#5 - Don Quixote

First, an explanation. There has been a very long hiatus since my last post, and that's because there has been a very long hiatus since my last book being completed. It's not to say I haven't been working on it. It is, however, to say that it has been a long and arduous haul to complete it. 2 weeks to find a copy at a library. 2 weeks in Europe just as I'm about to get started. 2 more weeks to resecure that copy. 2 weeks of exams. Then I leave for summer camp, and in a fit of desperation actually buy a 30-dollar copy of the book. 10 weeks at summer camp pass by with nary a moment to spend on sleep, let alone leisurely reading. Back to school, and finished off in a final fortnight.

I suppose in a way that the attempt to complete this book was quixotic, much as this entire reading list is. The books are slow, the goal could be easily acheived through more efficient means, but in a burst of principles and resolve, the harder, more glorious road was taken. There is one notable difference between my reading and Don Quixote. Don Quixote was capital C Crazy. An absolute loon 'til the last, his adventures were conjured in the sight of every person, every building and every animal he passed by. This in turn led to over a hundred adventures, each more hare-brained and hysterical than the last. This is why the slowness of my reading should and could not be held against the book. While a whopping 940 pages, it is vibrant and upbeat, allowing for quick reading through its many adventures. Filled with many speeches and stories, and a few "interpolated novels", it kept moving right along, entertaining at every turn.

What's more is the psychoanalysis behind why Don Quixote went nuts. He was, to think of it in modern terms, a fanboy. He read hundreds of books of chivalry (Amadis de Gaul was his favourite) and considered them all 100% true works of history. He went beyond knowing the fanon of the books, he considered them the canon of the world's Golden Age, where dragons and damsels really do exist. His goal when he sets out is to revive the noble profession of knight errantry, and in so doing revive the Golden Age and go down as one of the greatest knights to ever live. In a strange way, he does reach his goal. He fights lions and saves damsels, and helps some people (even ones who need no help) from terrible things. The story grows in your hands, and builds to crescendo after crescendo.

But beyond just the book itself, already a masterpiece, there was the overarching self-awareness that Miguel Saavedra de Cervantes has pushed into the book. The layers of story told by historian told by translator told by author creates in it a sort of discussion at the start of each chapter, giving opinions and theories upon its contents. Then there is the start of the second part. Between the two parts of Don Quixote there was a decade in which the book gained popularity, creating fake sequels and spinoffs and the like. So in the beginning of the second part, he goes to great lengths (using his characters as his proxies) to deconstruct the myths purported by the other versions, to correct continuity errors in his own first version, and to review the success of the first version. Let me say it again: The CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK talked about the success OF THEIR STORY. This is not taking down the fourth wall. This is kidney punching the fourth wall repeatedly.

Don Quixote not only lived up to all of the hype of being the first modern novel and transcending books to another echelon of greatness, it surpassed it. I was floored repeatedly by the beauty and majesty of the writing and the story, and it truly changed the way I write. So with great aplomb and gross amounts of ceremony, I will give Don Quixote my first:

10/10