One More New Year's Resolution
If you still have room left for another entry on your New Year’s resolution list, please consider adding the following:
Read Don Quixote
Some people find the book difficult. It is over a thousand pages in some formats and translations; it is convoluted and demanding at times: and it does twist your mind.
Some people find the book difficult. It is over a thousand pages in some formats and translations; it is convoluted and demanding at times: and it does twist your mind.
But it is also engaging, charming and uplifting.
With the approach of a special trip to Spain, I made reading the book one of my resolutions one year ago this week. And it was a great decision.
Not only did it take me away to another world, again and again, I found myself laughing out loud at these words written four hundred years ago.
Don Quixote’s story commemorates the interplay between reality and the imagination which is, perhaps obviously, timeless, and its position as arguably the first modern novel makes it worthy of your study. (see Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes).
For me, I found it specifically relevant and helpful in present-day struggles to reconcile official “truths” with what should be and what is.
I am slow reader, easily distracted, and a committed fan of non-fiction and history.
But I ended up reading this thing three times. That’s the best testimonial I can offer.
But if you want an more eloquent and insightful version of what I am trying to say, please read this somewhat recent NY Times Online Opinion piece by John Hopkins Prof William Egginton.
But I ended up reading this thing three times. That’s the best testimonial I can offer.
But if you want an more eloquent and insightful version of what I am trying to say, please read this somewhat recent NY Times Online Opinion piece by John Hopkins Prof William Egginton.
