Don Quixote - Book 17

I read Don Quixote.  Oh yes I did!  And you should too!

It took me a long time to get it read and kind of slowed me up on my 52 books in 52 weeks project.  But that's okay.  I'm not behind yet!  And I'm glad I read it.  For one thing, I'm going to Spain this summer, so I wanted to read something classic from that country.  For another, it is a world class piece of literature and I'm slowly expanding my list of greats that I've got under my belt!

The translation that I read is an old edition that I found years ago on my parents' bookshelf.  When they passed away I took and it sat for years on my bookshelf, unread.  The prospect of going to Spain soon is what finally made me resolve to read it.  Walter Starkie was the translator and he is quite the character.  He wrote a very long and entertaining Prelude that is pretty much brilliant.  Starkie was an Irish academic who was sent by England to Spain during World War II.  Starkie was Catholic and so he fit in in that way.  He apparently was quite fluent in Spanish and in love with the culture and he became a respected scholar not only of Cervantes but also the Romani, or gypsies of Spain.

Don Quixote was actually much easier to read than many other classics I've tried to tackle.  I think one reason is that I was reading it in translation.  It isn't like trying to parse through Milton or Chaucer.  Starkie was funny in that he translates the many peasants in the story as speaking with colloquial Irish accents and idioms.  It was a weird disconnect because while I knew I was in Spain, I kept imagining the voices with Irish accents!

The two main characters of the story are, of course, Don Quixote himself and his squire Sancho Panza.  Don Quixote is a middle aged man who has read too many romances of knightly deeds.  He's gone mad with this obession and has convinced himself that he indeed is a knight-errant from the earlier age of chivalry.  He bedecks himself out as best he can and sets out to have adventures.  Since all knights need a lady love to adore from afar he picks some woman he has only a passing knowledge of and names her Dulcinea del Toboso.  He acquires a squire, a peasant from the same town, named Sancho Panza.  There are all sorts of minor characters as well.  Some that appear and disappear and some that show up again at the very end of the novel.

This book reminded me a lot of Shakespeare's comedies.  It is one tale after another of rollicking, slapstick humor. It is full of word play and convoluted situations.  Cervantes is very clever and like Dante, he take jabs at personalities and issues going on in his own day.  Don Quixote is mad but he is also highly principled, with great courage and a strong sense of duty and honor.  He is actually quite wise.  The same goes for Sancho Panza, who is extremely funny and wise in his own way.  The story actually references Shakespeare a lot which surprised me.  I didn't know that Shakespeare was so popular a poor soldier (which Cervantes was) would be so familiar with his works.  Several times Hamlet is quite obviously referenced.  And there is a similiarity in that we get to see how all these minor characters react to Don Quixote's madness, much the same way in which we learn of the character of the people who surround Hamlet when he seems to be mad.

Cervantes is very clever.  Apparently the first book of Don Quixote was published and became a huge success.  So Cervantes wrote a second and third book as sequels.  What's funny is that he uses the first book as a ploy in the remaining two books.  People who read about the ficitonal Don Quixote want to meet him and you are never quite sure if it is because they really believe he's a knight errant or if they just want to sport with him in his madness.  People go to great lengths to play jokes on Don Quixote and his squire.  Really the whole thing is very tongue-in-cheek.  But it is gentle too, because everyone comes to love Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho.

This version of the book was slightly abridged and was only 593 pages long!

I give Don Quixote two thumbs up! It takes a while to plow through but it is well worth it!

For more reviews please go here.