karen's Reviews > Don Quixote
Don Quixote
by
by
done quixote!!!
pun quixote!!
fun quixote??
none quixote...
and that's not entirely true; there are some rollicking good times in here, but the first part is so much endlessly episodic violence, and while the second half becomes calmer and more focused, it never got my imagination engaged nor my blood flowing.
in fact, although i know he really does love it, i can't help but feel that brian's recommending this to me is similar to the duke and duchess having their fun with don q. i feel like brian is pulling a prank on me - that he does not want me to meet my reading goal and is laughingly crowing, "no, karen, you will not read 150 books this year!! i am preventing you!!"
i will show you. despite the amount of time i was stalled on this one, i will come right back in the game.
but this, i did not love this. and a lot of it is just context. i can appreciate it as an artifact and as a foundation for western literature, but it suffers from the fate of any work that was not edited professionally.
tastes change over time. just in the same way that marilyn monroe would have probably had to drop fifteen pounds to rock our modern-day underfed runway ideal, so this book could lose a similar amount of text. stop frothing, bri, seriously if this turned up in some slush pile somewhere, there would be allll kinds of criticism, and it might even get passed around the office (lgm) a few times to the giggles of the editorial assistants: "this guy can't even keep the supporting character's wife's name straight!!", "this is inconsistent!!"," "this is repetitive!""what is this interlude that has nothing to do with anything else doing in here??" "this is flat-out stolen from another source!!!"
an editor would go to town on this puppy.
but we have the luxury of reading this 500 years after it was written and marveling at how fresh and modern it still sounds. and part of it is very modern. but grossman's frequent "cervantes probably meant ____here" or "this is the wrong reference" would not play in a modern novel. if jonathan safran foer had done this, there would be a crown of pretentious classics majors drawling, "i can't believe he said "perseus" when he meant "theseus"... " guffaw guffaw.
but 500 years down the road, we can afford to be more forgiving. vanity press authors take heart!
and i am aware i am being nitpicky, i am more just interested in pointing out how a lot of people who love this book would be very indignant to read something produced today that had so many obvious flaws.
but i do admire longevity.
i just couldn't get into it, overall. there are a lot of great moments here: the burning of the books (nooo!), the puppet show, don q. in a cage, and great non-action sequences in the discussions of the value of drama as a medium and the difficulty of translation and many other minor occurrences.
the first half is just episode after episode of this delusional thug with some kind of 'roid-rage, meth-aggression attacking people and innocent lions, unprovoked, and his sidekick who is a grasping fiend who would sell you out for even the promise of a sandwich. and it all reads like marx brothers slapsticky stuff. i mean, how do you break someone's nose with a loaf of bread??
with the second half, it is better and becomes more self-reflexive and much sadder, but a lot of it still remains tedious. the second half, written ten years after the first part, frequently references the unauthorized sequel to don q that some guy wrote and pissed cervantes off. it is like a mean girl passing notes to the cool kids, "did you hear what he said??? that's my man he's messing with!!" etc etc.
and i am not a lazy reader, even though my tastes tend toward a faster pace than this, but i have read plenty of slow-paced, dense prose that didn't make me take out my mental red pen and slash away at what i felt was extraneous or repetitious.
i can appreciate the message about art and its impact and its potential and its place in the world, but i did not have fun reading this book.
and i make no apologies.
and for jasmine - who doesn't think there is anything complicated or pretentious in the spanish language - this qualifies, i think. it gets all meta in the second act. for its time, it was seriously mind-bending stuff.
come to my blog!
pun quixote!!
fun quixote??
none quixote...
and that's not entirely true; there are some rollicking good times in here, but the first part is so much endlessly episodic violence, and while the second half becomes calmer and more focused, it never got my imagination engaged nor my blood flowing.
in fact, although i know he really does love it, i can't help but feel that brian's recommending this to me is similar to the duke and duchess having their fun with don q. i feel like brian is pulling a prank on me - that he does not want me to meet my reading goal and is laughingly crowing, "no, karen, you will not read 150 books this year!! i am preventing you!!"
i will show you. despite the amount of time i was stalled on this one, i will come right back in the game.
but this, i did not love this. and a lot of it is just context. i can appreciate it as an artifact and as a foundation for western literature, but it suffers from the fate of any work that was not edited professionally.
tastes change over time. just in the same way that marilyn monroe would have probably had to drop fifteen pounds to rock our modern-day underfed runway ideal, so this book could lose a similar amount of text. stop frothing, bri, seriously if this turned up in some slush pile somewhere, there would be allll kinds of criticism, and it might even get passed around the office (lgm) a few times to the giggles of the editorial assistants: "this guy can't even keep the supporting character's wife's name straight!!", "this is inconsistent!!"," "this is repetitive!""what is this interlude that has nothing to do with anything else doing in here??" "this is flat-out stolen from another source!!!"
