Don Quixote

[mazarane]

(by Cervantes)

Has anyone here read it? It does seem to be stereotyped as the book that most people say they have read, many have started and few have finished. I seem to be stalled (very rare for me) about a third of the way through :oops: - I just found the plot somewhat repetitive and predictable on many occasions,with being dragged out for quite a while. I fully intend to return to it at some point though :)
What are other peoples thoughts on it?

[zveozdi]

Don Quijote de La Mancha is considered the most important piece of Literature in Latin American Culture.:roll:. It was an obligatory lecture in my school, so I had to read it. I didn't enjoy it very much. I found it quite repetitive and slow most of the time, especially when he sings, but you have to consider that it was written in the 16th century.

At a first sight, the plot is simple, even boring and grotesque sometimes, but when you get to the end you find out that nothing is what it seems. It becomes something sad. I wouldn't like to tell you the end if you hadn't read it yet, but I think that if you want to discuss it you should finish it.

[mazarane]

I'll get there, promise... Especially now I know someone else has :wink:

I was also going more for a discussion on whether people would want to read it, given the status it tends to be accorded, and how that affects them.

[zveozdi]

Well, I don't really know if people would read it just because they want to. I did it because I had to, but I don't think I would have done it just for pleasure.
how that affects them??? what do you mean with that?

[mazarane]

whether the status the book is often regarded with makes you want to read it, whether you think you would have enjoyed the book more if you didn't have such expectations...

[Sycron]

I bought a nice Penguin edition a while back, still haven't started it. I might read it this summer, but I've got alot going on.

[Leamas]

i've read the first 100 or so pages.

it's a hoot!

i realise (through discussion with other people) that as it wears on, the serious and sadder aspects of the character of Don Q comes out. but for now, it must be one of the funniest things i have ever read in my life.

Cervantes must've had a lot of fun writing it - using Don to take the piss out of 'books of chivalry' and their weird ways. his dogmatic approach to everything leaves me in hysterics, as does his insistence that he is always right, and that everything which happens (including what others do) must comply with the examples from the books.

[Leamas]

i've read the first 100 or so pages.

it's a hoot!

i realise (through discussion with other people) that as it wears on, the serious and sadder aspects of the character of Don Q comes out. but for now, it must be one of the funniest things i have ever read in my life.

Cervantes must've had a lot of fun writing it - using Don to take the piss out of 'books of chivalry' and their weird ways. his dogmatic approach to everything leaves me in hysterics, as does his insistence that he is always right, and that everything which happens (including what others do) must comply with the examples from the books.

[Enforced Bliss]

I've tried reading it three or four times and never gotten further than 250 pages. I really enjoy it for the first little bit and then it drags.

You raised an interesting question about the status a book is afforded. Yes, I admit that Don Quixote is one of the books I've tried to read soley because of it's rep. It, like many other classics, is in the "may or may not get around to trying again but it looks good on a bookshelf anyway" pile.

Reading should be pleasure. I've come to the conclusion that classic or not, brilliant or not, if it bores me to tears I'm not going to fight with it. I like a challenging book but not if it is challenging the same way that listenning to a mediocre old man's droning on about "ought six"is challenging.

As to coming into it with expectations and being disappointed I know that it has happened to me. I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas expecting acerbic profundity and what I got instead was subtly camouflaged brilliance - I missed the point. I re-read it after a reliable friend told me I was a moron and I that I should. He was right.

May you never thirst

Bliss

[Moonlight]

I've never read Don Quixote, but I read the play Man of La Mancha and watched the movie for my theatre class. It's just like zveozdi said: nothing is what it seems. It's a perfect example of Post modernist ideas. In the story there are two levels of reality: Quixote's reality, and everyone else's. The main question is who are we to say which is correct?

It also focuses a lot on signs, signifiers, and the signified. signs are jumbled vocal utterances used to represent an object or idea(spoken words), signifiers are marks used to represent vocal utterances that represent objects or ideas(written words), and the signified is the object/idea. A main point of post modernism is that signs and signifiers have NOTHING to do with the signified "chair" and the way we say it has no correlation to the object it represents. We could call it fish and it would still be the same thing. Quixote calls the "inn" a "castle", and who are we to say it isn't? He calls Aldonsa, Dolcinella. What difference does that make to her existence. Her name is meaningless anyways.

I know it's confusing, It took me three weeks to sort it all out.

[mazarane]

Reading should be pleasure. I've come to the conclusion that classic or not, brilliant or not, if it bores me to tears I'm not going to fight with it. I like a challenging book but not if it is challenging the same way that listenning to a mediocre old man's droning on about "ought six"is challenging.
May you never thirst

Bliss
I agree wholeheartedly, and that's why I haven't picked it it again yet. But people in this thread have mentioned so many different things they hve got from it, that I'm going to at some point, maybe in the Christmas holidays.

