Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction
by Carroll B. Johnson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Carroll B. JohnsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-07-13
ISBN: 1577661486
Number of pages: 133
Publisher: Waveland Pr Inc
Book Reviews of Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction
Book Review: Good place to start
Summary: 5 Stars
I picked up Johnson's book on Don Quixote because the novel is large and intimidating to me and I felt I'd need some preparation before reading it. I also felt I needed something to undo the prejudices I had formed against the main character from seeing The Man of La Mancha. Johnson provides an excellent orientation to the many things going on in the novel. His scholarship is current and insightful; the extended discussion in the chapters "A Book about Books" and "Readers and Reading" were especially helpful. I also liked his explanations about how Parts I and II relate to one another (part II is clearly more than just a sequel or "more adventures"). Johnson concludes his study by revealing his own personal reading of the text. I found it plausible (it's mostly a psychological reading), but Johnson by no means suggests that his reading is conclusive or better than any other reader's reading. This is a book I plan to keep at hand as I begin (once again) to try to make it all the way through Cervantes' classic and ground-breaking novel.
Summary of Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction
Since its publication in the early seventeenth century Don Quixote has become a classic of world literature, and its hero a symbol of romantic aspiration and absurdity. Even today, Cervantes's mad knight continues to reach out and hook readers' psyches. Don Quixote is the story of a verisimilar literary character, whose rich and conflicted inner life and encounters with the world around him became the prototype for the modern novel, from Tom Jones to Lolita. Johnson situates Quixote within its relevant historical and cultural context, including the uniquely Spanish form of the general European dialectic of Old vs. New. The mad hero's encounters with the world expose the shaky foundations of that conflictive society. Don Quixote was a revolutionary ideological statement in its own time, and has proved to be a revolutionary literary statement for all time. Johnson shows how Cervantes challenges the official poetics of the late sixteenth century, and simultaneously anticipates virtually every aspect of the trendiest theorizing of the late twentieth century.Criticism & Theory Books
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