Cervantes country ... it's a long and winding road
I still haven't finished Don Quixote and I don't think I'm the only one. In fact, if anybody can honestly tell me that they've read the whole thing, cover-to-cover, I'll be mightily impressed. And no, getting to page 372 and having good intentions about the rest just doesn't count.
One of the reasons I'm so sure that few people have actually got much beyond the opening stages of the book is the fact that the only episode anyone ever quotes - the famous incident of the tilting at windmills - is in the very first chapter. Are there really no memorable incidents in the ensuing 900-plus pages? Or is it just that no one else has managed to read them, either?
I think the latter: especially since after the windmills episode there just seem to be hundreds of pages involving dozens of complex (but singularly unfunny) retellings of the same joke viz: Don Quixote is deluded so he gets beaten like a gong - repeatedly - by bullies in every part of Spain. Oh, and his horse is sick and old. Boom, boom.
Of course, I know that's a glib and unfair summary of the book. I'm sure it's not for nothing that it so often tops polls of the world's finest books. There can also be no better advertisement for it than its legion of fans; from Shakespeare to Terry Gilliam via Henry Fielding and John Kennedy Toole. You don't need me to tell you that those are recommendations that deserve to be taken seriously.
I've also been told that if I progress I should expect fascinating insights into the relationship between the indigenous Spanish and the Moors, biting satirical commentary on the corruption in Spanish society and penetrating psychological insights, including a brilliant pre-Freudian commentary on the elision of dreams and reality.
I believe all that. Even so, on my first attempt I failed. Some time in 2002, after several tough months of reading a few pages every night, I threw the book aside in despair. I decided I'd just have to wait until I could speak medieval Spanish before taking it up again. That's to say, never.
Luckily, I was spurred back into action a few years ago when a new translation by Edith Grossman came out. I was just as much attracted to the volume (as I suspect plenty of others were) by the beautiful Picasso illustration on the cover and the fact that I saw it in a three for two pile. Nevertheless, my intentions were good and I made serious headway in the first two months of buying it. I even began to blame my previous failure on the stodginess of my earlier translation. As Quixote travelled further afield new vistas opened up and I began to enjoy the book, not least for its alluring evocation of old Spain and its uncompromising dedication to daftness.
However, as I've already noted, I still haven't finished the damn thing. On this second attempt I initially stalled because I went on holiday and the great slab of a book was just too heavy to carry with me. Then six months passed before I remembered to take it up again. The next time, I'm sad to admit, I just grew tired. I reached a 110-page digression about a mad hermit who was starving himself on the side of a hill for the sake of lost love... and I lost the will to continue.
Another six months have gone by, and when I recently flew off for a break in America I was glad to leave Cervantes on the shelf. Even so, the book still plays on my mind sometimes. I don't like that feeling of defeat and I'm seriously considering taking it up again when I get back. Would I just (forgive me) be tilting at windmills? Especially since, as the cliché goes, unless you've read Spanish, you've never read Don Quixote? Or is it worth persevering? Can anyone persuade me to carry on? Meanwhile, do many others among you have the same lovely looking edition taunting you from your to-read-pile?
And finally, if I do finish Don Quixote, do you think I should tackle Proust next?
