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Don Quixote
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Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray—he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants—Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane
...more
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Paperback, Penguin Classics, 1023 pages
Published
February 25th 2003
by Penguin Books
(first published 1605)
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“Don Quixote”, I answered, and looked into almost shocked facial expressions, followed by quiet, uncomfortable giggling.
What was the question? If my friends at the coffee table had asked: “What is your favourite book, Lisa?”, and received that answer, they would have nodded knowingly, sympathetically, adding some random fact about the 1000+-page-classic I claimed to love more than the countless other books I have read. But that was not the question. It was:
“With which literary character do you ...more
What was the question? If my friends at the coffee table had asked: “What is your favourite book, Lisa?”, and received that answer, they would have nodded knowingly, sympathetically, adding some random fact about the 1000+-page-classic I claimed to love more than the countless other books I have read. But that was not the question. It was:
“With which literary character do you ...more

“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
Why did no one tell me this book is hilarious? I can't believe it took me so long to finally pick it up.
Don Quixote is densest in the early chapters, which are packed full of footnotes that should be read for full context. I highly recommend using two bookmarks-- one for your place in the story and one for in the notes. If this seems too much like hard work, I want to reassure yo ...more

All the chivalric romance is long dead and gone… But the travesty Don Quixote is alive and kicking… The strange ones are the fittest…
…the castellan brought out the book in which he had jotted down the hay and barley for which the mule drivers owed him, and, accompanied by a lad bearing the butt of a candle and the two aforesaid damsels, he came up to where Don Quixote stood and commanded him to kneel. Reading from the account book – as if he had been saying a prayer – he raised his hand and, wit...more

(Book 992 from 1001 books) - Don Quixote = Don Quijote de La mancha (Don Quijote de la Mancha #1-2), Miguel de Cervantes
The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha, or just Don Quixote, is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. 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, ...more
The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha, or just Don Quixote, is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. 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, ...more

A book of parallels, Don Quixote by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, through two of the most emblematic characters ever conceived, discusses what's imagined and what's seen, the ideal vs. the real, the conflicts between illusion and actuality and how these solid lines start to blur by the influences Don Quixote and Sancho Panza inflict on each other through the course of this comic (yet sad sometimes...) tale.
A second-hand account translated from Arab historian Cide Hamete Benengeli ...more
A second-hand account translated from Arab historian Cide Hamete Benengeli ...more

done quixote!!!
pun quixote!!
fun quixote??
none quixote...
and that's not entirely true; there are some rollicking good times in here, but the first part is so much endlessly episodic violence, and while the second half becomes calmer and more focused, it never got my imagination engaged nor my blood flowing.
in fact, although i know he really does love it, i can't help but feel that brian's recommending this to me is similar to the duke and duchess having their fun with don q. i feel like brian is ...more
pun quixote!!
fun quixote??
none quixote...
and that's not entirely true; there are some rollicking good times in here, but the first part is so much endlessly episodic violence, and while the second half becomes calmer and more focused, it never got my imagination engaged nor my blood flowing.
in fact, although i know he really does love it, i can't help but feel that brian's recommending this to me is similar to the duke and duchess having their fun with don q. i feel like brian is ...more

Can I tell you a story - only it may take a little time because sometimes a thousand trifles have to be recounted, as irrelevant as they are necessary, for the true understanding of a tale.
Chapter I : Regarding what befell the narrator on visiting a theatre
The comic operetta Don Quixote was being performed at my local theatre and I was amongst the audience at the first performance. It was a lively and entertaining re-enactment featuring the knight errant Don Quixote and his erring squire Sancho ...more
Chapter I : Regarding what befell the narrator on visiting a theatre
The comic operetta Don Quixote was being performed at my local theatre and I was amongst the audience at the first performance. It was a lively and entertaining re-enactment featuring the knight errant Don Quixote and his erring squire Sancho ...more

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.

