I just finished Don Quixote. Whew!

[Kablooie]

I listened to an audiobook version on my commute. It took a couple of months. 35 hours overall.

I ended up liking the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza a lot. I particularly liked their relationship. Quixote would become furious with Sancho and threaten to kill him but then Sancho would explain his point of view and Quixote would immediately turn around and proclaim him his best and most treasured friend in the world. Sancho also often spouted long strings of irrelevant proverbs and drove Quixote up the wall.

It was originally released as two books separated by several years. In the second book the first book had been released in the character's world as well as the real world and the characters knew about it which was fun.

The first book had a strange moment where Sancho's donkey was stolen and then described him riding off on his donkey. When I read this I thought it odd that this wasn't fixed after all these years but then in the second book Cervantes discusses the first volume and mentions the reappearing donkey. He sheepishly blames it on a printer's error.

I also thought it was strange that the first book was interrupted by a totally different story about a man who wanted his friend, Lothario, to woo his wife to determine her faithfulness. Cervantes discusses this in the second book too as one of the most popular criticisms. By the time Cervantes was writing the end of his second book a counterfeit second volume had been released so the characters learn about it and rail upon the writer as a scurrilous cad.

All this is fun and surprising. I don't know of another story where the characters in the book know that they are characters in a book. This is also confused by the story's conceit that Cervantes is only translating the "true history" of Don Quixote from a Muslim writer's work. Strange but it might have had something to do with the fact that all books were under censorship control by the church. A Muslim writer might be able to say things that could get a Christian in trouble though the book is obviously kowtowing to the church all the way through.

I was surprised that Aldonza (Dulcinea) never appears in the book at all. She's only described by Sancho once. In the musical Man of La Mancha she is a major character.

The version I read (heard) was the Smollett translation from 1761. I would have rather heard the modern translation that came out a few years ago by Edith Grossman but reviews said the audio version was read by a Spanish actor whose accent was so thick he was hard to understand. Comparing a few moments of the two versions I found some clever wordplay I enjoyed in the Smollett version that was missing in the modern one. The passages I compared seemed more fun in the 1761 version than the 2003 one.

The book was entertaining overall but also had long, wandering tedious sections and at times the incidents became repetitive. I think a judiciously edited abridged version would have been more enjoyable overall.

[russspeakeasy]

1. I fought my way through it. In the end I was glad I did.

During parts of it, I thought I was losing my comprehension skills and my memory. I recommended it to my son. He read the first 50 pages and told me that I should never be a book critic.

[bemildred]

2. You have to remember, he more or less invented the form.

And it is very much a satire.

And he really wanted to make a buck, so he tried a bit of everything.

And good for you, it is a bit of a slog at times.

[Kablooie]

3. I still don't understand why it's still rated the world's best book.

I understand it's historical importance and Cervantes' impressive command of words to create memorable characters who have lived for centuries but I wouldn't put it anywhere near the top of the greatest novels of all time as some surveys recently did.

It's like saying the Model-T was the greatest car ever made.

[bemildred]

4. I agree.

Although, being a compulsive reader, I'm not inclined to keep score in that way. It's worth reading just so you recognize it's influence when you find it in other works, and in its own right, but as with "War and Peace" and various other "great" novels, there is a good deal of exaggeration of its merits, at least for modern sensibilities.

[getting old in mke]

5. Yeah.

I guess there really is a big difference between and important book and a good book, and in this case a difference between a seminal book and a great one.

A colleague of mine once said, "the amazing thing about a dancing elephant isn't that it dances well, just that it dances at all."

[Curmudgeoness]

6. Good for you. I'm impressed.

I tried reading it several years ago, but put it back on my "to be read" list so I can try it again.

Do you think that you would have continued to the end if you were reading it instead of listening to it? Was the listening easier?

[Kablooie]

7. Listening was much easier. It takes much less effort to listen while driving.

And if you buzz out during a particular section you can always look at the scenery and don't have to go back and read it again.

[Curmudgeoness]

8. LOL, you have me pegged.

I do read just like that, and re-read, re-read, re-read! I had a feeling that you may have hit on a good way to get through the book.