[NBax]

I agree that much of Don Quixote does drag a little - I even noticed that in the edition I have the editor actually recommends skipping some parts in order to get the most out of it. I can vouch for the fact that it is well worth persevering with.
I would recommend reading "City of Glass", the first installment of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. This story is very much corcerned with Don Quixote, the use of words etc, and really helped me to crystallize some of the DQ's more challenging concepts.

[jibbly]

mazarane...

i got about half-way through it i don't remember how long ago...but like you and enforced bliss, i said "uncle" and moved on. i do want to finish it, but YEESH!

although, i'm bookless as of yesterday and you're inspiring me to pick it up. every couple months i look at it, sigh, and look away...its shameful really.

[*Shakermaker*]

I loved it. I mean, it's such a "big" book. you can find lots of different things there and it's funny and it has so many meanings and you can interpretate it in so many ways.. I like the spirit of it, the way it's so witty but on the other hand so sad at the same time. great characters, great story, great thoughts.

I can understand it's difficult to read. it's long and the story sometimes goes a bit slow, but I guess it's the same with every classic book. maybe it's a bit difficult because it's classic, not contemporary lieterature, you can't relate to it in every way.

but still it's great. at least for me.

[the enema]

It needs to be read. It needs to be loved. Sure it is a pain in the ass. Sure the language is dated. Sure it is complex. Good art should hold us in its grasp. Like life, art isn't easy; when life gets tough, do YOU put it away.

"Damn, Ma, I have to think and feel. Woe is me."

[oceanflower]

It needs to be read. It needs to be loved. Sure it is a pain in the ass. Sure the language is dated. Sure it is complex. Good art should hold us in its grasp. Like life, art isn't easy; when life gets tough, do YOU put it away.

"Damn, Ma, I have to think and feel. Woe is me."

That's the beauty of a book...it can be put away. :wink:

[the enema]

Life can too. Drugs, booze, sex, clothes, friends, art, book forums, they are all means to escape.

[skye]

So if you put all these things away, what is life then? I'm guessing you mean family and work or something like that or am I wrong?

[oceanflower]

Back to the topic: Don Quixote.

[rod]

First of all, a small, and I hope friendly correction to what zveozdi wrote: Cervantes is not latin American, he is Spanish (from Spain, not just Hispanic).

I read it, the whole thing and found it incredible, and extremely funny. I was lucky to be able read the original in old spanish. I wonder if your woes have to do with the translations that you are reading.

I must admit though, there were some stories within the main story that were really very boring. They go on for hundreds of pages, and they are but mere fillers. They sadly happen when one of the characters decides to tell a story to the other characters. No book is perfect.

[Rod]

I even noticed that in the edition I have the editor actually recommends skipping some parts in order to get the most out of it.

This is also my advice. There are parts (like I just mentioned, the stories within the story) that have little or no artistic value and need to be skipped, or at least skimmed.


Dear NBax, could you please write the names of the chapters that need to be skipped, and the edition you bought? I think this might help out our discouraged friends.

Don't give up, it's a great book in my opinion (unfortunately this advice comes from one that just gave up on James Joyce's Ulysses, but that's for another thread).

[the enema]

The stories within stories have value. Where would the fun be if everything was in a straight line?

(if you wanna talk about Joyce, there is a thread floating around here somewhere)

[Rod]

Dear Enema

By the way, I find your nickname hilarious.

Have you read the book?

I think I might have misled you with my comment. I agree with you that not everything has to be a straight line, there is no discussion there. My criticism of Cervantes is not for drifting away and not staying on track. I just find these stories extremely boring and not up to the standard of the Quijote. Had they been interesting I would have been the first to stand by them.

Of course I have a lot of respect for the purists that are loyal to the books and their authors. If you actually enjoyed those stories I have nothing to object, quite in the contrary.

[follow_me_around]

I just bought the DVD and for those who ever saw the movie, can you tell me are there many differences between the book and the movie version?


Cheers

[Sisyphis]

This is a brilliant novel (like Ulysses, incidentally). I read a lecture by Nabakov recently where he said that great texts are designed to be reread - as opposed to read. My advice to anyone who is having some difficulty with a piece of literature like this one is to slow down, take your time, don't try to race through it as though it is a movie - literature requires a different mode of concentration to the style we are encouraged to use in everyday consumer/entertainment/consumption...
This book represents one of the first times (at least popularized) literature started looking at itself critically - like an adult thinking back on some strange misdeed he performed as a child, at its own naivety. It is a great moment in human thought. The Knight of the Sad Countenance is the Epic Hero of Homer staring into Alice's looking glass. Don't miss this moment!

[NBax]

It's Don Quixote's 400th birthday this year!

