Don Quijote de la Mancha (Spanish Edition) Paperback – March 9, 2010

Few novels changed literature more than that about the crazed country landowner who takes up the mission of knighthood and heads down the road with his neighbor/squire in search of adventure. The very first recorded novel in Western literature. Yet it is so much more than that. Reading the progression of Don Quixote's exploits, one learns of the rapidly changing world around him and how antiquated his desire for honor may seem to a Spain emerging from feudalism and centuries of conflict between Christian knights and Moorish overlords, a Spain entering the world of colonialism and Empire, with little need for antiquated notions of chivalry. A Spain newly confident of its identity as a Catholic world power that has emptied itself of its dreaded "others" like the Muslims and the Jews. The text is peppered with references to empty villages and houses testifying to the void left by these departures, as noted by literary critic Tariq Ali. A Spain where the once powerful landed country class now is reduced by competition from foreign conquest, left with little to do but time for consuming maudlin romances of chivalry and fantasy, so much so that one member of that social class can only find meaning by taking up his ancestral armor and living out those ridiculous stories in the world that is rejecting their very raison d'etre. Where the once-despised simple peasantry seem to have more awareness then those who were once powerful and overbearing land holders. This book could be read on so many levels - as a satirical commentary on an anachronistic fool's incomprehension at a changing Spain, as a metafictional send-up of the chivalric genre, as a comedy of class relations, as an exploration of upper class madness and lunacy counterpoised to Shakespeare's analysis of this in King Lear. The complexity of this book on so many levels makes it a true work of art from the Renaissance period. It signaled the birth of the novel as a literary form in Western literature, making its appearance with a bang, pushing aside the narrative romances that had dominated Western prose for so long. Whether read as social commentary of the Dickensian vein, as a class-comedy rivaling that of Jane Austen, as a light yet penetrating psychological drama in league with Dostoevsky or as a bold literary experiment with form in the tradition of the great modernist and postmodernist writings of Joyce, Proust, Nabokov, Faulkner, Pynchon or DeLillo, Don Quixote could be said to be the blueprint for the Western novel in all its possibilities. To paraphrase Carlos Fuentes, here are the great Western novelists in their embryonic state.

La gran historia de Cide Hamete Benengeli, traducida por Miguel de Cervantes, nos relata las aventuras de Alonso Quijano, mejor conocido como Don Quijote de la Mancha--aunque algunos le llaman el Caballero de la Triste Figura, y aun otros le dicen el Caballero de Los Leones--. Acompañado de su fiel y sobrepesado escudero, Sancho Panza, va en busca de tuertos a quien enderezar, de menesterosos a quien ayudar, de ínsulas para regalar, y máquinas para destrozar. Pero hay un rival que no lo deja triunfar: el mago Frestón quien convierte a gigantes en Molinos de vientos, a feroces ejércitos en ovejas y carneros, y a bellas doncellas en viles rameras. Pero esto no importa ni podrá detener a nuestro héroe, pues con la ayuda de Dios, y la inspiración de su dama Dulcinea, será capaz de darle fin a esta desdichada edad de hierro, y renacer a la dorada. Aquella edad en cual el hombre ignoraba las palabras "tuyo y mío", donde existía comunidad, y donde el agua del río se podía tomar: "Todo era paz entonces, todo amistad, todo concordia". No se deje engañar por esos cuentos falsos de caballería andante; lea la historia verdadera de alguien que supo actuar, por alguien que la supo escribir.

Realmente sólo quería leerlo ya que sólo había escuchado historias del famoso guerrero errante. Están muy buenas las enseñanzas.

Classic. Hard to read in Spanish but I wanted the experience. Only got through a quarter of the book. It's helpful to read a summary online along with each chapter.

Every language goes through many changes as time goes on. Sometimes we find it difficult to understand certain key words, before getting the whole message. But humor and funny situations never lose their charm, no matter language difficulty. That is very clear as you read the adventures of Don Quijote. It is relatively easy to draw a mental picture of all his adventures and his relationship with Sancho... who is also funny in his own and very special way. Since Spanish is my "native" language, I have little difficulty understanding this humorous novel - the very first of the genre. Non-Spanish speaking readers may have some trouble following the long and twisty sentences in it. But then, I have that same trouble when I read Shakespeare!

Estaba buscando libros clásicos en español para mi hija, pero se me había hecho un poco difícil de encontrar, hasta que vi esta edición. No es edición de lujo, pero cumple muy bien el objetivo. No cambia en demasía la historia, más bien es un resumen con ilustraciones que reducen los dos volúmenes en un librillo de bolsillo más atractivo para niños. A mi hija le ha encantado.

Don Quijote is a classic book and a great example of how amazing Spanish literature is. If you are an English speaker learning Spanish, do not read this book until you are very advanced because some of the language used in the book is still archaic and therefore you need a great understanding of Spanish to interpret. Overall, great read and would always recommend this book!

Mea culpa! This reviewer downloaded this file directly to his Kindle before he had a better look at the preview on his laptop. Thank goodness he could still return it for a refund.One had hoped to get a complete graphic novel of "El Quijote" in the style of "Classics Illustrated," simply to discover how the story would be handled, particularly Part II, which reads much more like a modern novel than Part I. However, this version was more than half prose with some very nice illustrations throughout, but not what this reader was after.The Spanish-Speaking world has produced many talented creators of comics, writers as well as artists; and it's just about inevitable that some day two or three of them will collaborate to produce a good graphic version of this classic, comparable to the comics versions of Shakespeare's plays in English, as well as Proust's novels in French. But this version isn't it!