111 Book Review: Don Quixote
Don Quixote (El ingenioso hidalgo y caballero don Quijote de la Mancha)
by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Everyone from Wishbone to The Expanse seems to only remember the windmills in Don Quixote. I get it, it’s an iconic image. It’s the perfect distillation of the story for playing picto-phone across the ages.
But the real magic of this book is how the stories layer, with every new traveler adding another inception-like level of narrative to the tapestry until at the end of Part 1, you’re lost in an enchanting web of interweaving stories that would make Scheherazade proud/jealous. Part 2 then sallies forth into meta-fiction by raising (Don Quixote)^(Don Quixote).
The lasting power of this story is its love for — and tribute to — stories themselves, but sure, windmills.
TL;DR: Look: That thing with tilting at the windmills happened *once* and we agreed never to bring it up again, okay?
My rating: 9 out of 11 Giants, Disguised As Just About Anything
Get it here:
- IndieBound (print, U.S.)
- Better World Books (print, worldwide)
- Project Gutenberg (electronic, free)
- Apple Books (electronic)
- Google Play Books (electronic)
- LibriVox (audio, free)
- Scribd (audio)
Oh, you liked it? Well then, try: If on a winter’s night a traveler