[Zeke Steiner]

Can anyone recommend a good translation? Thanks

[NBax]

I've not read it yet, but the new Edith Grossman translation has been highly praised.

[sen]

Reading this thread, I was surpised to see the general feeling that Don Quixote was dull or boring. Although, admittedly, it does have some slow parts, I found that overall, it was one of the better books I have read. Skipping through some of the dull parts (the Adventures in the Sierra Morena come to mind) would almost certainly improve the experience.

[fiveyearwinter]

I just remember the famous quote made in my world lit class when we read this:

"That man was one sheep short of a flock!"
"That's because he killed it!"


Laughter ensued.

[Andanzas]

I am from Spain. And my experience with this book is not that different from that of many of you. I first read it in high school because I had to, and I didn’t like it that much. I read it again some years later, on my own, and I just loved it! When I read it for the second time I had read different books from that period. I’d read chivalry novels (like Amadis of Gaul), pastoral novels (like Diana), picaresque novels (like Lazarillo de Tormes, which, by the way, is amazing, and probably more accessible than Don Quixote for a modern reader)… That was indeed a great help, because I could notice a lot of things that otherwise I would have seen only because of the footnotes. And believe me, noticing something for yourself has nothing to do with reading it in the footnotes: it’s like watching a wonderful beach on TV and actually being there. So, when a Spaniard tells me that he has problems reading Don Quixote and asks me for advice, I always answer the same: “Don’t start reading Don Quixote in its first chapter; start reading it in the first chapter of Amadis.” Well, I don’t expect this advice to be very popular :D , but I honestly think that’s the way to go.

Since I don’t think you are that interested in the classic literature of my country, I have one more realistic advice. If you are not enjoying Don Quixote and feel like throwing it at the garbage, you might want to give it a chance to its Second Part. The First Part it’s like a road movie: Don Quixote starts wandering in search of adventures; the structure is very loose. The Second Part (published ten years later) is completely different; the First Part is good, but if Don Quixote is a total masterpiece it’s because this Second Part. For example, Don Quixote is now famous because the First Part was a hit. Most of the characters of this Second Part have read the first one and know that Don Quixote is crazy, and they try to take advantage of that. There are games between reality and fiction that are unbelievable for a book of that period.

And it’s very funny. While I was in college, I helped some foreign students reading this book. They commented me that sometimes they weren’t sure if they got the point. “Well, that’s easy to know”, I said. “If you are laughing, it’s because you got it.”

[Cosmopol]

I'll skip all the necessary introduction which would bore all to tears, anyway and go straight to the point.
I believe Don Quixote is the best novel ever written.
Outdated? Perhaps that is open to discussion. Boring? Well now, isn't that also a matter of taste? Not everyone likes fast paced novels (should I amend, books made for movies?) I can think of at least four or five classics in any language which put me to sleep, including Ulysses, Les Miserables, to name only a couple.
But I believe Don Quixote to be a vital, important book, even if the language of XVII century Spain might put us to sleep.
I'll leave paraphrasing (or grossly misquoting) a small piece in the current Poets and Writers magazine celebrating the 400th anniversary of Don Quijote: "I am always in the middle of reading Don Quixote."

[GRSuarez]

And my experience with this book is not that different from that of many of you. I first read it in high school because I had to, and I didn’t like it that much.

This is my first post and it seems fitting that I do it on the book that I remember the most. Like almost all of you I had to read this book on High School and I not only hated it but I grew to loath the book, with a burning passion. 2 years of my high school life were dedicated to it, because the teacher at that time was making her thesis on it. How much I cried over the homework project etc that I had to do with this book I can't say. I have never been able to give this book a second chance, however I recognized that in the end it did good, because I was able to learn stuff about literature, analysis and other stuff that otherwise it would have taken me a whole lot to learn. Perhaps some day I will be able to give this book a chance again and read it.

[~*~Inwë Mithrandír~*~]

Since I'm studying Spanish literature, I had to read Don Quixote (the spanish version) for my literature classes. I thought it was ok, although it takes a lot of persistance to hang in till the end. But it's normal since it was written sooooo many years ago. Our interests and backgrounds have changed a lot. You really have to read the book from the contemporary point of view to fully understand and appreciate it. And that's not always as easy as it seems...

[mazarane]

But it's normal since it was written sooooo many years ago. Our interests and backgrounds have changed a lot. You really have to read the book from the contemporary point of view to fully understand and appreciate it. And that's not always as easy as it seems...

That doesn't seem that easy! What did you do to try and achieve that?

[~*~Inwë Mithrandír~*~]

That doesn't seem that easy! What did you do to try and achieve that?

