|  |
Don Quixote (Wordsworth Classics)(Paperback)
by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Description: (Wordsworth Classics), 1993. Softcover, 760pp. BIG paperback!
Condition: Good-plus. Inside looks like it may be unread... clean, unmarked. Binding tight with no creases... the spine appears to be VERY SLIGHTLY cocked at the top end. Very slightly! Cover has a moderate amount of wear/rubbing, one light corner crease, and a scratch/scrape for most of the length of the back cover. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers WeeklyThis 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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From School Library JournalGrade 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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From AudioFileChristopher 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 --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition. Review"Cervantes's masterpiece is lucky to have found so perfect a translator as the flamboyant Smollett. The rambunctious personalities of author and translator are ideally matched." --This text refers to the Paperback edition. Product DescriptionWith an Introduction and Notes by Michael Irwin, Professor of English Literature, University of Kent at Canterbury This selection of Carroll's works includes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, both containing the famous illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. No greater books for children have ever been written. The simple language, dreamlike atmosphere, and fantastical characters are as appealing to young readers today as ever they were. Meanwhile, however, these apparently simple stories have become recognised as adult masterpieces, and extraordinary experiments, years ahead of their time, in Modernism and Surrealism. Through wordplay, parody and logical and philosophical puzzles, Carroll engenders a variety of sub-texts, teasing, ominous or melancholy. For all the surface playfulness there is meaning everywhere. The author reveals himself in glimpses. Language NotesText: English (translation) Original Language: Spanish --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Download DescriptionThe best-known book in Spanish literature, telling the story of the adventurous knight-errant and his squire Sancho Panzo, who set out to right the wrongs of the world. Card catalog descriptionAn abridged version of the adventures of an eccentric country gentleman and his faithful companion who set out as knight and squire of old to right wrongs and punish evil. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Inside Flap CopyWidely 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 wend their way across sixteenth-century Spain. Milan Kundera calls Cervantes ?the founder of the Modern Era and Lionel Trilling ?observes that it can be said that all prose fiction is a variation on the theme of Don Quixote.? This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition reproduces the acclaimed Tobias Smollett translation; as Salman Rushdie declares, ?To my mind, this is the only English rendering of the Quixote that reads like a great novel, a novel of immense daring, much wildness and many colours. It releases Don Quixote from the grey academic prison of many more recent translations, unleashing him upon the English language in all his brilliant, foolish glory?. This edition also contains new endnotes. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. From the Back Cover"Cervantes's masterpiece is lucky to have found so perfect a translator as the flamboyant Smollett. The rambunctious personalities of author and translator are ideally matched." --This text refers to the Paperback edition. About the AuthorCarlos Fuentes is the author of more than a dozen novels, including The Years with Laura D?az, The Old Gringo, and The Death of Artemio Cruz.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
64 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
 An excellent edition of this classic., January 21, 2003 -----------------------------------------------------------
When you approach reading (or rereading) a "classic" work you really, mostly, don't have to think about whether to read it -- that decision was either made by someone assigning it to you or, more wonderfully, by you, yourself deciding to swim contra-current against the cultural waters... following Neil Young's advice to "turn off that MTV."
So. You are going to read it. And, if you are paddling the Amazon.com, here, you are going to buy and OWN it. The question really becomes which edition you should own.
This is the one.
Its a fine translation - surprising in its avoidance of archaic language. It has a nice structure - the inevitable notes are available but not obtrusive.
This edition, the Modern Library hardback edition, translated by Putnam, is also a nice book to own. It isn't one of those pretty faux-leather "shelf-candy" copies that'll break your wallet first. This is a hardworking book - the essence of the Modern Library idea. But it is a wonderful packaging of the whole 1000+ pages that is both readable and shelvable. No thousand-page paperback will survive an actual reading as anything you would want excepting as backup next to the latrine.
Did I mention that it is a great book, great story? Well, others over the years have managed that :-). But I will loudly agree. I'm rereading it only now after a 35 year hiatus (yes, indeed, classics can be lost on the young - thats why you want books that last. In 35 more years, when you turn your lance back toward targets you thought you left behind, a copy will cost you [a lot of money]). It is just plain startling in its innovations and story. I always thought Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepard were the first to break down that "third wall" and talk to the audience - yet here is Cervantes doing so five centuries back ! Wow.
Even if you've been made to buy it and to read it, buy a nice copy. Read the "Cliff notes" if you must, but someday you'll be a crazy old coot like Don Q. (or me) and want to toss something more meaningful than Palahniuk (or even Rushdie) at the cobwebs that cling.
|
| |
45 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
Much Madness is Divinest Sense, June 7, 2000
O, Don Quixote de la Mancha, cream and flower of knight errantry! Your adventures and exploits are endlessly entertaining and edifying!
