Don Quixote

My online book club read Don Quixote, Book 1 for March. I had seen The Man of La Mancha last spring and knew the outline of the story. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this light hearted comedy. Poor Quixote. The world he imagines is just so much kinder and more noble than the world he actually lives in. At times I wanted to shake him, but at other times I thought who wouldn’t want to live in his world?

There were a lot of fun, engaging stories embedded withing Don Quixote, that I felt could stand on their own, could be, say made into movies. Every day, I picked up the book, I had a smile on my face. Delightful. That in and of itself is a success.

I had read an excerpt in junior high and really found it meandering, but this time I loved it.

Melvin Bragg‘s In Our Time has a good broadcast of a discussion of Don Quixote.

What writing is coming out of Spain now, I wonder. Seems the most august Spanish language writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, etc. are from Latin American.