Well, before reading Don Quixote, I already read some other works by Cervantes. I spent a year in Madrid studying at university there (thanks to an exchange programme), and thanks to the literature classes I took there, I was quite familiar with Cervantes :) And before we had to start reading Don Quixote at my university here in Belgium, the lecturer gave us a detailed historical background on Cervantes and the period he lived in. I always kept my notes very close while reading the book, and they turned out to be a big help! :good:

[vedrimir]

I believe Don Quixote is the best novel ever written.


Amen. No offense to anybody, i fully respect your attitude and i think noone should pretend to like the book if its boring the hell out of him/her, but i think some things need to happen in our lives as both readers and human beings before we fully develop sensibility for DQ and its humoruous vision of world. In my eyes, this is the best book ever written, alongside with best of Shakespeare and some other writers...

You are not supposed to enjoy it all the way, some stories dont work well, but if youd collect a killer compilation of best sotries youd simply get the very best book.

Furthermore, i find it odd you think that if the book was written 400 years ago its no wonder its "boring", or "uniteresting", or not written with craft, etc. I however believe literature is "timeless", relatively speaking, and DQ is actually the book so contemporary in its mood, reality/fiction topic choice and "postmodern" sensibility, that it actually seems it was written for people of our times, not that much for people of ciglo de oro...


“Well, that’s easy to know”, I said. “If you are laughing, it’s because you got it.”

This is the essential point. If you dont get the humour, rather sad and deeply human humour of this book, you are reading in vain. And its true, second part seems to have much more "insight" into deepest secrets of human existance, so, maybe you should just get introduced with the first part and then skip right up to the second part of the book.

So, i like your honesty and fully respect it; i think it is absurd to pretend we enjoy something which is boring and dull and all that, but at the same time, i think DQ doesnt deserve such negative and imo somewhat superficial evaluation. Its a masterpiece, humble but essential. I think few artists were able to speak so honestly about our existential misery and (at the same time!) find such elevating beauty in all our stumbling. Maybe you cant sense it, maybe you are even lucky because of that - i for one had to go through so many dissapointments before i could be fully devastated by DQ's fantasy/reality interplay - but i cant help the feeling you are losing something:) To me, beauty of DQ is in its simplicity, its nothnig like Ulysses that requires too much of even most patient readers - DQ speaks straight from the source, and it is both poisonous (or as my good old frined Britney Spears would say: toxic:)) and healing.

So, its not about liking it or not, or having fun or not, but about getting it or not.

[~*~Inwë Mithrandír~*~]

That's true. I've caught myself laughing lots of times while reading the book. It was originally written as a parody on all of those - I don't know the English name for it, but in Spanish it's called "novelas de caballería". So it was meant to be funny, and I dare say that being able to laugh whith certain passages in the book, is a sign that you understand what you're reading :)

[gijmaj]

I read it long ago. and as i remeberd, it didnt appeared as good as i thought

[bluevictim]

I really liked DQ. I thought it was quite funny, and I don't remember being bored. Maybe it's because I have a simple mind. I also enjoyed the self reference in the second part. I think it's even more funny if the reader has some familiarity with some of the old romances. It's hard to read Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur or Spenser's The Faerie Queene anymore without thinking of Don Quixote.

[Heather H]

This is an old thread, but since I recently read "Don Quixote", I thought I would add my thoughts.

I had no problem getting through this book. I found it to be hilariously funny in places, and surprisingly complex, especially towards the end. Since I have read many of the medieval romances, I enjoyed this, since it is (at least in part) a great parody of the genre. It also seems to bring that genre to a close. By the time that "Don Quixote" was written, many tales of chivalry had been circulating around for a long time, and the genre had grown rather stale. It seems fitting to have such a masterful parody of the genre to provide closure and to point the way forward to other forms of literature.

I love how Cervantes steps in and out of the story in Part 2 to provide references to the society at large and to the fake Part 2 by another author. There definitely is a stylistic change in Part 2; it is more complex and has many layers of meaning. To those who find it repetitive and get bored with Part 1, you might want to give Part 2 a chance.

Heather

[Cthulhu]

I'm currently reading it, and what i will do is stop at every 300 pages or when i get to 500, and then read a different book, sand then cxome back to it

[Winifred]

I was admiring the nice copy of Don Quixote , which is on sale for $19.95 at Barnes and Noble - liberally illustrated by Gustave Dore, translated by John M Cohen. Anybody know if this is a good translation?
Here's the edition:
http://www.amazon.com/Don-Quixote-Collectors-Library-Editions/dp/1904919766/ref=sr_1_33?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219016908&sr=1-33

I resisted buying, since I'm on a purchase moratorium until I finish all the books I already have. Compensate by being a member of 4 different libraries!

[zenia]

Winifred, I think the Norton Critical edition is a cool choice because it has context info, critical essays, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Don-Quijote-Norton-Critical-Editions/dp/039397281X

Just for another option. :)

[Winifred]

Thank you!

[Cthulhu]

The second book has the most passive aggressive title I've ever read