Product Description

                                                            

"        Don Quixote is practically unthinkable as a living being," said novelist Milan Kundera. "And yet, in our memory, what character is more alive?"
----Widely regarded as the world's first
modern novel, Don Quixote chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. This Modern Library edition presents the acclaimed Samuel Putnam translation of the epic tale, complete with notes, variant readings, and an Introduction by the translator.
----The debt owed to Cervantes by literature is immense. From Milan Kundera: "Cervan-
tes is the founder of the Modern Era. . . . The novelist need answer to no one but
Cervantes." Lionel Trilling observed: "It can be said that all prose fiction is a variation on the theme of Don Quixote." Vladmir Nabo-kov wrote: "Don Quixote is greater today than he was in Cervantes's womb. [He] looms so wonderfully above the skyline of literature, a gaunt giant on a lean nag, that the book lives and will live through [his] sheer vitality. . . . He stands for everything that is gentle, forlorn, pure, unselfish, and gallant. The parody has become a paragon." And V. S. Pritchett observed: "Don Quixote begins as a province, turns into Spain, and ends as a universe. . . . The true spell of Cervantes is that he is a natural magician in pure story-telling."


The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-
dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hardbound editions of important works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inaugurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #92499 in Books
• Published on: 1998-07-28
• Released on: 1998-07-28
• Original language: Spanish
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1280 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This imposing volume presents the first part of the quest by the beloved Don, whose name stands for chivalry and courage--"The Impossible Dream." The book's heavy stock, binding and design all impart an air of style and prestige, reinforced by Bogin's suave translation, which makes good use of abundant dialogue. (The phraseology and vocabulary, however--"erstwhile," "apothecary," "coherence"--will be beyond younger readers.) Though the paintings by Spanish artist Boix are masterfully executed, some lack the sweep expected from this panoramic work; much of the imagery is somewhat pallid, both in tone and emotional impact. And, though the architectural details, period apparel and scenery are all richly evocative, the characters themselves are often small in scale and dwarfed by their stunning surroundings. Nevertheless, the presence of an elegantly produced, picture book version of this classic merits attention and applause. All ages.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 5 Up-- Cervantes's Don Quixote, the moniker and persona adopted by the addled Senor Quijada , who has read a few too many chivalric romances, hardly needs introduction to adults. However, most young people will have hardly heard him mentioned, much less had any firsthand contact with this larger-than-life literary creation. Bogin has taken some of the more involving, outrageous, and well-known adventures of the knight errant and his squire, Sancho Panza, and put them together into a relatively brief narrative that nonetheless is strikingly true to the tone and style of the Spanish original. Her prose, lively and at times employing modern vernacular to good effect, does full justice to Cervantes's mad Knight of the Sad Countenance. It begs reading aloud, and may well start discussion and contemplation. Boix's illustrations are delicate, detailed, gold-washed watercolors that create a kind of fairy-tale ambience. They will grab readers' attention and imaginations and direct anyone picking the book up to delve into it and to find out what's going on. Taken as a whole, this is a lovely job of bookmaking, providing an examplary introduction to a classic work. --Ann Welton, Thomas Academy, Kent,
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Christopher Casenove employs an impressive range of British accents in his Performance--and presents everyone from earl to washerwoman. Such voices may not be what listeners expect from DON QUIXOTE, but they make it easy to tell who's speaking, even when a scene contains more than one character of a certain "type." Together, the excerpts which comprise this abridgeent convey the tone and spirit of the source without awkward breaks or transitions. The music that begins and ends each tape--solo classical guitar--summons images of the Spanish countryside, and might have done so more effectively had it been integrated into the reading. T.J.W. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

DON'T FOOL YOURSELF
DON QUIXOTE is a masterpiece and Smollet's translation is also a masterpiece--the best possible, as it reads like an original. Want DQ in modern English? Don't fool yourself--you'll never get the same feeling--DQ is even difficult for Spanish-speakers to read! The raves on the back cover are not misleads.

Greatest book ever written
If you could have one book on a desert island this would be it.

A tale of insanity at it's finest.
Don Quixote is a classic piece of literature. If someone could produce a more up to date, vernacular translation, it would rival any comedy made today. This is a story about one man caught up in so many chivalry books that he becomes insane and starts traveling through Spain acting as a heroic knight while fighting made up villains and monsters. By his side is his gullible yet loyal servant Sancho.

It's nice to know that during the Renaissance period such humor existed. The first part of the book deals with him traveling throughout and mixing up inns for castles, random people as kings or knights, and a random woman as his unrequited love for which all of the world must know. It's a tragic comedy where one man's insanity and futility provide worry for a few, concern for others, and great entertainment for most of the characters.

What's interesting is the "twist" in the middle that leads to the second part, where after one man wrote a book about Don Quixote's wild adventures, a rich family, upon seeing the actual man who was in the book, decide to play along in probably the cruelest hoax in history. Claiming there Duke and Duchess, and promising the most absurd things. One of which was giving Sancho an actual province to rule over.

The one thing that irked me about this book was that even though it needs to be translated for English readers, no translator has yet made the book as fluid or readable as it deserves to be.

All in all, it's a good book, but hopefully a general author, and not some stuffy scholar, could translate it what it should be - a really funny and tragic story.