Don Quixote – A Book Review

Today I completed a task first undertaken a couple years ago, to read the classic, The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de La Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, a work better known by its shortened title Don Quixote by Cervantes. I don’t read a lot of fiction, certainly not many 982 page tomes. Since 1990, most of my reading has been in the study of primary sources of science and history, from the ancient philosophy of Plato and Aristotle to the more recent early modern works of Galileo and Newton, among many others. But I read Moby Dick by Herman Melville a while back, quite ponderous itself at 665 pages. And, at the behest of a friend, I recently commenced the 776 pages of The Brothers Karamozov by Fyoder Dostoevsky. But Don Quixote remained unfinished so I undertook to finish it this summer.

Admittedly, I did not at first enjoy Cervantes. After reading so many serious primary sources, I initially found this fictional story pointless. It is mostly a meandering collection of vignettes, with very little connecting storyline and no apparent direction or purpose. Yet this is considered one of the great masterworks of Spanish literature. But upon further reading and pondering, I’ve concluded that this story is widely misunderstood, especially among English readers, and particularly Americans. For one thing, the Spanish author considered it a comedy, yet its history in English translation has treated it as a serious story. The translator of the 2000 Penguin Classics edition attempts to restore the comedic element, which helped me to appreciate that it is not to be taken seriously.

I was inspired to read this upon attending the 2017 funeral of my friend George Qua. Though George was a successful Cleveland area businessman, he dedicated his life to helping others, including the poor, often at personal sacrifice. I became George’s friend (both as a boy in 1972 as an adult in 2006) through the Boy Scouts of America. His daughter Connie eulogized George that day by comparing her dad to the character of Don Quixote as depicted in the 1965 musical play Man from La Mancha, the 1972 movie version of which starred Peter O’Toole in the title role. Connie’s eulogy compared her dad and his life’s mission to Don Quixote’s song The Impossible Dream from the aforementioned musical. If you listen to the words, consider that they are most apropos. Though I had not seen the movie, I undertook to read the book in honor of my departed friend.

At first, I was puzzled at this comparison. Don Quixote is considered by other characters to be a madman, suffering from delusions and hallucinations. He fancies himself a Knight Errant, dedicated to the ideals of chivalry, the knight’s code of the medieval period which ended before the writing of the story in 1605. Don Quixote sets out on a series of misadventures with his squire Sancho Panza, a simple peasant from his village who gets caught up in the chivalric delusion. Many people are familiar with the famous vignette where Don Quixote is “tilting at windmills,” where his muddled mind confuses the blades of actual windmills with imaginary giants whom he bravely attacks. But this episode occurs early on in the lengthy saga. I suspect that most readers give up reading at this point, only to get the context of the literary reference, and never read on to the substance of the story.

Pondering the narrative for the subtext, I decided that Don Quixote, under whatever false impressions of reality he might labor, is a wise, intelligent and noble man who always does the right thing, in spite of whatever harm or personal loss he might befall. A “Knight Errant” in the poetical, literary sense is an idealized figure, very much what we today would regard as a “super hero.” Riding upon his trusty horse, wearing his shining armor, the Knight Errant is honor bound to defend the weak and helpless, asking nothing in return, confronting powerful foes and slaying them or dying in the effort. The Knight Errant is the embodiment of Christian virtue, spotlessly chaste, foresaking all temptation and dedicating himself idealistically to the love of an unseen noblewoman, which, in Don Quixote’s case, is the beautiful Dulcinea de Tobosco.

In this way, I came to appreciate that Don Quixote is a metaphor of lost chivalry. The title character is a wise, intelligent and honorable man living in foolish, stupid and dishonorable times, the post-medieval, early modern era of the 17th century. He is merely perceived as a madman according to the wicked standards of his time, simply for claiming to represent higher ideals, for upholding honor and virtue and decency, and for placing principles above base desires. With this understanding, I came to appreciate that the character of Don Quixote is a perfect comparison to my lost friend George (now interred with the other brave knights at Arlington) who lived under his own type of chivalric code during his lifetime in the foolish, stupid and dishonorable times of the 20th and 21st centuries. And like Don Quixote, George himself was often misunderstood by his contemporaries.

I’ve found that any long story, however unenjoyable at the outset, becomes interesting if you just stick with it and make the investment. After a rocky start, this story finally hooked me in several hundred pages along when Don Quixote and Sancho Panza encounter some interesting characters at an inn. These characters told many forlorn love stories, including “The Tale of the Inappropriate Curiousity,” which dealt quite frankly with the destructive influence of temptation. These vignettes had unlikely but happy endings, which displayed the literary virtuosity of the author and helped me understand why Don Quixote enjoys its exalted place in classic literature.

There are two parts to Don Quixote, which is partly why it’s so long, rather two complete books that could each stand alone in separate volumes. The second part surpisingly “breaks the fourth wall,” a device used in TV and movies where the characters acknowledge the viewer on the other side of the screen. Having been written over 400 years ago, Don Quixote may be the first story to ever employ this device. In the second part, repeated reference is made to the first part, which, we are told, had become a popular book in Spain. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza encounter many fans of his written adventures, most notably the Duke and Duchess, who tease them with many deceptions intended to feed into the delusion. But Don Quixote remains stalwartly committed to his principles, and we see him truly as a noble and sagacious personage. It becomes clear to me that Don Quixote is actually the sane one, but living in a mad world.

I was actually saddened at the ending ***SPOILER ALERT*** (you have been warned). Don Quixote’s end approaches and on his deathbed, he comes to his senses and recants his madness of chivalry, begging forgiveness of his friends. I was disappointed in this ending. I was hoping that he and his perceptions of reality would be vindicated, along with my own above-mentioned literary analysis. But one could still maintain that the death of this Knight Errant represents the belated but final passing of chivalry, and that Don Quixote’s recantation only shows his idealistic perceived reality weakening and succumbing to the hard, cold actualities of the real world as he approaches his own demise.

For whatever reason, I was actually moved to tears by this ending. Perhaps I was impacted by the loss of the title character, a reaction to Cervantes’ evocative composition. Perhaps I was sad to have finally reached the end of a reading project begun years ago. Or perhaps I belately shed a few more tears for my late friend, in whose memory I undertook this reading, who passed nearly four years ago.