Julien Martlet reviewed Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Review of 'Don Quixote' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
3,5
Paperback, 925 pages
English language
Published Dec. 31, 2014 by HarperCollins.
3,5
This has taken me a while to read but man. This book is more modern and I'm not sure if that is the writer or the translator but there are a lot of situations that I have seen in modern books, cinema, etc., and that just shows how important this work is.
Brilliant. Probably the best book I've ever read.
For germans I highly recommend the translation by Susanne Lange.
I never expected a classic novel to be as funny as this. Cervantes writes as though he were putting together pieces of a folk tale, complete with commentary on how reliable his "sources" are. The meta-narrative is as good as the plot itself.
Woohoo I made it to the end. I feel like I have been on an epic journey so I am now celebrating the end of the journey with a raspberry Ice-pop.
I have enjoyed reading about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza's adventures, some of the things they get up to were a joy to read. At times the humour feels far advanced of the time it was written in, some scenes are straight out of an Adam Sandler movie, when they take the healing potion/poison that Quixote has made and are throwing up in each others beards as they try to help each other out was hilarious, if I had been drinking at the time I would have made a mess. At times I felt a bit guilty at laughing at Don Quixote, he is obviously mad, so should the reader being laughing this much? I dunno, I am probably …
Woohoo I made it to the end. I feel like I have been on an epic journey so I am now celebrating the end of the journey with a raspberry Ice-pop.
I have enjoyed reading about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza's adventures, some of the things they get up to were a joy to read. At times the humour feels far advanced of the time it was written in, some scenes are straight out of an Adam Sandler movie, when they take the healing potion/poison that Quixote has made and are throwing up in each others beards as they try to help each other out was hilarious, if I had been drinking at the time I would have made a mess. At times I felt a bit guilty at laughing at Don Quixote, he is obviously mad, so should the reader being laughing this much? I dunno, I am probably on my way to hell now.
The second part of the book was very clever, Quixote and Panza find out that a book has been written about them and everybody has heard of them...they become celebrities in a way. It was a smart idea.
The issue I have with the book is there is so much waffle. I loved reading about their adventures, but as soon as they come across somebody you have to hear about their life story. Everything does have its place in the plot, but it just breaks up the rhythm. At one point they come across a book and the contents of that book are then repeated. There were a few chunks of the story where the main characters were not even mentioned. I felt this was too much and does take something away from a great book.
Would I recommend this to anybody? Probably not, the only exception would be the person who recommended Moby Dick too me, knowing just how much info there was on whales.
Very pleasantly surprised by how engaging, sympathetic, and modern this novel is! I would jump right in to a sequel of equal length.