The novel begins with the story of Alonso Quejana, an average Spanish Country gentleman who is addicted to reading books. However his interest is confined to books of chivalry and he spends all his time imagining himself in the fantasy world of knights, squires, magicians, giants and beautiful ladies.
Sensible, wise men around him try to help him overcome his addiction, but to no avail. He continues to be engrossed in it and slowly loses his analytical powers. His brains begin to dry up, he is close to madness. One fine morning the poor man is struck with the idea of becoming a knight himself. He manages to attire himself as a knight courtesy a moldering suit of armor left by his great-grandfather. He looks ridiculous but in his eyes he images himself as the finest and well-dressed knight of the world.
However a knight is not a knight if he does not have a horse, a squire and his ladylove. In hilarious circumstances he manages to gather all the pre requisites:
1.An old horse with its hooves full of cracks becomes the noble steed with the name ’’Rocinante, ’’ meaning ’’superlative Nag’’
2.A peasant laborer Sancho Panza becomes the confidante (squire)
3.A busty country girl, Aldonza Lorenzo, famous for her skill at salting pork becomes the honourable lady. She is even bestowed with the title of Dulcinea del Toboso.
4.The formalities are completed with Alonso Quejana taking the title ’’Don Quixote de la Mancha’’, after his native village.
The adventure begins and knight goes on a crusade to destroy everything that is evil and that needs to be wiped off the face of Mother Nature. The Don is passionate and is ready to risk his life for his ideals, which are strikingly different from the corrupt world that he lives in. His actions, adventures most often than not land him in troubles. He seems to be a mad man, a joker as he fails in everything. The reader initially laughs at his failures but suddenly he is awestruck to find that the Don even though he is often foolish and hasty in his actions is nevertheless moral, while the world around him is constantly immoral.
There seem to be a miscommunication between the Don and the characters around him. No one understands Don Quixote, and he understands no one. In comes the brilliant and loveable simple-minded Sancho, who acts as a mediator between the Don and the rest of the world.
The book is really meant for patient readers, this is not paperback stuff, which you intend to finish while flying from one Metro to another. It is so full of events, meandering, digressions, legends, conversations, and adventures. Be patient and read on and you will never find your interest exhausted.
To continue with the story the Don rides on and the story reaches its climax when he suffers a humiliating defeat at the hands of a knight who offends the Don saying that Dulcinea del Toboso is not the most beautiful of women. In consequence, the Don is forced to fight to honour his ladylove.
He fells sick and soon finds himself in deathbed. Suddenly he regains all his logical reasoning powers and confesses ’’how foolish I was and the danger I courted in reading them; but I am in my right sense now and I abominate them.’’ He asks for Sancho’s forgiveness and although Sancho tries to cheer him up with his customary humour and reminding him of Dulcinea, Don Quixote states that he was foolish, he is not a Don and he does not believe in fantasy anymore. Shortly after he dies.
The book was initially written as a hasty parody based on a chivalric tale of that period but has undergone a remarkable change in the general interpretation over the ages. Incredibly it is now seen as a warm, sensitive tale of a man who chased and was driven by his noble idealism only to find out that he was wrong. The brute icy cold practicality makes him dumbfounded but make the readers sympathetic towards him. Instead of being seen as a subject of joke for others he has achieved the status of a noble man though impractical but very much romantic in his search for Eldorado. He has gifted the English dictionary the word ’’quixotic’’. The tragicomic hero wins the reader with his sincerity and like many others you may finish the book thinking the most insane man is actually the most sane in an insane society.
Do give it a try. I am sure you would like it.