This is a novel which can be taken at its own pace, sprawling, epic - but which most likely you will take much faster. I began reading the novel following the most recent film adaptation with John Lithgow and Bob Hoskins. I have been engrossed, enthralled, and enchanted since I picked up this antique tome. "Don Quixote" is not simply A novel - it is THE novel. In Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Cervantes gave, and continues to give two of the most beautifully rendered personalities, whom you come to know and treasure, and whose names will be "written in the book of fame for all future ages".
From the Duke and Duchess to the writer-convict Gines, to Sampson Carrasco and the priest, Cervantes portrays individuals, not just character-types, from all social backgrounds and contexts, enriching further the story of the Knight of the Sad Countenance and his faithful squire.
In terms of narrative, it is clear how "Don Quixote" influenced countless other works from Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" to Herman Melville's "The Confidence-Man". "Don Quixote" is very much a narrative concerned with its own existence as a text. From Cervantes continually reminding the reader of his own duty as the translator of Quixote's adventures from Benengeli, to the Don's own preoccupation in the novel's second half with an "unauthorized biography" of himself written by a hack, to the various interpolated stories throughout the novel - narrative awareness and attention to the ways in which narrative and language functions are fascinating components of this work.
Perhaps the most important lessons the novel has to teach come from the mouth of the proverb-spitting Sancho Panza, whose physical presence underlines the substance of his words. Truly, Sancho is the novel's most intriguing character. His distance from, and simultaneous involvement in, Don Quixote's adventures give the novel an internal critic and observer, who pairs nicely with the external point of view provided by Cervantes.
In sum, "Don Quixote" is well worth your time - with short chapters, you can read a lot at once, or take it one bit at a time. Either way, pick this novel up, and let it become part of you.
|
| |
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A most enjoyable, entertaining classic, August 1, 2001
Almost everyone knows about Don Quixote battling the windmills that he mistakes for giants. Of course, that is only one very, very small part of the story. The many adventures encountered (and created) by the brave Knight of Mournful Countenance and his faithful squire Sancho Panza make for enjoyable, if sometimes frustrating reading. The frustrating part is the tendency of Cervantes to veer off the path of the central story onto side roads that deals with the stories of peripheral characters. However, Cervantes himself realizes this by the time he composes Part Two, which was written ten years later than the first part, and his self-depracation makes the meanderings of the first part forgivable.
Everything else is purely enjoyable. Some sections of the novel are hysterical, but there is always a melancholy undertone because, the fact is, Don Quixote is a man living in a state of unreality, an object of ridicule and sport (and sometimes, suprisingly, admiration) to the world. The faithfulness of more aware, though simpleminded Sancho Panza is a testament to the loyalty of friendship, although the limits of friendship are tested often. Sancho's character is more fully developed in Part Two, as he is shown to be somewhat of an idiot savant, a prattler of endless proverbs who sometimes stumbles into near genius. By the end of the book, I found Sancho to be a more interesting character, to me, than Don Quixote himself.
This book took me several months to read. Although an extremely long book, it lends itself to being read in bits and pieces, sometimes with long intervals between readings. While I felt a sense of accomplishment in reading the almost 1200 pages, I was almost sad to see it end, which is high praise for a book such as this. "Don Quixote" is a classic in the best sense of the word.
|
| |
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
a multi-layered treat, and worth the time investment!, November 25, 2000
I took the time to read both volumes of Don Quixote, starting at the end of this past summer, and just finishing up in mid-November, and even better, in the New Century Library version, lovely old leather bound books with gold ribbons for markers. I didn't read it straight; it was interspersed with many other books on my stack.
Oh my. What a satisfying read. Of course you are familiar with the basic premise of this book, the mad Don Quixote tilting after windmills, his faithful squire Sancho Panza at his side and always on the lookout for a good meal. What I was not prepared for, and was totally delighted by, were the many and varied side stories, the topsy turvy relationship between madness and sanity (and who is which, anyway?), the wisdom of Sancho Panza as Governor (at long last!) of his very own island, and the surreal relationship between the narrator, the author, and the narrated.
This is a complex work, and could be discussed with many different themes in mind--idealism vs. pragmatism, honesty vs. duplicity, madness vs. sanity, the follies of the rich vs. the follies of the poor. Chivalry. Romantic love. Storytelling. Renunciation. The Quest. Devotion. Class structure. Religious persecution.
The only thing that bothered me about this book was that everybody was endlessly enchanted and ready to give the benefit of the doubt to beautiful young men and women, that beauty in this book equaled virtue and a kind heart, a small complaint indeed regarding this masterpiece.
