Written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra sometime in the early 17th Century, some real smart literary people claim that Don Quixote was the “first novel”. I don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean. I thought Valley of the New York Dolls by Johannson was the first novel but again, none of this academic stuff is important to the task at hand, which is the provide a sketchy review of this thing. Right out of the gates the book is timeless and balls-out hysterical. There’s Don Quixote, the main guy, who is old and infatuated with the days-gone-by with the chivalry and knighthood silliness and damsels and all that other stuff from medieval times before it became a theme eatery for the gluttonous. Those day have long passed but not in his twisted old mind. Poor Don-Don. He’s convinced that he is a ‘knight errant’ and he is thusly obliged to seek out adventure and fully live out this delusion with comic results o’plenty. His shenanigans get him beaten and whipped, mangled and maimed. It’s classic bloodletting. He convinces Sancho Panza, his fat dopey neighbour to become his ‘squire’ and between them both they stumble ass-backwards from one trouncing to the next all in the name of his ‘damsel’ in distress— the ugly Dulcinea de Toboso.
Sancho is promised his own country by Don Quixote but instead gets flogged and tormented. Each chapter is pretty well self-contained so if you’re lazy and just wanna check out a certain adventure without committing to the whole book, just skim the chapter headings (An adventure on leaving the inn, The adventure with the corpse, The prophesying ape…)
So, eventually after a bunch of funny crap, the old man has a moment of clarity and snaps out of his dementia just in time to die and so forth and son on. The book is a bit bloated like Vince Neil or Liza Minelli, so I wouldn’t blame you for just ambling out and renting the movie with John Lithgow and Isabella Rossilini.
Okay, there’s this delicious line somewhere towards the end where Sancho Panza, the squire, is bummed at always getting the shit-end of the stick so in typical maudlin fashion he begins to bitch and moan, finishing up with this gem: “Fortune is a drunken, freakish dame…”
In a certain village down in La Mancha, which I do not wish to name, there lived not long ago a gentleman one of those who have always a lance in the rack, an ancient shield, a lean horse, and a coursing grey hound.
Here’s how it ends: For my sole object has been to arouse men’s contempt for all fabulous and absurd stories of knight errantry, whose credit this tale of my genuine Don Quixote has already shaken, and which will, without a doubt, soon tumble to the ground. Farewell.
There’s a handful of editions with different translations. Stay away from the Yiddish edition - your tongue will swell.
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