short stories

This is a wonderful translation. I first read Quixote seriously in the Putnam, and was completely swept away by it - the prose was just as readable as it is here, and Putnam communicated a love for the text in his notes (as well as a hatred for the translators that had butchered it before) that was a nice accompaniment to the actual story.

Grossman's language is smoother, and I suppose Putnam's prose does have the dust of fifty odd years on it - but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't mind if an old book reads a bit like an old book: slightly dated English gives a book a certain flavor. I like Putnam for the same reason I enjoy Maude's translations of Tolstoy. Grossman does write a better sentence, I think, and she certainly doesn't make the book any more colloquial than Cervantes did - although I was annoyed at her constantly having Sancho say Wassup.

Putnam's Quixote, incidentally, is filled with notes: more notes than most people who aren't scholars will want. Every one of Sancho's proverbs is explained (and those aren't exactly the comic high point of the book, either) and he constantly takes potshots at Motteux and other translations, a la Nabokov when he translated A Hero of Our Time. They're sort of funny, but eventually you want him to get out of the way of Quixote, which is what one actually wants to read - not the translator's thoughts.

But then again: a note can easily be skipped, and it's nice to have the extensive information that Putnam packs in, about the historical situation in Spain, potential variant readings of a passage, all the brouhaha about the fake second half of Don Quixote that actually ends up having a part in the book - and lots of other stuff.

Still, a good translation of a book that can be read a hundred times in a hundred different ways is always worthwhile. Don Quixote truly never stops being funny or sad (especially when you know which parts can be skipped the second and third time around) - people who expect a dreary classic will be surprised to find an author that is as relevant today as he ever was.

(Kidding about the Wassup.)

Faulkner said Don Quixote was his favorite book and that, along with The Bible, he dipped into it yearly. I'm not sure what Cervantes would have made of some of Faulkner's more troublesome work, but the world has designated Don Quixote the Father of the Modern Novel and perhaps the greatest novel ever. I'm a fan of this book and a habitual (some would say neurotic) comparer of translations. Since I don't read of speak Spanish, I have to rely on the English translations that have been published. There are three that are worthwhile: Ormsby's, Samuel Putnam's and now Edith Grossman's. Grossman, who is the translator of Garcia Marquez's books into English, has produced a translation that's contemporary and authentic--somehow, not an oxymoron. It has a fresher feel than Putnam's (the translation Nabokov used when teaching the book), though I wouldn't say it supplants Putnam. If you're looking for a copy of Don Quixote in English, Grossman's translation is a good first choice. She manages to maintain the feel of the language Cervantes wrote in (as far as I can tell) yet her translation, as the NY Times reviewer noted, is as readable as the latest novel from Philip Roth. You can't go wrong with Putnam or Grossman, but on this one, I have to give the nod to Grossman.

Let's face it: some of the great classics are a chore to read. PILGRIM'S PROGRESS and ROBINSON CRUSOE are not exactly page turners. Even Dante and Shakespeare, as rewarding as they can be, are not always easy to read. But DON QUIXOTE is that rare classic that is both utterly delightful and extraordinarily easy to read. Like all classics, the more effort you put into understanding this great book the more your efforts are rewarding, but what amazes me about Cervantes's masterpiece is how amazingly effortless reading it is. It is not at all misleading to describe the volume as a page turner.

DON QUIXOTE is such a marvelously complex and rich book that everyone's reading of the novel will be unique. My delight in the book stems from two main sources. First is Cervantes's miraculous gift as a storyteller. Although the novel is without any possible question one of the four or five most influential works of literature in history, every chapter seems eternally fresh and enchanting. Everyone knows at least something about the book, usually about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and the incident of the windmills, and many imagine that from this they have some notion of what the novel is like. But these impressions rarely hint at Cervantes's genius as a spinner of tales, of his playfulness, of his acute sense of humor, his originality, and his inventiveness. Though we like to imagine that we "know" Don Quixote, Cervantes manages to surprise the reader on nearly every page. He is especially delightful in the second half of the novel, published several years after the first part, which allows Cervantes to depict Quixote and Sancho as famous celebrities because of the success of the first half. Whereas in the first half they labored in obscurity, in the second half they reign as celebrities. Cervantes also jousts with the real life author of an unauthorized second half to DON QUIXOTE.

Second, I find the novel delightful for the richness and brilliance of the two central characters. Don Quixote is a character about whom it is possible to say many true things, without thereby exhausting what it is possible to say. He is insane-and despite 20th and 21st century attempts to celebrate this as an attempt to condemn the insanity of society of a whole and assert an alternative form of rationality, we are not intended to admire his insanity. This is not CATCH-22. Rather, Cervantes sees Quixote's insanity as an affliction. In terms of early 17th century psychology, Quixote goes insane from a drying up of the brain induced by staying up too many nights reading books on chivalry (it was thought at the time that the brain gradually dried up while staying awake and remoisturized at night while asleep). Many of Quixote's moments of greatest folly occur after nights spent without sleep, and his sanity at the end of the book is restored after finally managing to sleep for several hours. Despite this (though not because of it), Quixote is a lovable and admirable character. We hurt for him, but we admire his genuine physical courage, his high moral principles, his devotion to his cause, and his powerful sense of justice. Equally delightful is Sancho Panza, who seems incapable of uttering anything without it being imbued with unintentional humor. Indeed, many of my favorite parts of the book are those where Sancho simply starts talking. The two, of course, enjoy a host of "adventures," but these are mainly just excuses to provide settings for Quixote and Sancho to shine. As readers we care less about their next adventures than for the opportunity and privilege of spending time in their company.

One commentator in the documentary on Terry Gilliam's failed attempt to film DON QUIXOTE correctly points out that the more we see Don Quixote suffer under his insanity, the more we come to care for and love him. This is a profound truth. No matter how delusional he becomes, we want things to end well for him, but worry that perhaps his madness has gone too far, and indeed if there is a tragic moment in the book it is when he returns home to his village defeated.

This is truly one of the great books every written, and of all the classics, one of the most readable and loveable.