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!

This was such an incredibly hard book to finish. I can understand and appreciate the metafiction parts, but besides that, I could not stand the plot or the characters. It is filled with too much misogyny and racism, the story did not spark any emotions, neither the tragedy nor the comedy parts. I acknowledge the time this novel was written in, but it is honestly not worth any reader's time unless you are studying literature.

This story follows the self proclaimed knight errant Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Ponza as they get up to all kinds of ludicrous activities trying to fulfill the duties of their station in life. I chose to hybrid read this to help me along in this lengthy story. It was surprisingly enjoyable for what it is. I found some passages quite funny but also melancholy at times. I kept thinking about how cruel people can be when they aren’t the ones impacted by a situation. It also got me thinking about how that cruelty remains very much part of human interaction. Also while there were some racist and sexist moments in the book it wasn’t nearly as violent as I was bracing for which I’m pleased about. Overall I’m glad I read this.