Quixote, read this Don Quixote.

Steve wrote: "Finally finished, after about three months of effort. This book is amazing when considered in context: it basically invented the idea of a novel, it created perhaps the single greatest literary cha..."

Dude...why don't you write more reviews here instead of just star-ratings!? PLEASE DO! Thanks for letting me know!