“Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny horse and a greyhound for racing” - Opening Passage to Don Quixote: The Ingenious Gentleman Of La Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes.
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| Don Quixote on his horse, Rocinante, accompanied by his squire, Sancho Panza on his donkey, Dapple. Together they set out looking to right wrongs and root evil out of the world, with hilarious effects. |
At long last I have finally managed to finish reading Miguel de Cervantes’s masterpiece, and it has enlarged my mind. I started reading this book in September 2015 and only have managed to finish it this week - 24 April/30 April. It is a thick volume book and I had other reading and writing demands competing for my attention. I had initially thought that on finishing this book, I would write a long treatise on its timeless lessons, but I am in the middle of writing a political treatise of my own so will not be able to do that after all. Instead, I found this short passage, on the Miguel de Cervantes Facebook Page, it captures the essence of Don Quixote and how he is a mirror reflection of every human being;
Our ceaseless human quest for something larger than ourselves has never been represented with more insight and love than in this story of Don Quixote – pursuing his vision of glory in a mercantile age – and his shrewd, skeptical man servant, Sancho Panza. As they set out to right the world’s wrongs in knightly combat, the narrative moves from philosophical speculation to broad comedy, taking in pastoral, farce, and fantasy on the way. The first and still the greatest of all European novels, Don Quixote has been as important for the modern world as the poems of Homer were for the ancients.
Don Quixote is a great book and should be read by everyone. I have now read all the great books from antiquity with the exception of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which I have deliberately set aside. I will read that book in the original when my learning of the Russian language permits it.
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| Don Quixote on his horse, Rocinante, accompanied by his squire, Sancho Panza on his donkey, Dapple. Together they set out looking to right wrongs and root evil out of the world, with hilarious effects. |
