Why should you read "Don Quixote"? - Ilan Stavans

Mounting his skinny steed,

the protagonist of Don Quixote

charges an army of giants.

In his eyes, it is his duty

to vanquish these behemoths

in the name of his beloved lady, Dulcinea.

However, this act of valor is ill conceived.

As his squire Sancho Panza explains to him

time and again, these aren’t giants;

they are merely windmills.

Don Quixote is undeterred,

but his piercing lance

is soon caught in their sails.

Never discouraged,

the knight stands proudly, and becomes

even more convinced of his mission.

This sequence encapsulates

much of what is loved about Don Quixote,

the epic, illogical, and soulful tale of

Alonso Quijano,

who becomes the clumsy but valiant

Don Quixote of la Mancha, known as

the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance.

Originally published in two volumes,

the narrative follows Don Quixote

as he travels through central and northern Spain

fighting the forces of evil.

Despite Don Quixote’s lofty imagination,

his creator, Miguel de Cervantes,

could never have imagined his book would

become the best-selling novel of all time.

Barring 5 years as a soldier,

and 5 more enslaved by pirates,

Cervantes spent most of his life

as a struggling poet and playwright.

It wasn’t until his late 50’s

that he published his greatest creation:

an epic satire of chivalry novels.

At this time,

medieval books chronicling the adventures

of knights and their moral code

dominated European culture.

While Cervantes was a fan,

he was weary of these repetitive tomes,

which focused more on listing heroic feats

than character development.

To challenge them, he wrote Don Quixote,

the story of a hidalgo, or idle nobleman,

who spends his days and nights

reading chivalry novels.

Driven mad by these stories,

he fashions himself a champion for the downtrodden.

Everyone in his village

tries to convince him to give up his lunacy,

going so far as to burn some of the

lurid books in his personal library.

But Don Quixote is unstoppable.

He dresses up in old shining armor,

mounts his skinny horse,

and leaves his village in search of glory.

Cervantes’ novel

unfolds as a collection of episodes

detailing the mishaps of the valiant knight.

Yet unlike the chivalry books

and perhaps all other prior fiction,

Cervantes’ story deeply investigates

the protagonist’s inner life.

Don Quixote matures as the narrative develops,

undergoing a noticeable transformation.

This literary revelation

has led many scholars to call Don Quixote

the first modern novel.

And this character development

doesn’t happen in isolation.

Early on, Don Quixote is joined

by a villager-turned-squire

named Sancho Panza.

Sancho and Don Quixote

are a study in opposites:

with one as the grounded realist

to the other’s idealism.

Their lively, evolving friendship is often credited

as the original hero and sidekick duo,

inspiring centuries of fictional partnerships.

Don Quixote was a huge success.

Numerous editions were published across Europe

in the seventeenth century.

Even in the Americas,

where the Church banned all novels

for being sinful distractions,

audiences were known to enjoy pirated editions.

The book was so well received that

readers clamored for more.

After a rival author attempted to cash in

on a fake follow-up, Cervantes released

the official sequel in response.

Now published alongside the first volume

as a completed text, this second volume picks up

where the original left off,

only now Don Quixote and Sancho have become folk heroes.

Just as in real-life, Cervantes included

his novel’s success in the world of his characters.

This unconventional meta-awareness

created philosophical complexity,

as the knight and his squire ponder

the meaning of their story.

Unfortunately, Cervantes had sold

the book’s publishing rights for very little.

He died rich in fame alone.

But his treatise on the power of creativity

and individualism has inspired

art,

literature,

popular culture,

and even political revolution.

Don Quixote argues

that our imagination greatly informs our actions,

making us capable of change,

and, indeed, making us human.