If you've already read this book, this is just preaching to the choir. But if you're trying to decide whether or not to take the time, the answer is yes, yes and yes! You won't regret it, and your heart and soul will thank you.
|
| |
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Quite humorous, April 3, 1998
What Monte Python did for the King Arthur legend in their movie "The Search for the Holy Grail", Cervantes did four hundred years ealier with the entire medieval knighthood tradition of chivalry and fighting. If you read some of the original stories about "knights errant", such as Le Morte d'Arthur, you can appreciate to a greater degree Cervantes fine parody. If you can read Spanish (and I can't) you will also enjoy Cervantes puns throughout the text. I laughed myself silly while reading this. Don Quixote is as ridiculous in the adventures he undertakes while looking for his fair lady, Dulcinea, as his shrewd squire Sancho Panza is comically pragmatic. Together they make an interesting pair. It's true this is a rather long novel, but the rewards of humor (and occasional wise comments from Sancho) are well worth the time.
|
| |
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Putnam's translation has never been beat, August 19, 2005
If you want to make going through "Don Quixote" as painless as possible, get the Samuel Putnam translation from the 1950's (ISBN: 0679602860), published these days by the Modern Library.
The Modern Library edition also has copious footnotes at the back of the book (Putnam's original ones), which is quite nice.
For my money, nobody has ever come close to matching the natural grace and power Putnam summoned when he pulled this one off.
If you can't find the Putnam, the Charles Jarvis translation (used in the Oxford World's Classics edition, ISBN: 0192834835) is, despite having originally been published in the 1600's (!), a serviceable second choice. Also well-glossed.
|
| |
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Lets salute the knight-errantry, writer and translator!, October 16, 2005
Don Quixote by Cervantes is often called the first modern novel and many rate it as one of the best novels ever written in any language. That itself stirs enough interest and curiosity for a reader like me, and trust me, reading the novel is a highly rewarding and entertaining experience. The plot and sub-plots are primarily guided by Don Quixote's obsession with knight-errantly, forming acts to chivalry and participating in adventures in a manner he read in such books. Sancho serves as his squire and complements and supplements his master in every possible way. Quixote is kind at heart, his every act is inspired by a good intention, a dreamer trapped in a body that prompts him to be called the "knight of rueful countenance", a loyal lover whose never set eye on her who he so praises and desires in a chaste way! Yet he is so full of imaginary tales and characters that he lives in a make-believe world, where he mistakes windmills for monsters, herds of sheep for armies, and so on, attacks them, defends them, and Cerventes manages to weave a saga of such events in a form that identifies with allegory, fable, epic and comic drama at the same time.
Panza, on the other hand, is a fatso, ever hungry for food, wine and money, full of practical sensibility as well as easily misguided simplicity, and is as entertaining a case study as his master. To complete the cast, are two unlikely prime characters: Rocinante, who is a horse as old and shrivelled as his master and Dapple, Sancho's donkey who Sancho considers more dear to himself than anything in the world.
The novel starts at a slow pace, and with the mention of alll sorts of established names of knight-errantry that must have been vogue in those times, Cerventes builds the stage for the rise of our hero. Since I have never read any of the described references, the first fifty or so pages seemed quite obstruse to me. Like for every classic, I knew I had to read on atleast 200 pages for characters to establish themselves. Thereafter, the various escapades and misadventures described in the two books follow like eagerly waited episodes. Again this is a novel that must be read piecemeal.
Besides the humor, knight-errantry, a quixotic master and a pragmatic but simple squire, Cervantes masterfully creates a plethora of characters and situations where he writes about love, war, God, Moors, government, wife, and every conceivable thing related to man as a social being. In some ways, the book is an elegant discourse on how things are and how they could be. Even the humor laden with satire is a subtle taunt at the way good people eat humble pie when their dreamt adventures are deemed ordinary by plotting evil enchanters.
The book is full of proverbs that Sancho throws into his every sentence, so many of these are hilarious and yet all carry the wisdom of that age saved in one epic saga. Similarly, there must have been a considerable play of words, as Sancho misuses and mispronounces many words, and the translator Smollett tries hard to capture some of these.
Don Quixote, in effect, has the appeal and humor to last the humankind forever, and we bow to thee O Cerventes! for creating such a cornucopia of wisdom and instruction for us humble readers .
|
| |
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Just read it, June 14, 2001
This is not a book to read in a few long sittings; its short chapters and diversified plot allows you to read bits of it slowly, to enjoy its subtle messages and subplots. I just took a tour of reviews here, and the simple fact that it spurs so much controversy and different interpretations attests to its grandiosity.
