Notes on Don Quixote

The Ingenious

Hidalgo Don Quixote

De La Mancha 

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

“As soon as we live, we have already felt the confines of our prison. Thirty years when we take the longest to recognize the limits within which our possibilities will move. We take possession of the real, which is like having measured the meters of a chain attached to our feet. So we say, 'Is this life? Nothing more than this? A completed cycle that repeats itself, always the same? " Here is a dangerous hour for every man. "  - José Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on Quixote


The idea of the novel starts here - this is the source of the modern novel for many. While it remains the epitome of story-telling its fame has also led to the coinage of such terms as "quixotic" and others. Influential beyond almost any other single work of fiction, the characters, led by the incomparable knight-errant extraordinaire Don Quixote, through their charm and uniqueness remain indelible in the memory of readers.

Don Quixote is one of those books whose influence is so far-reaching as to be almost ubiquitous, like The Odyssey, or the Bible. And like the Bible or Homer’s epics, it is more often talked about than read. But my conclusion upon reading it is to recommend to all: read it and enjoy the stories.

As Don Quixote says . . . "the life of knights-errant is subject to a thousand perils and reverses, and it's just as likely for knights-errant to become kings and emperors, as has been shown by experience through many diverse knights whose histories I know thoroughly. And I could tell you now, if this pain would abate, about some who, all alone, through the strength of their arm, have risen to the high positions that I've told you about. . . I can well suffer among such good company, for they have undergone greater affronts than we've just now undergone." (p 119)