After years of feeling intimidated by this book, I finally felt I was in a place where I wanted to pick up this book and give it a try. My grandmother loved this book and toward the end of her life, we connected a bit through books. I regret not picking up Don Quixote in her lifetime, but I’m glad I didn’t just say ‘oh well’ and move on. 

 

His mind having been taken over by the many worlds of literature, Don Quixote deems himself knight-errant and sets off in search of quests of his own. Sancho Panza, his loyal squire, accompanies him. The two of them embark on many adventures. 

 

I realized very quickly that Don Quixote is not the dueling epic I assumed it to be. What I found, I enjoyed far more. It’s a story of madness, shall we say, and disillusion, but there is something very relatable in that in the modern day. Haven’t most of us picked up a book as a form of escapism? Don’t readers at some point wish they could get lost in a literary world? In that regard, I found Cervantes to be ahead of his time. That said, it’s also very much a classic, and a wordy one at that. 

 

Though I took my time with this book, I often felt that the scenes were dragging on much longer than they needed to, but I suppose that’s the curse of being used to modern books. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and soaked in so many of the passages. I also cherished getting to experience a piece of my grandmother in a way. 

the first half was pretty repetitive but it was genuinely funny and if you ignore the sexism and racism it holds up fairly well considering it was written like 400 years ago. i wouldn’t say this was a life changing book but i really enjoyed it and it was so interesting to see how much of it has influenced other works!

Such a large number of histories and adventures cannot be contained...thoroughly enjoyable, although so much of the humour is sadly dimmed by the cultural, literary and historical context which is unknown to the modern reader. Grossman's translation does help to an extent with footnotes, but it does seem that Don Quixote was written specifically for the reader of knight-errant novels. There are many literary elements that feel unusual and confusing as a modern reader, but nonetheless I could not name another story that on the one hand is so straight and blunt, but on the other very touching in its nature and humorous in circumstance.