I figure this is a good book to start with. Don Quixote is the first novel ever. Think of any novel you’ve read. Anything from The Scarlet Letter to A Wrinkle in Time to Fifty Shades happened because of Don Quixote.

Maybe it’s a stretch to say that novels wouldn’t eventually have been made, but the fact still stands that Don Quixote is the first novel. It’s the tale of an old man who read so many books about chivalry that his “wits dried up” to the point that he considers himself the greatest knight in 1600s Spain (meaning he’s a few hundred years late to the trend.) Don Quixote fashions himself armor made partially of cardboard, saddles himself on a horse as skinny and frail as he is, and pledges himself to a woman he’s never met: Lady Dulcinea, the “lady of his thoughts.” Wrapped up in this trainwreck is the simple Sancho Panza, who serves as squire to Don Quixote, who promised him an island he obviously can’t give him.

Part One follows the first expedition of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and a myriad of characters reveling in their own stories. Lots of these stories and conversations seem more like opportunities.

Part Two is better, if you ask me. There’s the same immature (but hilarious) slapstick as the first, but there’s a greater focus on the main characters. Additionally, in Part Two, the characters are aware of Part One. The story of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is published by an fictional man named Cide Hamete Benegeli, so the two of them are celebrities and are often accosted by “fans” who are usually ill meaning.

It’s a black comedy. They travel around Spain and get up to all sorts of random shenanigans, usually ending with them getting beat up. The most iconic of these exploits concerns windmills, which Don Quixote believes to be giants. Sancho, bewildered, can’t convince his headstrong master of the truth before the charging knight gets clattered by the swinging windmill. But even when he gets trounced, Quixote’s delusions never waver.

You might have seen the windmills on other pages of this website. They’re actually some photos I took from my time in Spain. There’s a small town named Consuegra where the windmills would have stood. I hadn’t even finished the book when I got there, but I went anyways. The sky was blue, the grass green, and although the wind howled, it seemed silent. I thought about fighting the giants, but I forgot my lance at home.

There’s something romantic about the idea of Don Quixote. To me, at least. When he looks up at the clouds, he watches two armies charging at one another. And he smiles. Living in his daydreams.

But what I romanticize is actually a mentally ill man. A sick man who gets tortured, teased, and his dull but loyal squire Sancho who undergoes even more beatings. I found myself scolding the other characters for making fun of him, but then becoming bored when he wasn’t getting whacked around. At the end, (SPOILERS for a 400 year old book) Don Quixote fights the “Knight of the White Moon,” a friend of his who wants to bring him home. Don Quixote loses and is honor bound to give up knight errantry for a year. Another character hears of this and argues that Quixote ought to continue as his exploits bring joy to everyone else, even if it means exploiting Quixote. When I read this, I scolded that character. But when Quixote renounces knight errantry on his deathbed, I found myself a heartbroken hypocrite. I felt like Sancho, weeping by his bedside. How can you give up now, Quixote?

Don Quixote, created by the author to criticize knight errantry and chivalry, somehow earns my sympathy.

And speaking of the author, I romanticize his own work sometimes. To be honest, a lot of this book sucks. I read all nine hundred pages of Part One & Part Two. Much of the book, maybe about half of it contains digressions and interruptions of pastoral romances and long histories of knights, lords, ladies, renegades. And the coincidental moments rival that of a corny sitcom.

To be honest, Miguel de Cervantes isn’t that great of an author. He says as much in his prologue to Part One. But when I went to Toledo, I took a selfie with his statue anyway.

What I like more about Part Two is that Cervantes began to understand what worked and what didn’t, as there’s a greater focus on the characters. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza’s conversations and mannerisms are so well done. It just seems so easy. The characters feel like they’re writing themselves. Like mathematical formulas; you plug in any situation or side character or environment and all there’s left to do is solve for x. For a few chapters, Sancho Panza is separated from his master and becomes governor of a small town like he always wanted. And after hundreds of pages that tell of his simpleness, his idiocy, he turns out to be an even better judge than King Solomon. If you like irony, drop what you’re doing.

I’m not even sure what to say about this book, to be honest. It’s the same with Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. So much of it is functionally useless. So much of it is contrived and pointless nonsense. So much of it is overdone. But they pioneer. They trailblaze for all the books that follow them. And, all the while, they’re endearing as hell.

I don’t know if I’ll ever give a number or a star rating on these book reviews. Putting a number on words is a little silly, anyways.

Accidental genius. That’s as short as I can put it.

Sometimes, the wind blows fast. It’d be a shame to not let yourself glide along with it.