The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.
Don Quixote ~~ Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Don Quixote is as good as, if not better than, everything you have ever heard about it. I've not felt such a sense of accomplishment in finishing a book since I closed the cover on Ulysses 15 months ago. Yes, it’s that good.
If you’ve never read Don Quixote you are more than likely to be familiar with the story of Don Quixote, but there is so m ...more
Don Quixote ~~ Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Don Quixote is as good as, if not better than, everything you have ever heard about it. I've not felt such a sense of accomplishment in finishing a book since I closed the cover on Ulysses 15 months ago. Yes, it’s that good.
If you’ve never read Don Quixote you are more than likely to be familiar with the story of Don Quixote, but there is so m ...more

Feb 19, 2018
Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
own
This book wore my @ss out! It's funny and good and I love tomes but I don't think I was totally ready this time. Whew ......

The narrator was great on audio but I couldn't keep up in my book for reasons so I just listened.

Happy Reading!
Mel ❤️ ...more

The narrator was great on audio but I couldn't keep up in my book for reasons so I just listened.

Happy Reading!
Mel ❤️ ...more

The Double-Edged Sword
It is a double-edged sword isn't it, reading great books too early in life?
If we read a book too early in life, we may not grasp it fully but the book becomes part of us and forms a part of our thinking itself, maybe even of our writing. But on the other hand, the reading is never complete and we may never come back to it, in a world too full of books.
And if we wait to read till we are mature, we will never become good readers and writers who can do justice to good books. ...more

Whatever else Don Quixote may be, I never found it boring. Parts of it were very funny, others had wonderful similarities with Shakespeare, some bits were more serious: it's like a mini library in a single volume. Wonderful.
Overall, it has quite a Shakespearean feel - more in the plotting and tales within tales (eg The Man Who was Recklessly Curious, stolen by Mozart for Cosi fan Tutte) than the language. In fact, the story of Cardenio is thought to be the basis for Shakespeare's lost play of t ...more
Overall, it has quite a Shakespearean feel - more in the plotting and tales within tales (eg The Man Who was Recklessly Curious, stolen by Mozart for Cosi fan Tutte) than the language. In fact, the story of Cardenio is thought to be the basis for Shakespeare's lost play of t ...more

In this episodic tale, a never-ending story of great fun, Cervantes invites us to laugh at the madness of his hero. The head of the latter was stuffed with those absurdities that we find in chivalry novels - very popular wildly in Spain between 1300 and 1600, where everyone liked to listen to it (we read it publicly) or read it, the people as well of the crowned heads.
A hilarious parody of chivalry novels, an honest social critic when the Spanish power is experiencing a decisive crisis, Don Quix ...more
A hilarious parody of chivalry novels, an honest social critic when the Spanish power is experiencing a decisive crisis, Don Quix ...more

Cervantes, Don Quixote. "In a certain corner of la Mancha, the name of which I do not choose to remember, there lately lived one of those country gentleman, who adorn their halls with rusty lace and worm-eaten target, and ride forth on the skeleton of a horse, to course with a sort of a starved greyhound."
Don Quixote is one of my favorite comedies of all time. This opening phrase is steeped with irony and sarcasm. We are introduced to the loser town which the author is obviously embarrassed to h ...more
Don Quixote is one of my favorite comedies of all time. This opening phrase is steeped with irony and sarcasm. We are introduced to the loser town which the author is obviously embarrassed to h ...more

It was fun for a while and then I got bored. I probably did not start this novel with the right mindset either. Until I started to read the Literature Book and commit to reading more classics I haven't even thought of reading Don Quixote. However, after I read that it was the first modern novel and other interesting trivia about it, I decided to give it a go. If I like it great, if not, I can always abandon it and read something else. My ancient copy of the novel (1969) has 4 volumes and I finis
...more

