Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes | Book Review

The Reading Stack reviews "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes.
Don Quixote is the story of a nobleman who loses his sanity by reading too many stories of knights and fully believing in their exploits. The man takes the name Don Quixote and runs off on many adventures to do what only a good knight would do (along with his squire, the peasant, Sancho Panza). Hilarity ensues with much collateral damage... : )

THANKS for watching!
👉 Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe!

#donquixote #migueldecervantes #cervantes #bookreview #chivalry #knights #sanchopanza #funny #story #adventure #misadventure #insanity #novel #lessons #crazy #heroes #fairytales #spain #reading #classics

[tombrennan]

I think one question Cervantes asks is, "Is insanity an appropriate response to an insane world?"
Like you mentioned in your video, with the world as awful as it is, is it really that terrible to have someone willing to fight for those who are unable to fight for themselves?
IIRC Cervantes cites how convoluted the epics Senor Quixana had read as a factor in making him go insane. That said, Cervantes makes a point repeatedly that on topics other than chivalry the Don is very rational and even quite eloquent in his discussion of them.
One of my takeaways from Don Quixote is how often the people around him think, "Ah, now THIS will break him of his madness!", when it only makes the Don double down on it. Often it's evil wizards who are casting illusions to rob him of his rewards, but it always fits into his worldview. Something that I think very much applies to today and here in the US especially.

[thereadingstack]

What are your thoughts on Don Quixote (the book) or Cervantes?
Most memorable parts of the story?
Favorite character?
Does it sound interesting to you (if you have never read it)?
Would you re-read it?

[frankfeldman]

The following is only my reaction, my opinion, no hate mail, please. You love the book, think it the most hilarious, profound thing you’ve ever encountered? I’m happy for you. Enjoy.

This is almost certainly the worst book I’ve ever forced myself to finish. It’s a very easy read. It is, however, humongous, hence time-consuming, at the end of which time you end up with nothing. NOTHING. Did I say “nothing”? I should have said - disbelief, exasperation, and rage.

I find the assertions that Don Quixote is the first modern novel and, heaven help us, the greatest of all novels, patently ridiculous. For any number of reasons.

Let’s begin with the fact that it’s been crafted, no less than most of the junk one finds when one walks into a commercial bookstore these days, to satisfy the demands of a bored middle class. Hence, we’ve got the lowest common denominator factor at work from the get-go. It’s a money-making venture, first and foremost. Intended, above all, to amuse. I would claim it fails spectacularly on that account, since there are no real protagonists, just wax figures upon whom Cervantes inflicts whatever random episodes occur to him. And when nothing occurs to him, well then, he just inserts unrelated stories, of which there are several in Part 1. He’s as bored as we are, apparently.

It is said that this novel stands halfway between medieval storytelling, in which the interior world of the protagonist is of no interest, and the modern psychological novel. This seems to me absurd on the face of it, since neither Don Quixote nor Sancho Panza display even a hint of having an interior life. Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, in a couple of dozen pages, jumps off the page and into our hearts in a way one finds no hint of in DQ - she displays more life, self-awareness, and humor than our two protagonists manage to produce in 1000 pages of wearisome prose. BTW, re that “prose” - some folks imagine how wonderful the book must be in Spanish. But experts who know the language, including several great authors, have repeatedly said that there’s nothing remotely special about Cervantes’ use of language - the story’s the thing. Which story is that? Oh, you mean the 1000 pages of disconnected, psychologically unmotivated anecdotes with no over-arching narrative arc? Oh, I see. Gotcha.

And then there is the issue of what drives the whole novel, what makes it “funny” or “entertaining”, which, for me, it is decidedly not. Two jokes - Quixote’s madness, never explained - not a shred of psychological insight is offered into what drives it other than he has read too many bad novels and chivalry, and Panza’s penchants for puns and the stuffing of his face, the former of which seems to have dramatically increased in Book 2, for no discernible reason. So - the reader is expected to sit back and continue to laugh over the course of 1000 pages over what? - what are ultimately, are two very feeble, unfunny “jokes”, ugh.

It’s not a novel in any sense, by my lights. It has no narrative arc - it begins after the central event has already happened, Q’s descent into madness, without any psychological insight into its genesis. It goes nowhere, can go nowhere - it is a series of basically unrelated episodes, the order of which could easily be re-arranged without anything whatsoever being lost. That is to say, it has the form, more or less, of a TV sitcom. Nothing connects one episode to another other than the supposedly hysterical character flaws of the two main characters. It doesn’t rise to anywhere near the artistic level of the best TV sitcoms, e.g., the 1960’s Addams Family with John Astin and Carolyn Jones. It resembles it in that there is one disconnected episode one week, followed by another the following. It differs from it in this essential - Morticia and Gomez’s love is palpable, even moving. They are recognizable Homo sapiens, of flesh and blood, and we are touched by their love. There is nothing in this “novel” that is remotely moving. How could there be? Its principals are puppets, mannequins.

