If one wanted to understand the history of literature in a single novel, it begins and ends with Miguel de Cervantes' epic "Don Quixote," which was written in two parts and published in 1605 and 1615. The noble "knight" is known as the man who fought windmills thinking that they were giants, but there's so much more to the story than that. It's a satire of Spanish romance novels where heroes fought dragons and had grandiose adventures that would capture the audiences' affection. What Cervantes strove for was to deconstruct this mythology while creating a book that not only commented on the futility of the genre, but the lingering success of "Don Quixote" in literature. In many ways, it's the postmodern novel written over 350 years before it became a popular genre. It's an incredible feat made all the more impressive by the fact that underneath it all, Don Quixote isn't all that incredible of an individual. The journey he goes on is one that continues to captivate audiences and inspire imitations but alas, nobody did it better than Cervantes.
In order to fully appreciate "Don Quixote," one has to be just as well versed in "the classics" as its protagonist, who spends his time reading the Spanish romances, Greek mythology, and the bible to the point that it influences him to go on his own adventure. It's the myth of the man trying to be a hero that's grand, who fights giants and has the ability to sit opposite King Arthur at the round table. While it may seem old hat four centuries later, in the 1600's, the decision played at the perfect source of absurd comedy, and was only the beginning. With his influence rooted in classic readings, Don Quixote (a name pulled from the armor he wears) takes cue from them and finds the journey to be one that pits him as delusional, maybe even futile. With his trusty sidekick Sancho Panza, the epic that follows is one filled with torment as he fights antagonistic locals and has a borderline sense of delusion. Is Quixote insane, or is his legend something to be admired like the books he's read?
While this would be enough to make a novel full of conflicts of reality and fantasy, the story is rooted in a far more complex world, and one that the reader may know better than Arthurian legend. The story begins with a storyteller transcribing parchments of Don Quixote's journey only to discover that the latter half is written in Arabic and shifts the narrator to someone who translates that script. Considering that there's also acknowledgment of a fake "Don Quixote" written between Part 1 and Part 2, the story's focal point is even more skewed and confusing, making one wonder who is telling the story. The satire alone could be drawn from how Cervantes plays with narrator as well as inserting himself into the text, and is made even more clever by the commentary. It's a story that asks why audiences are interested in these hero narratives, if just because they cannot exist in the real world. They're works of fiction, much like Don Quixote himself in Part 2. It's a self-referential book if there ever was one, but it only helps to make the chaos flow with a beautiful prose that winks at the reader as much as it loves its protagonist
By the end, there's a futility to the entire journey. Don Quixote retires without a sense of accomplishment. He is a joke to everyone but the narrator, which makes the final pages all the more bittersweet. In a story that chooses adventure over regal glory, it's strange for a book to have such a stark contrast. Much like his perception in pop culture to come, Don Quixote's aloofness makes him come across as mad, and it's entirely because of his adventures in Part 1. Part 2's ability to comment on the first creates a deeper meaning and inherent heart to why the story has aged so well. It is about self-mythology and the idea that an individual would ever think of fighting giants and random antagonists who seek to do nothing but bother him. For the narrator, whomever it is (and likely fictional), the story ends with a note of respite. They pay tribute to their deceased friend, whose legend is now written in a two part book so well that it serves as the guidelines both for how to write a conventional hero in an unconventional matter, but also deconstruct him in a way that has only fueled literature majors for centuries now.
What is the appeal of Don Quixote and why does he deserve such a lengthy exploration? The answer is simple. While he may be an unimpressive figure in that he's nowhere near as handsome or refined as King Arthur, he has the ambitions of the common man to be something greater. It's something that we all can relate to, even if the idea of roaming the countryside as people mock you doesn't sound ideal in a digital age. What the book achieves beyond its ability to blur reality from fantasy in such a compelling and grounded way is that it captures the common man's desire for adventure. Even if your dream is more in line with superheroes or masculine archetypes, "Don Quixote" is a story about making a life sound like more than pathetic sallying. Instead, it's one so rooted in legend that the legend comments upon the legend. To have so much depth to one's life that it becomes mythological is something we all strive for. To watch him be knighted in a dumpy motel by prostitutes is comical, but it also is the creative desire to be something more. To have a helmet that is used for unsanitary purposes reflects the ability to look beyond the mundane and find a way to feel like your life mattered. The story's accompanied Sancho Panza plot - which gets necessary yet comical editing as the story continues - reflects the other side of adventure, of someone who is rational yet supportive. These men could've just let their lives be pointless, but instead they gave it purpose. Now that's inspiring.
A lot can be said about "Don Quixote" that has likely been covered in the 400 years since publication. It's a story whose prose is expertly worded to satirize Spanish romances, but has enough faith to pull back into the absurd. Why would anyone go on this adventure? By being a tale of inspiration for the common man, Quixote becomes the archetype by which all underdog stories are measured. It's also the most perfect deconstruction of mythology in fiction by reflecting how a man can both not be a great hero while being one in his mind. After all, isn't that what mattered? Speaking as this is considered one of the first published novels of western culture, it set the bar high to the point that its imitators get mocked before the story is done. The story is myth-building as well as commentary on why we love myths. Even if the man is crazy, we come away loving Don Quixote for what he has given audiences: hope. We may never fight giants, but there will always be windmills out there to imagine that we're greater than ourselves. Thankfully Cervantes' writing gives a lot to think about beyond this, and few novels no matter genre or seriousness could possibly be written without some comparisons to this. It's even more impossible than believing that anything in this book actually happened.
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