Book Review: Is Don Quixote a Great Novel?

Not since Moby Dick have I had such a difficult time forcing myself to finish reading a so-called classic. If you Google “great novels” or “classic novels” or something similar, you will almost always find the novel Don Quixote listed, and surprisingly, at least to me, it is considered the number one book on several lists of literary classics. Because of this, I was truly excited to come across a decent copy at a resale shop not long ago and eagerly began reading it.

My copy ran a little over 940 pages and I took a solid two months to finish it. I am generally a pretty fast reader and this was a little slow for me. Supposedly, the book is a hilarious parody, full of laughs, yet also containing deep philosophical insights, etc. I did find a few funny scenes, but OMG, it’s 900+ pages! Needless to say, I would not recommend the book to anyone looking for laughs. And as for the philosophy, well, if you like reading long conversations between two characters while they sit around killing time waiting for the next adventure to begin, this one’s for you.

At the risk of spoiling it for any future readers, the plot is fairly simple. An old man reads so many books on chivalry, he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant roaming the countryside in search of adventure. He recruits a dim-witted neighbor to be his squire and they take off searching for wrongs to right and damsels to save. As a true knight, Don Quixote does all in service of his true love, Dulcinea, who incidentally never appears in the book, despite the near constant references to her. (In reality, she is a woman from the town with whom he had once been in love, although she never knew it.)

The book is actually two volumes written ten years apart. In Part 1, our hero and his squire battle a series of imaginary foes, usually losing, and encounter numerous characters in their travels. (These people frequently tell elaborate tales and stories that are often more entertaining than the actual events surrounding our knight.) The most well-known “adventure” finds Don Quixote tilting at windmills which he mistakes for giants. Surprisingly, this “famous” adventure takes up a mere two pages of the book. He sees enemies everywhere he turns and when he is not fighting, he is instructing his squire on the tenets of chivalry. Their discussions are LONG and often snooze-worthy. Concerned for his safety, his friends eventually capture him and drag him back home.

Part 2 is less tedious, although more painful in other respects. Apparently, all of the characters in the novel have now read the first part and Don Quixote is now famous, but not for the reasons he desires. He now encounters people who view him as somewhat of a celebrity. They are aware that he is insane and either play along, laughing behind his back, or in the case of the Duke and Duchess, go to great lengths to exploit his mental illness staging elaborate pranks on the clueless knight for their own entertainment. Sancho is also a victim of their jokes and we suffer along with him at the hands of these cruel tormentors.

Another aspect that I found annoying was the constant awareness that they were all just players in some drama designed to written down in some book. After the publication of Part 1, another author actually penned a sequel. Cervantes did not appreciate the effort and spends considerable time in Part 2 referring to this work. Don Quixote is offended that this new book portrays him poorly describing adventures he has not had. He longs for his original narrator to record his further tales, ignoring the fact that this original author has portrayed him as insane throughout Part 1. Perhaps this is all supposed to be clever, but I just found it irritating.

Eventually, he is once again deceived by his friends who stage a challenge by another knight who defeats the old man and commands him to return to his town and give up being a knight-errant for a full year. He returns home, regains his senses, and becomes ill. He and Sancho dream of going out on one last adventure and then, he dies.

To answer my own question, I did not think this was a great book. In my defense, I will admit it is an important book. Many consider this to be the first modern novel and honestly, I loved the main characters. Don Quixote himself is a great tragic figure. As the noble knight who longs to be the hero and believes with his whole heart in the code of chivalry, he is wonderful. Sancho, his loyal companion is also a great character. Despite his awareness that his boss is not fully competent, he does an admirable job of supporting him and patching him up after their battles. There are a few occasions when his actions appear questionable, but for the most part, he is a true and honest friend.

Overall, I would say the book is good, but not great. Part 1 seems very repetitious to me. Every adventure is basically the same. Don Quixote sees something, mistakes it for something else, fights it, rides away to tend his wounds and goes out the next day to repeat the process. Part 2 is sad and pathetic. The old man rides around trying to accomplish good while others give him made up tasks and laugh at him behind his back. I love his optimism and his desire to achieve great things and make the world a better place, and he makes for a great literary character, but I can’t honestly say the book is great. Some great characters and some great tales, but they are often lost in the midst of lengthy narrative passages in this too-long novel. Or maybe I’m just not smart enough to recognize the brilliance of this classic.