Then it is claimed that the novel is “tragic”. That it is “cruel”, that the protagonists endure great cruelty. BWAHAHA. You hear this from blowhards like Harold Bloom, among other things. But the violence the two of them endure can just as easily be read as cartoonish, Laurel and Hardy type-violence. No one is seriously hurt, Quixote’s nose being a favorite target of this horrendous “cruelty and violence”. This is tragedy? Please.

And then it is further claimed, by blowhards like Bloom, et al., that Cervantes is the equal of Shakespeare. This is when sanity has completely left the room - it is now time to clutch one’s forehead in disbelief. I believe one could make a very serious claim that the interior life in literature came into its own in the works of Shakespeare, whoever that was, whether it was that illiterate guy in Stratford, the Earl of Oxford, et al. - that doesn’t matter. The bottom line is - there’s not a hint of anyone’s interior life in this “novel”.

Is Cervantes without talent? Of course not. Just to slop that much disparate material into one landfill, and to keep it going requires talent. Is it a work of “genius”, whatever that means? I don’t see any genius in it. Again, for me, there’s more genius in any half-dozen pages of the Canterbury Tales than there is in this gargantuan, flatulent collection of anecdotes that come from nowhere and go nowhere.

I had heretofore successfully avoided reading this monstrous, empty nothing of a book, because I had intuited exactly what I ultimately experienced. I did read it, finally, because, it seemed to me something an educated person needs to have undergone, read, and experienced it - a lousy reason, if there ever was one. I wasn’t ennobled by it, entertained, transformed, and had not the slightest interest in the welfare of anyone in it, etc. Why? Because there was no one in it. Only a pastiche of mannequins, serving what purpose? None - other than to entertain a deeply bored middle-class who had learned to read and now had access to endless volumes of garbage. Sound familiar? Sound like the folks that walk into Barnes and Noble on a given afternoon?

Why is it a “classic”? Because it was wildly popular in its time, because it arrived at the right time, because of its endless, utterly unnecessary length (let’s face it, it could easily be a 200 page book, and lose nothing), and then, most crucially, because of the host of “Emperor’s New Clothes” phenomena which secured its place as “classic”, inc. all the bloated, tenured Professors and critics who dared not disagree with what had now become the orthodox, expected reverence towards this “Great Book”. And let’s not forget the phenomena of ancestor worship, Spanish pride, etc.

One feels, learns, and is transformed by one great Shakespearean poem or soliloquy a thousand times more than what one comes away with at the end of a thousand pages of Don Quixote. What possessed Richard Strauss to take it seriously enough to create his tone poem is quite beyond me - my guess is that it was simply the opportunity to use his overblown orchestra to produce stunning effects portraying wind, sheep bleating, etc. BTW, the death of HIS Don Quixote leaves Cervantes’ in the dust. It is recognizably poignant and human. What a concept!

I marvel that I made it to the end, and I am extremely happy to now put it aside and never give it a second thought. I purchased it, and am sorely tempted to throw it in the garbage. It won’t stay with me, haunt me, none of that, not a chance. One can only be haunted by the ghosts of the once living. Nothing lives in this book. The protagonist who dies at the end of Don Quixote was never alive in the first place. In fact, his “return to sanity” and subsequent death makes even less sense than his initial descent into madness with which the book begins. Chalk it up to “melancholy”, says Cervantes, in the space of THREE OR FOUR PAGES. Anyone remotely familiar with the phenomenon of melancholy knows full well that, if it induces cognitive reshaping of any kind, it is in a direction other than towards the embracing of reality. But let’s be honest - the whole purpose of Quixote’s “return to sanity” is a lazy excuse to prohibit the author of the “false Don Quixote” from taking up his pen again and making money which Cervantes wants for himself. In fact, this is how the “novel” ends, making its purpose plain as day, with a trashing of the false author - Cervantes shows his cards, plain as day. If you were baffled, frustrated, and impatient with the absurd premise of this thousand page collection of spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically empty anecdotes, and hoping for some sort of payoff at its close, however small, you will be absolutely INFURIATED when you reach its last pages, and are likely to close the book in absolute disbelief.

I want the twenty odd hours I spent enduring this empty nonsense back. It’s a minority view, I know. But it is mine.

[ProseAndPetticoats]

It's so funny and enjoyable! I almost finished reading it :)

[jessicaacevedo]

I read this book when I was in school, and I fell deeply in love with it. I always think about it. I remember laughing at Don Quijote, but when characters in the book mistreated him I got really mad.
PS: sorry for the grammar, Spanish is my native language.

[DATo_DATonian]

I may be wrong, but as I recall he DOESN'T do "a lot of good"... ever; in fact he causes a lot of mayhem and some things which result in more harm than good for the people he is trying to help. Of course the irony of this and the whole point of the comedy is that he THINKS he is doing good. Don Quixote is funny, but the real jewel of this book is his side-kick Sancho Panza who, in my opinion, is one of the most memorable and funniest characters in literature. [EDIT] My copy is the Putnam translation which in my opinion is the best.

[mandril]

Greatest book of all time. Every native spanish speaker should read it at least once, I think it helps us understand our roots and way of thinking. Maybe it doesn't seem as serious on the surface but it hides a lot of depth.