Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $8.88 You Save: $8.11 (48%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.08 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Don Quixote
Book Review: An Adventure in Fiction
Summary: 4 Stars
As you stare at the 940-page mass that is Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote, you might wonder if reading this Literary Classic (TM) warrants several weeks of your readerly devotion. The answer depends upon what you value in a text. If you require a story with a set group of characters who move in a straight line from plot points A to Z, then you should reconsider spending your hours on the famous "knight errant," for as he wanders into various adventures, so does Cervantes, who rarely allows a chapter to pass without another side story featuring pairs of starcrossed lovers composed unfailingly of beautiful ladies and brave but unfortunate gentlemen. However repetitive, this storytelling device highlights the surprisingly modern metafictive elements of the novel. Although Don Quixote the man lacks the capacity for honest self-examination, the text achieves another superior level of existence via its self-awareness. Beginning with an Aristotelian book burning and proceeding to warp the distinction between fiction and reality, Don Quixote the novel embodies those characteristics that we have so simply reduced to the word 'quixotic'. It is this brilliant trick, over which I suspect Cervantes is still laughing somewhere in the ethereal land of deceased authors, that delighted my twenty-first century palate.Book Review: Another classic out of the way
Summary: 4 Stars
Not every reader can appreciate every great classic of world literature. Although I enjoyed the work, I couldn't take more than twenty or thirty pages a day. I needed other kinds of reading in between. The translation is clear and readable except for one annoying thing. In Spanish, the word "como" may mean "like" or "as." It's the translator's job to choose the English meaning appropriate for the context, and Grossman consistently chose "like" when she should have chosen "as." For those who still care about the distinction, this quirk grates.Book Review: Brief Opinion
Summary: 4 Stars
Is it just me or does Don Quixote set up his peerless Dulcinea of El Toboso to be an object of ridicule by making her out to the most beautiful woman he's ever seen? It's clear he's had hallucinations before. Anyways, i think that by elevating her to such a lofty position she is bound to attract some negative criticisms. Just my two cents.Book Review: Buy This Translation and You Won't Have to Lie about Having Read Don Quixote
Summary: 5 Stars
Finally a translation that is readable and yet not drenched in modern idiom and tastes. This translation feels like a story written by a Renaisance man who was a soldier, captive of a Barbary pirate, unrelenting literary critic and artist. Anyone interested enough to compare reviews and consider a book of this heft and price knows the basic story and has seen or heard "The Man of La Mancha." But, now is the time to read the original. Or to read it fresh again.
I wondered for years whether I could really tackle this book but its genius, wit and charm carried me through all the almost numbing series of escapades, parodies, and misadventures to Don Quixote's ultimate repudiation of the sentimental (in the sense used by Laurence Sterne) morals of bad popular fiction through which Don Quixote caused so much havoc. Yet, in all the satire and parody the humanity of the hero and his squire shine through. If you can love fictious characters then, what memorable creatures to meet and know!
For those of us not fluent in Spanish Edith Grossman's translation into accessible English with just the right dose of complex sentance structure has the most authentic feel. Bilingual colleagues have agreed with that assessment. Ms. Grossman's scholarship, with unobtrusive footnotes, adds dimension to the importance of the book, author, the times and Cervantes delightfully vicious assaults on the literature of the day, his rivals, and especially on a hoax second volume written by another unknown author.
This is not a book to have missed. Here is the chance to fill the void. I highly recommend it.
Book Review: Can you really review Don Quijote?
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are going to read this book, and you are not familiar with Spanish literature, do yourself the favor of carefully reading the introduction, or you will be missing out out on a great portion of the humor, which, frankly, is beyond legendary.
I still don't like the translation of "caballero andante" as "errant knight". It sounds too proper. "Wandering horseman" is much funnier, and seems to capture the silliness of the title a little bit better.