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Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Start date: February 1, 2024

Finish date: March 30, 2024

Discussion: Old School Classics, Pre-1915

Why we're reading this: Revisit the Shelf February and March 2024

3rd Quarter Long Read Classic, July-Sept 2015

[close] Revisit the Shelf February and March 2024

3rd Quarter Long Read Classic, July-Sept 2015

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Old School Classics, Pre-1915

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What Members Thought

Mar 09, 2020 Julie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fin-2020, classic-novels, ben-bc

FINALLY. I can't believe it's finally over. I'm glad I read it but wow, it was rough going at times. I'm no stranger to reading 1,000+ page books; my favorite author is Charles Dickens and I've got a soft spot for 19th century Russian novelists. However, reading such a lengthy Spanish book written over 400 years ago was much tougher than reading one of Dicken's serialized soap operas that one pleasurably flies through.

What is funny is that I think Cervantes started to feel the same way when writ FINALLY. I can't believe it's finally over. I'm glad I read it but wow, it was rough going at times. I'm no stranger to reading 1,000+ page books; my favorite author is Charles Dickens and I've got a soft spot for 19th century Russian novelists. However, reading such a lengthy Spanish book written over 400 years ago was much tougher than reading one of Dicken's serialized soap operas that one pleasurably flies through.

What is funny is that I think Cervantes started to feel the same way when writing this book - a sort of "God, will this ever be over" sensation. After 800+ pages of Cervantes going into excruciating detail about everything - I mean, who doesn't want 25 pages on the backstory of some shepherd they come across in their travels? - suddenly Cervantes is summarizing like a madman. Instead of the 25 page backstory, he would write something like "Then the shepherd told them what had happened & Don Quixote was amazed." Instead of pages of Sancho's rambling monologues, Cervantes just writes something along the lines of "Sancho told funny stories and everyone laughed". It was startling. I'd gotten used to Cervantes' "everything & the kitchen sink" style of writing so when the book did a 180 and it became tell, not show, I was surprised. Cervantes died a year after part two was published. Maybe he wasn't feeling good and wanted to make sure he finished the book before he got too sick to finish?

On the whole, I would say I liked the novel, but not in the way I like other books I read. I didn't like it for the thin plot or for the two dimensional characters I couldn't relate to. I think the structure of the book, the breaking of the fourth wall that Cervantes does, the meta aspects of the novel are what intrigued me the most. The novel was a newish form of writing in 1605 & rules weren't set in stone. Reading, say, Jane Austen, one gets what we think of as a traditional story arc and characters that are developed in a way that the reader relates to them. With Don Quixote, I was never sure where Cervantes was heading. The pacing of the plot and development of the characters was unexpected.

Once I realized that I was reading a seventeenth century version of slapstick comedy, I relaxed and started accepting the story more. In a way, the book is like a 1,000 page long Marx Brothers movie. I now see what an influence this book has been to Western comedians like Monty Python and Mel Brooks. Not that the book was haha laugh out loud funny. Maybe it was 400 years ago? Sure, I smiled a few times and thought "good one" but I was never laughing like I was reading David Sedaris. A lot of the humor depends either upon a play on words - which is obviously lost when translated from Spanish - or upon what were to the initial readers jokes about the popular culture. I know basically nothing about that time period in Spain so even with footnotes explaining the story behind the jokes, the jokes fell flat.

The sexist and racist attitudes throughout the book were hard to stomach at times. I understand that for the age in which it was written, the book was liberal at times in it's viewpoints Not all Muslims were total monsters, sometimes women would stand up for themselves, there were sly digs at the church etc. This was written during the Spanish Inquisition. Not a fun, light-hearted era and not a time for blatantly attacking the status quo.

If I hadn't been reading this for a book club - we met three times for discussions since the novel is so long - I think I would have stopped reading. Reading it as a group was definitely the way to go for me. I enjoyed talking about the book more than I enjoyed reading it. My understanding was deepened by being exposed to what others were getting from the book. I am impressed by those who can read this novel without the supporting structure of a class or book group. This is not something to go into lightly!

#literary life reading challenge 2020/a satire #popsugar reading challenge 2020/favorite prompt from past challenge - over 500 pages

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Dec 27, 2015 Norrin2 rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favorites

Don Quixote is actually two books published 10 years apart. I give part one 5 stars, as it was everything I hoped it would be, but only three stars to part 2. My biggest complaints with the second part was the interminable business with the Duke and the Duchess. Until we meet them, Don Quixote is a misguided but noble soul attempting to make the world a better place -- 400 years later people are still debating whether or nor he was mad -- but the cruel Duke and Duchess are just playing with him, ...more

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