A review by leann_bolesch
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

funny slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

I am willing to excuse, given the age of this book and the fact that it is considered the initiator of a broad genre, that it does not follow the plot and pacing conventions I'm used to, even if it did result in what felt like a lot of repetitive patterns with no real plot progression and only the barest of payoff towards the end of each part. What I am less forgiving of is that every last sentiment expressed in this book was written with the philosophy of "why say in one sentence what you can instead drag out over ten?" I don't know why characters gave Sancho specifically grief for rambling because they're all guilty. At one point, it took a man 6 pages of unbroken dialogue to say, "Hey bud, me tempting your wife to cheat on you is a bad idea. It'll make me look like a cad. It'll signal that neither of you deserves respect if she falls for this. And proving her loyalty doesn't make much of a difference from believing in it, but she'll lose a lot of value if she's proven disloyal, so why give her the chance in the first place? I'll do this if you insist, but I hate this." 6 pages. A 6 page monologue. Any interactions or ideas that I otherwise appreciated were undermined by the inability of anyone to say less than 50 words in one breath.

Also, it started off charming and then turned annoying that the author liked to toot his own horn about what a great writer he is. But Iunno he did write a genre-making classic so I guess he's got some credentials to back that up.

I read this for the sake of understanding references and appreciate having gotten that out of this experience, but this book took me 14 months to get through.