Nov 04, 2016
MJ Nicholls
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
novels,
picaresque,
penguin-classics,
nonreviews,
voluminous,
pre-1900s,
southern-europe,
worshipped
To compensate for an unliterary childhood (no furtive torch readings of Alice under the duvet until the wee hours for me), I hit the universities to read English Literature, which I failed to study, focusing instead on the local record shop and depression. To compensate for an unliterary literature degree, I ramped up the reading to more sensible levels, and began an ongoing passionate marriage with the written word: a marriage of comfortable convenience spiced up from time to time with trips in
...more

When I read excerpts of Don Quixote in high school, which I think must be a requisite for any Spanish language class taken by anybody ever, I was astounded that something so seemingly banal could be as wildly popular and possess such longevity as this book is and does. At the time, I did not find Don Quixote to be anything more than a bumbling fool chasing imaginary villains and falling into easily avoidable situations, and the forced hilarity that would ensue seemed to be of the same kind I rec
...more

I guess the goal of reviewing something like Don Quixote is to make you less frightened of it. It's intimidating, right? It's 940 pages long and it's from 500 years ago. But Grossman's translation is modern and easy to read, and the work itself is so much fun that it ends up not being difficult at all.
Much of Book I is concerned with the story of Cardenio, which Shakespeare apparently liked so much that he wrote a now-lost play about the guy. I loved that part, but for me, the pace slowed down a ...more
Much of Book I is concerned with the story of Cardenio, which Shakespeare apparently liked so much that he wrote a now-lost play about the guy. I loved that part, but for me, the pace slowed down a ...more

My god this was a long book and when I told my boyfriend I was reading this he tried to tell me I should read Das Kapital with him as well which is almost twice this long like no thank you. It was an okay book, I definitely enjoyed it more than I've enjoyed other classics I've picked up. It kind of reminded me of reading Candide because it had that same sort of satirical tone. Sancho was pretty amusing through out the book and Don Quixote's adherence to his belief that he was a knight was someth
...more

May 10, 2022
Matthew
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Matthew by:
Sud666
Another Epic classic complete! Thank you to my Goodreads Completist Book Club for giving me the inspiration to finally tackle this big book. I am sure I would have eventually read it someday, but it is nice to have some extra motivation.
I did enjoy the Don Quixote experience quite a bit. In general, it was slapstick comedy and tongue-in-cheek humor – but, there were a lot of literary acrobatics, word play, etc. taking place as well to keep me interested, guessing, and thinking as a reader. At ti ...more
I did enjoy the Don Quixote experience quite a bit. In general, it was slapstick comedy and tongue-in-cheek humor – but, there were a lot of literary acrobatics, word play, etc. taking place as well to keep me interested, guessing, and thinking as a reader. At ti ...more

Renowned the world over for its portrayal of a delusional knight-errant, Don Quixote, and his squire, Sancho Panza, Cervantes’ masterpiece is funny, tragic and way too relatable.

The line between wisdom and madness is flipped on its head over and over. Published in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote still amazes! I’d read the first part of Don Quixote several times, but never read the complete novel before now. While reading the first part gets the reader most of the iconic scenes from this work (most w ...more

The line between wisdom and madness is flipped on its head over and over. Published in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote still amazes! I’d read the first part of Don Quixote several times, but never read the complete novel before now. While reading the first part gets the reader most of the iconic scenes from this work (most w ...more

I'm going to miss Don Quixote and Sancho Panza so much! They feel like old friends!
In all honesty, I didn't expect to love this book as much as I now do! My favorite stories are the ones that make me feel a myriad of emotions, which is exactly what reading Don Quixote did! I laughed at almost every chapter, felt tearful by the end, and adored them the whole way through!
This is a groundbreaking work of fiction, and I feel honored to have read it! To think that some of my favorite "classic" writ ...more
In all honesty, I didn't expect to love this book as much as I now do! My favorite stories are the ones that make me feel a myriad of emotions, which is exactly what reading Don Quixote did! I laughed at almost every chapter, felt tearful by the end, and adored them the whole way through!
This is a groundbreaking work of fiction, and I feel honored to have read it! To think that some of my favorite "classic" writ ...more

