Review: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Don Quixote of La Mancha has his head turned by reading far too many books on knight errantry, until he believes that he himself is a gallant knight. Together with his long-suffering horse Rocinante and his loyal but gullible squire Sancho Panza on his beloved donkey, he sets out on many ill-fated adventures.

Deluded into making everything around him fit into his ideas of the world of romantic chivalry he constructed from his readings, Don Quixote blunders into a series of hilariously mistaken escapades — taking a set of windmills as giants to be battled and vanquished, a travelling party on the road for a group of villains and an abducted princess in need of rescuing, and many such similar encounters which lead him and those involved (particularly the unfortunate Sancho)  into trouble — and often injury.

Meanwhile, Don Quixote’s housekeeper and niece, along with his friends the priest and the barber, attempt several times to corral Quixote and bring him back to sanity to little avail, only adding to the general chaos.

Originally written in Spanish, Don Quixote is often cited as the first modern novel, and has been said to have a huge impact on Western literature.

A satire intended to mock the widely denigrated books of chivalry on which it was based, I think Don Quixote is still strangely relevant in today’s world, when considering the cultural discourse surrounding all the ‘trashy’ media being consumed and its effect on our minds (at the risk of getting too philosophical in the middle of a book review). However, if you are not in the mood for a social commentary, this book can also be read as pure comedy.

The main two terms I would use to describe Don Quixote are hilarious and adventure-filled. Especially at the start, there isn’t time for a boring moment; no sooner have Don Quixote and poor Sancho blundered their way out of one misadventure than they stumble into another. One of my favourite incidents is when Don Quixote confronts the lion — which goes quite contrary to his plan, but nevertheless leads him to change his title from “Knight of the Sorry Face” to “Knight of the Lions”.

The hilarious escapades and dialogue between Quixote and Sancho is entertaining and sometimes heartwarming. I do have a soft spot for poor, gullible Sancho, and even for his ridiculous and incorrigible master, but particularly for the badly-treated but still loyal Rocinante, who should be out in a field enjoying his retirement and a nice bag of oats, rather than carrying his master over many miles and bearing plenty of undeserved blows and misfortunes.

Weirdly enough, I also found myself sympathising with Don Quixote in some respects; after all, who doesn’t wish that they could go out adventuring, wearing armour and mounted on a horse, and fight all the evil and bad things of the world with a lance and a sword? If only things were as simple, and as black and white, as Don Quixote chooses to see them.

But back to the novel’s features; the structure doesn’t really have an overarching storyline, more a series of small adventures and wanderings with the ill-fated main characters. There are plenty of tales within a tale as well, comprised of the backstories of side-characters they meet on the road, or of stories read by the main characters, which provide a diversion and break up what would otherwise be the monotony of hearing over and over again of Sancho and Quixote’s somewhat ridiculous adventures (as proven, unfortunately, by the lack of such diversions in part two of the book). Within these stories, the author sometimes draws on his own experiences in wars and captivity and other aspects, which can form an interesting aside (though they sometimes have very little to do with Don Quixote or his mission).

One thing that did quite surprise me about this book, as I hadn’t come across it in any classics before in quite such a blatant manner, was the somewhat questionable content and language; the book draws on several aspects in its humour, including crude language, sexual references, a substantial amount of violence, and references to bodily functions. This is the first classic that I’ve read that has included words I’ve heard in everyday crude Aussie slang, and it was a little jarring.

There are some other potentially more problematic elements as well, including derogatory language and a general disdain and disgust towards certain races and ethnicities (especially non-europeans) and the lower classes.

The book also contains quite a few observations on maidenhood and virtue and modesty, and in general woman needing defence and protection, complete with a lot of swooning amongst high-born ladies. In general, it displays women as either weak, delicate and unimaginably beautiful (of the higher classes) or ugly and prostitutes; the former are always protecting their virtue with everything in them, being as submissive as lambs to the men in their life, or falling madly in love, and the latter are mostly scheming and doing distasteful things.

However, all that said, it is my impression that the majority of these elements spring from the satire and exaggeration of the book, and also from the viewpoints of the time (though it is chiefly intensified by the former); therefore, to me it did not seem as problematic as in other works, especially as the author seems to be poking fun at every tradition and viewpoint which he is portraying.

Importantly, this is the kind of book that one has to read with the knowledge that it is a satire, and an idea of what it is intending to do, and in that case will likely enjoy it (if they appreciate the genre), but otherwise will think it highly ridiculous, improbable, and even meandering, as well as potentially problematic.

If you are not a fan of the genre or the type of book to which this belongs, it is highly likely that you will not enjoy reading it; best to find a different classics that suits your taste more, as this one is certainly not for everybody. In fact, the majority of people that I talked to who had attempted to read it had given up before finishing — and, quite frankly, I can understand why.

Personally, I did have a good time with this book, but there were still some things I didn’t find exactly to my taste.

Perhaps my biggest problem with the novel was the length; I am no stranger to long books, and I am not intimidated by them, but I do think that they need to have a reason to be that long, and I don’t think that in this case there was; there were many places where the narrative simply got tiring.

I much prefer the first part to the second, which seems to descend into much more disjointed narratives and doesn’t bring some storylines to conclusion or tie them together as well as in the first. It also starts to get quite repetitive, with the structure of the adventures repeating themselves more or less identically, only with a different character or characters for Don Quixote and Sancho to run into.

That said, the second part had a few different elements to the first, and thus was important for the overall message of the book; for instance, it had more of a darker undertone, especially with the characters of the Duke and Duchess, reminding the reader that the work as a whole is rather sad, and inviting them to look beyond the surface of the stories to find a different meaning about how the world treats those who are different.

One last thing that I didn’t enjoy so much about the book was that I found the ending to be a little unfitting and unsatisfying for the story as a whole; not enough to ruin my enjoyment of the whole book, but it did feel rushed and disappointing.

Overall, what with all the satirical elements, vomit, cursing, and amorous tales, this isn’t quite as decorous or tactful a classic as the many others I’ve read, but it was good fun nonetheless. That said, it could probably be improved by being about half as long as it was.

In short (though the book itself was anything but), this novel is a good bit of parody and humour (nevertheless with a deeper significance underlying it all) that has stood the test of many years, and as such, at least in my opinion, has well deserved its reputation as a classic.