Penguin Classics Don Quixote (Paperback)

In a broader sense it is the forerunner off other situations where individuals, communities or systems live a complete lie.This is truely an amazing book, one that you won't want to put down once you have started.DON QUIXOTE is a must read which you should include with other must reads like WAR AND PEACE, UNION MOUJIK, GULLIVER'S TRAVEL,CANTERBURY TALES. One thing for sure is that this new translation of DON QUIXOTE will make it a popular story even with the young.

Around the age of fifty, there was a man who, after reading countless chivalric romances, decided to adopt the name of Don Quixote and explore the world, righting wrongs, rescuing maidens and slaying giants. Deluded by the grandeur of his favourite stories, Quixote sees the world differently to normal men. An inn is not an inn but a castle, a monk not a monk but a wandering vagabond to be slain, a life-worn prostitute not a whore but a beautiful princess. After a rapid series of events, Quixote returns home, battered and bruised from the fights he has lost, in his mind a glorious knight errant returning from many victories. He convinces his neighbour, Sancho Panza, of his prowess, and the two set off once more, the first adventure they experience together being the famous windmill fight - the windmill that Quixote took to be a giant.

Over the next nine hundred pages or so, the relationship between Quixote and Panza develops into deep affection. The greatest pleasure is to be derived from reading their addled conversations, how they twist ordinary events into epic circumstances, and how willing Panza is to believe Quixote's exaggerations. He is promised early in the book that he will one day govern an island, and holds on to this for many months through ridiculous adventure after ridiculous adventure. Throughout, he shows an amusing level of stupidity, but also a staggering insight, seemingly able to change between the two within a sentence. And the proverbs!

Don Quixote is a very intelligent man, when he is not discussing chivalry. He is able to converse at great length of all manner of subjects, and every word he says seems wise and true. But turn the conversation to being a knight, or the never-seen love of his life, Dulcinea del Toboso, and he becomes a raving mad-man, spewing forth opinions and ideas that could never be believed. He is much given to grand gestures, turning a simple apology into a two paragraph discourse, highlighting ancient instances of forgiveness and sadness. The amount of references that he crams into his speech is simply amazing, and I am thankful that my Penguin Classics translation saw fit to explain them. From the bible to Greek mythology to current day (at the time) events and people to fictional giants and sorcerers to characters from books, Quixote is willing and able to place them in his speech in a way that feels effortless.

The book is in two parts, of roughly equal size, and the first is the best. In the second, the first part of the book has been published, and everyone is aware of who Quixote and Panza are. Consequently, many people take advantage of them, and it isn't so funny to see the two being ridiculed so harshly. Also, the narrator becomes a little too self-referential for my liking, a technique that wasn't present in the first book and feels awkward in the second.

But the beauty of this book is in the friendship. Sancho Panza is one of the greatest characters I have ever read, I truly feel a fondness for him and wish there were a thousand more books written of him. Don Quixote is larger than life, a caricature of a caricature, and it is a delight to read his rants. There is a sense that - if Cervantes hadn't killed off Quixote at the very end of his book to prevent further stories being written - that the two men would, even know, be travelling the countryside of Spain, bickering and chatting, secure in the knowledge that Don Quixote is an amazing knight, and that Sancho Panza is his ever faithful squire.

I do not speak Spanish - let alone 17th Century Castilian, so I was forced to read the novel in translation. I have never read another version, but John Rutherford's Penguin Classics version was satisfactory in every way. He does his best to retain Cervantes' humor, which is the most important aspect of the novel. Also, modern audiences my benefit from translation because it puts the book into the modern language - making a four-hundred-year-old book read fresh.

As for the plot, a country hidalgo named Alonzo Quixano spends his time reading chivalric romances. One day, he decides to become a knight errant named Don Quixote (Sir Thighpiece). He convinces a simple neighbor who speaks in proverbs, Sancho Panza, to come along with him to be his squire. Quixote is crazy and Sancho is a fool - except that they seem to be preternaturally sane and wise when the chips are down. If you are only familiar with Man of La Mancha, the book is drastically different. Dulcinae never actually makes an appearance. Sancho is traveling along because he has been promised the governorship of an island - and he gets it! They just spend the book wandering around and getting into adventures. Personally I prefer the second part of the novel (the first is too digressive).

Allow yourself some time, and enjoy this masterpiece of Western Literature.