Don Quixote is one of those truly weighty classics that one know something about even if one has never worked their way through the 1000 plus pages that make up the two books telling the tale of the worthy, though slightly mad Don and his faithful Sancho.
Since this book was written in the 1600s it has a long and storied history in the annals of literature. Of course, it is translated from Spanish so it is bound to lose something in translation (maybe even from 1600s Spanish to modern Spanish?) but since my language skills are poor I don’t have a choice unfortunately.
There is also quite the history to Quixote of which I was unaware prior to reading the book and researching it a little. It covers the wanderings (quixotic having entered the lexicon) of the titular character and his long suffering sidekick and squire Sancho Panza. The book is in two parts, written a decade apart although they are basically of a similar ilk. The cover Quixote’s obsession with chivalry and knight errantry that he learned from reading books. It is strongly implied, especially in the second half, that Quixote is mad. There is quite the evidence to suggest this throughout (tilting at windmills, seeing all inns as castles) the narrative but it is more up front in part 2.
Cervantes seems to really admire Quixote and is always writing about his good heart. Panza, too, is given sympathetic treatment and is quite the comical character although, of course we are seeing the wise fool versus the foolish wise man. The literary style of the novel has been commented upon by people a lot more erudite than me but it is very interesting, interspersed as it is with sub stories (including the introduction of another widely used term in “Lothario”) that sometimes cover a lot of ground in their own right.
The wanderings are long and frankly, sometimes I was rather lost in the lengthy descriptions of events but the development of the relationships is fascinating and well explained, but wow, it takes a lot of time to work through this novel. However that seems to be true of all such epic novels and I am glad that I made the effort and I feel more able to understand the terms that have made it into common usage as a result of the influence of this novel. It takes some reading though!