an editor would go to town on this puppy.
but we have the luxury of reading this 500 years after it was written and marveling at how fresh and modern it still sounds. and part of it is very modern. but grossman's frequent "cervantes probably meant ____here" or "this is the wrong reference" would not play in a modern novel. if jonathan safran foer had done this, there would be a crown of pretentious classics majors drawling, "i can't believe he said "perseus" when he meant "theseus"... " guffaw guffaw.
but 500 years down the road, we can afford to be more forgiving. vanity press authors take heart!
and i am aware i am being nitpicky, i am more just interested in pointing out how a lot of people who love this book would be very indignant to read something produced today that had so many obvious flaws.
but i do admire longevity.
i just couldn't get into it, overall. there are a lot of great moments here: the burning of the books (nooo!), the puppet show, don q. in a cage, and great non-action sequences in the discussions of the value of drama as a medium and the difficulty of translation and many other minor occurrences.
the first half is just episode after episode of this delusional thug with some kind of 'roid-rage, meth-aggression attacking people and innocent lions, unprovoked, and his sidekick who is a grasping fiend who would sell you out for even the promise of a sandwich. and it all reads like marx brothers slapsticky stuff. i mean, how do you break someone's nose with a loaf of bread??
with the second half, it is better and becomes more self-reflexive and much sadder, but a lot of it still remains tedious. the second half, written ten years after the first part, frequently references the unauthorized sequel to don q that some guy wrote and pissed cervantes off. it is like a mean girl passing notes to the cool kids, "did you hear what he said??? that's my man he's messing with!!" etc etc.
and i am not a lazy reader, even though my tastes tend toward a faster pace than this, but i have read plenty of slow-paced, dense prose that didn't make me take out my mental red pen and slash away at what i felt was extraneous or repetitious.
i can appreciate the message about art and its impact and its potential and its place in the world, but i did not have fun reading this book.
and i make no apologies.
and for jasmine - who doesn't think there is anything complicated or pretentious in the spanish language - this qualifies, i think. it gets all meta in the second act. for its time, it was seriously mind-bending stuff.
come to my blog!
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Reading Progress
January 25, 2011
–
Started Reading
January 25, 2011
– Shelved
February 8, 2011
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-50 of 137 (137 new)
message 1:
by
David
(new)
-
rated it 5 stars
Jan 25, 2011 05:48AM
I love this book. If you don't, you're probably a retard.
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How's it going, Karen?
I gave up around page 200. I keep thinking that one day I will go back to it, but if I am being honest with myself I know that isn't true.
I gave up around page 200. I keep thinking that one day I will go back to it, but if I am being honest with myself I know that isn't true.
i am on page 400 - i am suddenly the slowest reader ever!! i am enjoying it, but it is not going to be a five-star - i guess the diagnosis is retard all the way!!!
Don't listen to David. You're not a retard if you don't love this book.
Let me guess, you just read the part where Don Quixote and Sancho rode into a town and there was a horrible misunderstanding and either one or both of them got their asses kicked. Was I close?
Let me guess, you just read the part where Don Quixote and Sancho rode into a town and there was a horrible misunderstanding and either one or both of them got their asses kicked. Was I close?
HAHAHAHAHAHA
don q just got his hand lashed to a doorknob or whatever while he was trapped standing on his horse.
comedy mayhem!!
don q just got his hand lashed to a doorknob or whatever while he was trapped standing on his horse.
comedy mayhem!!
another awesome review karen! i got to be the 2nd like!! you might be able to break someone's nose with french bread...maybe stale french bread.
with all due respect, david's right: you are a retard.
with this book cervantes invented modernism and post-modernism centuries before anyone had built a firm enough foundation for mod or pomo to even smash it. in short: cervantes is THE FUCKING END ALL AND BE ALL.
beyond all that academic nonsense: this is 1000 pages of pure good.
and now b/c of your vote-whoring ways you will hold the top spot on this review and entire gaggles of jackasses will read your ill-conceived review before dozens of other more valid ones.
for that, and for the three stars, you will burn in hell!!!
but that's just my opinion.
hugs & kisses.
xoxo
(yes, i voted for it. please go away.)
with this book cervantes invented modernism and post-modernism centuries before anyone had built a firm enough foundation for mod or pomo to even smash it. in short: cervantes is THE FUCKING END ALL AND BE ALL.
beyond all that academic nonsense: this is 1000 pages of pure good.
and now b/c of your vote-whoring ways you will hold the top spot on this review and entire gaggles of jackasses will read your ill-conceived review before dozens of other more valid ones.
for that, and for the three stars, you will burn in hell!!!
but that's just my opinion.
hugs & kisses.
xoxo
(yes, i voted for it. please go away.)
brian, you have an empty review space (and your one comment is from someone I remember getting a dogpile in a long ago thread....)