The "plot" is well-known: an old gentleman reads so many chivalry stories that he comes to think of himself as one great knight, and so sets about to find adventures, to "right wrongs and injustices". He takes his neighbor Sancho Panza as his servant. There's much you can see in the book: analogies, metaphors, allegories. Idealism/pragmatism; honor/convenience, etc. It's funny, it's crude, it's tough, it's tender, it's rude.
Some value-added is the glimpse on Medieval-turning-Renacentist Spain, the life on the roads, the bandits, the "hotels" and the idiosincracy of the time. Other characters are also memorable, and some of the sub-stories, which bother some readers, I think they're great.
So this very old book deserves all the praise it gets, although negative opinions are also respectable. It has aged well in my opinion, because it is about eternal features of us humans.
|
| |
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
The BEST edition to buy and own, January 16, 2003
When you approach reading (or rereading) a "classic" work you really, mostly, don't have to think about whether to read it -- that decision was either made by someone assigning it to you or, more wonderfully, by you, yourself deciding to swim contra-current the cultural waters; following Neil Young to "turn off that MTV."
So. You are going to read it. And, if you are paddling the Amazon, here, you are going to buy and OWN it. The question really becomes which edition you should own.
This is the one.
Its a fine translation - surprising in its avoidance of archaic language. It has a nice structure - the inevitable notes are available but not obtrusive.
It is also, this one, the Modern Library hardback edition, a nice book to own. It isn't one of those pretty faux-leather "shelf-candy" copies that'll break your wallet first. This is a hardworking book - the essence of the Modern Library idea. But it is a wonderful packaging of the whole 1000+ pages that is both readable and shelvable. No thousand-page paperback will survive an actual reading as anything you would want excepting as backup next to the latrine.
Did I mention that it is a great book, great story? Well, others over the years have managed that :-). But I will loudly agree. I'm rereading it only now after a 35 year hiatus (yes, indeed, classics can be lost on the young - thats why you want books that last. In 35 more years, when you turn your lance back toward targets you thought you left behind, a copy will cost you [a lot of money]). It is just plain startling in its innovations and story. I always thought Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepard were the first to break down that "third wall" and talk to the audience - yet here is Cervantes doing so five centuries back ! Wow.
Even if you've been made to buy it and to read it, buy a nice copy. Read the "Cliff notes" if you must, but someday you'll be a crazy old coot like Don Q. (or me) and want to toss something more meaningful than Palahniuk (or even Rushdie) at the cobwebs that cling.
|
| |
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A comic masterpiece about truth and illusion, March 19, 2004
Don Quixote is a comedy, which could only have been written by the hitherto obscure genius later in life after he had suffered injury on the battlefield and was subject to periods of harsh confinement in prison. The comedy is bittersweet about this everyman who lives strictly by a code of ancient ethical ideals that inspire him to fits of lunacy, folly and madness. Lucid, indeed inspired, when the subject is anything but knight errantry, Quixote's commitment to his ideals brings him insult, injury, poverty and ridicule. This knight is duped by his convictions into waging war on windmills, galley slaves, funeral processions, pilgrims, shepherds, herds of bulls and countless chimeras invoked in the name of love for his Dona el Toboso. This most chaste of knights cannot see the realities of human nature and worse cannot accept them. His endless brutal punishments for his idealistic blindspots plague him and his squire, Pancho Panza, wherever they aspire in the personal quest to right an injury, assist a noble cause, protect the weak and innocent, and slay evil demons of every imaginable stripe. When I first read this novel, I thought Quixote a fool who was duly punished for being so out of touch with reality. By the end of the novel I saw that Don Quixote was no less than an everyman whose noblest instincts were doomed to bring suffering upon him as he was driven to confront the baser powers of existence. What Crusader fails to risk madness in the wake of the futility of human action in a vast, overpowering and hostile universe? In Quixote and Sancho I caught a glimpse of Vladimir and Estragon in "Waiting for Godot." One man's truth is another's falsehood. One man's reality is another's illusion. One man's ideal is another's folly. Yet Quixote rides out in his quests across Spain, nevertheless, without fear for the chaos he engenders nor the futility of his cause nor the danger to himself or his best friend. For his nobility Don Quixote becomes not only famous and truly beloved but also earns immortality. Read this "father of the modern novel" for its wit and genius and classical construction to understand the Quixotic ideals that stir within you and the possibilities for real victory of the human spirit. |
On Jul-08-08 at 15:53:37 PDT, seller added the following information:Bookmark Shipping & Bookmark Shipping Discount Change:
IF YOU ORDER MORE THAN ONE BOOKMARK, BUT DO NOT ORDER ANY BOOKS, THE SHIPPING ON THE BOOKMARK(S) ONLY (NOT BOOKS), WILL NOT EXCEED $1.75.
|
Track up to 10 items on this computer in 
)