Is Don Quixote one of the most impressive, mind shattering, extraordinary works of Spanish Golden Age? Yes, hundred percent it is! Is it worth to get lost in nearly 1050 full pages of adventure? Again yes it is absolutely worth it!
There so many critics defined this unconventional classic as depressive, dark and as for the second part of the book which is written after 10 years takes darker, more serious turn!
In my opinion this is one the saddest stories I’ve ever had. This story is mostly ab ...more
There so many critics defined this unconventional classic as depressive, dark and as for the second part of the book which is written after 10 years takes darker, more serious turn!
In my opinion this is one the saddest stories I’ve ever had. This story is mostly ab ...more

So much has been said about this book by so many people much smarter than I will ever be - so I will focus on this single point: Don Quixote is considered 'mad' by everyone - yet he is the only one who always tells the truth - and those who label him 'mad' take advantage of this. To me the central question is this: must one be mad to tell the truth in a world of liars? Highest recommendation.
...more

I “audio-read” this book for about two months on my one hour daily commutes to work. It made the journeys very pleasant and I barely notice the dull sceneries as they go by. The journey of Don Quixote and his trusty squire Sancho Panza is much more vivid and enjoyable.
I had my doubts about the basic premise of this book. A crazy old guy with a Buzz Lightyear-like delusion travels through Spain with a peasant sidekick. How did the author manage to fill a thousand or so pages with that? Would the ...more
I had my doubts about the basic premise of this book. A crazy old guy with a Buzz Lightyear-like delusion travels through Spain with a peasant sidekick. How did the author manage to fill a thousand or so pages with that? Would the ...more

“I know who I am,” replied don Quijote, “and I know who I can be...”
I bought this book under the sway of a caprice which, if it were not too hackneyed to say so, I would call quixotic. This was two years ago. I was in the royal palace in La Granja de San Ildefonso, near Segovia. I had just toured the palace—one of the finest in Spain—and was about to explore the French gardens, modeled after those in Versailles, when I encountered the gift shop. Normally I do not buy anything in gift shops, ...more

got to know what the deal is with those windmills

Jan 27, 2008
Belarius
rated it
really liked it
Recommends it for:
The Literati And Pseudoliterati
Shelves:
fiction-finished,
literature
I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a fan of popular fiction. I desire enjoyment from certain factors of pacing and style that the literary elite consider "common" and I, in turn, generally find "literature" to be incredibly pretentious. This has led me to hold what some might consider "uncultured" opinions about various great works.
Which brings us to Don Quixote, which many in the literary elite consider to be the greatest novel ever written.
Did I love Don Quixote? I wouldn't go that far. Does i ...more
Which brings us to Don Quixote, which many in the literary elite consider to be the greatest novel ever written.
Did I love Don Quixote? I wouldn't go that far. Does i ...more

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.

Don Quixote, English edition: 1050 pages. & not once was I like, "This ain't worth it." Because it is!
The novel about novels (my favorite motif of all lit is lit within lit... storytelling...ya know...?) is actually a novel about love. The three voyages by Don Quixote are obvious metaphors for life and all the characters he meets along the road are romantically inclined, bored and in want of change. Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho Panza, provide ample entertainment for them and for us, the re ...more
The novel about novels (my favorite motif of all lit is lit within lit... storytelling...ya know...?) is actually a novel about love. The three voyages by Don Quixote are obvious metaphors for life and all the characters he meets along the road are romantically inclined, bored and in want of change. Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho Panza, provide ample entertainment for them and for us, the re ...more
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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Reading List Comp...: Don Quixote - General Discussion | 5 | 12 | May 10, 2022 02:25PM | |
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Drunk Guys Book C...: Don Quixote - Book Two | 2 | 36 | Jan 13, 2022 11:06AM | |
Old Books, New Re...: June/July BOTM - Don Quixote (Book Two) | 16 | 91 | Nov 01, 2021 07:57AM | |
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Miguel de Cervantes 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 ...more
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 ...more
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“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
—
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“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”
—
1959 likes
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