1) if either you or david wrote a review for this, you know full well you would get more votes than me; don't even be coy.
2) don't make me come over there.
3) i do appreciate what the book stands for and represents in the history of litterature, but that doesn't excuse all its faults.
2) don't make me come over there.
3) i do appreciate what the book stands for and represents in the history of litterature, but that doesn't excuse all its faults.
eh: who is that woman? and what'd she write to you?
KAREN!!!! steel-cage match. me vs. you.
be afraid. be very afraid.
(it's only because of 'CONFLICT' that you aren't dead already)
KAREN!!!! steel-cage match. me vs. you.
be afraid. be very afraid.
(it's only because of 'CONFLICT' that you aren't dead already)
brian wrote: "eh: who is that woman? and what'd she write to you?"
Oh, it wasn't to me, I just remembered her thumbnail and name. But I found the thread...heh, it was one of yours.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
Oh, it wasn't to me, I just remembered her thumbnail and name. But I found the thread...heh, it was one of yours.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
Beat him with nose-breakingly-hard medieval bread! And when he's on the ropes, give him one for Terrence Malick!
watch it esteban. me and kowalski are a killer tag team. we'll destroy karen and your golden-hour, precious-voice-over, ponderous-as-hell, pseudo-philosophical, emperor's-new-clothes loving ass.
I have no opinion on Don Q.
However, Introduction by Harold Bloom makes me die a little. Did you read that?
However, Introduction by Harold Bloom makes me die a little. Did you read that?
Tag team? Golden shower? Have I wandered into a role-playing thread? I have no doubt the two of you could make short work of me, brian, but only so long as you made common cause. Soon you would tire of dressing my flayed carcass up in two-sizes too small Thin Red Line underoos and then you would turn on each other and victory would be MINE!
I always wanted to give DQ a try, but I work with these two guys that remind me of DQ and Sancho Panza and they're always trying to get me to join their fantasy football league.
I always wanted to give DQ a try, but I work with these two guys that remind me of DQ and Sancho Panza and they're always trying to get me to join their fantasy football league.
the first half is just episode after episode of this delusional thug with some kind of 'roid-rage, meth-aggression attacking people and innocent lions, unprovoked, and his sidekick who is a grasping fiend who would sell you out for even the promise of a sandwich. and it all reads like marx brothers slapsticky stuff. i mean, how do you break someone's nose with a loaf of bread??
Uhh that sounds kind of awesome
Uhh that sounds kind of awesome
I think I just saw the keywords "meth," "sandwich," and "Marx brothers" -- surely a recipe for literary greatness if there ever was one
I've been ambivalent about reading this, but after reading your review I think I might give it a shot. I kind of want to know if I'll be in the David/Brian camp or if I'll be retarded too.
dearest greggy-poo,
your obsessive love for parker exempts you from total retardation. however, you might qualify for half-retard, yet. we'll see...
your obsessive love for parker exempts you from total retardation. however, you might qualify for half-retard, yet. we'll see...
i wasn't going to float this to disprove your vote-whore accusations, but then i felt like pissing the two of you off after all. cheers! mwah! conflict!
Propriety is probably affronted by my comments. They are dog, true, but merely pigtail-pulling. Feathers, commence unruffling.
Hi karen,
David just liked your review of Don Quixote on Goodreads!
i like to think that there isn't always an exclamation point at the end of that sentence, but in this case, they felt it was deserved.
David just liked your review of Don Quixote on Goodreads!
i like to think that there isn't always an exclamation point at the end of that sentence, but in this case, they felt it was deserved.
Hi karen,
David just liked your review of Don Quixote because he thinks you made some cogent points and didn't even have to use any pictures!
David just liked your review of Don Quixote because he thinks you made some cogent points and didn't even have to use any pictures!
David wrote: "Hi karen,
David just liked your review of Don Quixote because his spirit has been broken!"
Like!
David just liked your review of Don Quixote because his spirit has been broken!"
Like!
oh yay!
this is me putting my face in david's tummy like i do with my cat. ahsh ahsh ahsh... who's a cute little mittens???
this is me putting my face in david's tummy like i do with my cat. ahsh ahsh ahsh... who's a cute little mittens???