Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Don Quixote
Book Review: A CLASSIC IS FOREVER A CLASSIC
Summary: 5 Stars
DON QUIXOTE is 400 years old this year and Edith Grossman has given us a splendid NEW translation of this best of the best so treat yourself and read or reread this book. With disturbing news coming at us every minute,let go and ride along with Don Quixote and Pancho as they save the world from evil. It is easy to read,hilarious,and written for 2010 as much as for 1610.Book Review: A Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Don Quixote, despite being 400 years old, reads as if it had been written today. Societal insight and wisdom are timeless and this books delivers both in heaping doses. So central to modern life are this book's themes, that phrases like "tilting at windmills" and "Quixotic" hold a place in our consciousness even today.
That said, I believe this book can be appreciated as excerpts for those who might otherwise be intimidated by its length. The story is told as a series of tales, each of which is a minature version of the whole, so that a reading of three or four episodes would give the reader a reasonable feel for a work that is otherwise a very serious investment of time and effort.
A classic that holds all of its relevance today. Highly recommended.
Book Review: A Treasure
Summary: 5 Stars
This book blew me away and I have to believe part of the reason (well of course it's great source material) is the wonderful translation by Edith Grossman. This book pretty much has it all- satire, humor, philosophy, drama, discussions of things that are still spot on and relevant today. Obviously at over 900 pages it's a workout and parts of it can be a tad, just a tad, repititive, but really a worthwhile endeavor to tackle.Book Review: A wonderful surprise
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up a copy of this translation because I felt that never having read Don Quixote was a deficiency in my education. I didn't expect much. The writing flows and the story is fun; if I didn't know better, I would have assumed that the book was originally written in English. As I read, I was ticking off in my mind all the great novels that are in some way derived from Don Quixote. That the characters in book two had read book one made the story even more amusing. Highly recommended.Book Review: A work of five star importance--a novel of three star reading quality at its full length
Summary: 3 Stars
Let's acknowledge right off that on a scale of importance and innovation, Cervantes' Don Quixote is just off the charts. Five stars wouldn't even come close! It is regularly called the most important novel ever written--a path-breaking art form and a work of subtlety and genius. Okay: fair enough. But how does it read? Humorously, slowly, repetitively, and often rewardingly. The novel goes on and on: Quixote and Sancho Panza meet an endless string of characters and they often feel redundant. I found myself loving the humor of Quixote's fantasies and Sancho's reality checking. The book can, after hundreds of years and millions of readers, still make you burst out laughing. But then the same types of misunderstandings happen, again and again and again and again. Hundreds of pages flow by as our goofy knight tramps through Spanish villages. For long stretches not much changes or develops.
I know it's heresy to say this, but you could read a random sample of chapters (perhaps some of the most famous scenes, such as the giants/windmills) and get the gist of the book. You'd want to be sure to read about the Princess Dulcinea and other wonderful components, but would you have to endure every single scene? Why would you? If anything, reading the book cover to cover steals from its wonderful humor and insight. It might therefore be highly worthwhile to read the popular abridged version: Don Quixote: Abridged Edition. I have also heard good things about the short version in The Portable Cervantes (Penguin Classics). I think I would invest in the latter the next time I read this great work.
An abridged--gasp--version of a classic? Before you chaff at such sinful and impure thoughts know this: very few modern readers read Don Quixote in its entirety. And many modern scholars consider the first half (500 pages) to be a far lesser work than the second (also 500 pages). It's just too long and boring and repetitive. An abrdiged version can rescue our errant knight from his excessive flights of fancy and bring him back into the world of reading for pleasure. This book is just too good to be fed solely to college students: the shorter version can bring its greatness to us all.