My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed reading this work by Cervantes, especially in the older edition that I have. While some have put down Pierre Motteux’s translation, I felt that it was never too slapstick nor too dry. I laughed. I cried. I nodded. I smiled. The effort was also a bit of a workout, with each volume weighing just under three pounds. I really wanted to read this story. I think we all have heard bits and pieces of this story, and many phrases and ideas have been incorporated into Western culture.

While working through the first volume, I wondered what the heck was wrong with me for wanting to read this damn book. Things brightened in the second, especially with the tale of Dorothea and Cardenio. By the third volume, I was hooked, especially by the Duke and Duchess and the events surrounding them. I must say I was saddened as I turned the final pages of the last volume yesterday evening. There was a tad bit of a Hollywood ending, but I still felt close to Alonso Quixano and his alter ego, Don Quixote, and would miss him. Like his squire-errant Sancho Panzo, his hometown friends, family and others he met on his adventures, I cared deeply for this man made mad by romantic tales from the past.

This work is so multifaceted. Cervantes created new forms and brought together old ones in new ways. There are tales, stories within stories, meta-commentary (“breaking the fourth wall”), making the first part (published in 1605) part of the story in the second part (published in 1615) and so forth. He even goes so far as to include, and tease, a person who released a spurious second part that was published before Cervantes had finished writing the real second part to the story.

I liked many parts of the book, especially in the later volumes. As a reader, one I particularly enjoyed, was how an inn keeper recounts that farm workers would gather at lunch, during the hottest part of the day, and the one who could read the best would read aloud from old romances during their meal. It thrilled all of them and filled the listeners with such pleasure (Vol. 2, ch. 5, p. 87). I wrote a little note to myself to say “how wonderful is reading” and also that Cervantes certainly knew that.