| | |  | Mike Bonifer | | Home » | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | Description: | | There would seem to be little reason for yet another translation of Don Quixote. Translated into English some 20 times since the novel appeared in two parts in 1605 and 1615, and at least five times in the last half-century, it is currently available in multiple editions (the most recent is the 1999 Norton Critical Edition translated by Burton Raffel). Yet Grossman bravely attempts a fresh rendition of the adventures of the intrepid knight Don Quixote and his humble squire Sancho Panza. As the respected translator of many of Latin America's finest writers (among them Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa), she is well suited to the task, and her translation is admirably readable and consistent while managing to retain the vigor, sly humor and colloquial playfulness of the Spanish. Erring on the side of the literal, she isn't afraid to turn out clunky sentences; what she loses in smoothness and elegance she gains in vitality. The text is free of archaisms the contemporary reader will rarely stumble over a word and the footnotes (though rather erratically supplied) are generally helpful. Her version easily bests Raffel's ambitious but eccentric and uneven effort, and though it may not immediately supplant standard translations by J.M. Cohen, Samuel Putnam and Walter Starkie, it should give them a run for their money. Against the odds, Grossman has given us an honest, robust and freshly revelatory Quixote for our times.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Miguel De Cervantes | | Paperback:
| 992 pages | | Publisher:
| Harper Perennial | | Publication Date:
| May 01, 2005 | | ISBN:
| 0060934344 | | Package Length:
| 8.0 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.0 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.8 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.65 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 82 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 GREAT!Aug 30, 2008
This is the best translation I've read! I've tried a few other translations and they're all so dry and really don't do justice to Cervantes' humor, but this book absolutely does! If you're going to buy Don Quixote, buy this one for sure!
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Without discretion there can be no humorJul 16, 2008
'Don Quixote' is largely considered to be a satire on the popular chivalric ballads of Cervantes' day, but don't be fooled. This novel is no satire on chivalry, itself. Indeed, through the trials of Quixote and Sancho Panza, Cervantes is perhaps the greatest promoter of chivalric ideas that the West has ever known. No other protagonist so thoroughly embodies the ideals of heroism, romantic love, friendship, honor, discretion, trust, virtue, and adventure than does Don Quixote. It just so happens that he is insane, but the author is able to look beyond that. So too should the reader.
The knight's sallies are absolutely delightful and, it must be credited, alone prove Cervantes' genius in writing. The dialogue between Quixote and Sancho is excellent comedy, creating a duo that has gone unsurpassed in originality and endearment for five centuries. "Is it possible that Your Worship can be so thick skulled and brainless as to not perceive the truth of what I allege?" Classic.
But these adventures, hilarious as they may be, give us frame for a storehouse chivalric truisms, the like of which can be found in no other work of fiction. A sampling would include: "An author had better be applauded by the few that are wise than laughed at by the many that are foolish;" "Anyone who has been a good squire will never be a bad governor;" "There is a wide difference between flying and retreating; valor which is not founded on the base of discretion is termed temerity or rashness;" and "Whenever virtue shines in an emanant degree, she always meets with persecution."
The reader cannot help but to love such regal assuredness, such profound idealism. Ironically, Quixote's insanity never really contradicts his optimism and in fact vindicates it. It is commentary on the human condition that only the insane person can actually accomplish something virtuous. And after all the delusions are expired and all the fallacies uncovered, Don Quixote actually has accomplished everything he set out to achieve if only because he was noble enough to strive for it.
A note must be made on the translations. While much of the verbiage is straightforward, there are several repeated phrases that are different between the major translations, Quixote's moniker being one of the most important. In every translation I have seen, the name has been different--"The Knight of the Rueful Countenance," "The Knight of the Mournful Countenance," and "The Knight of the Sorrowful Face" are all used for the same phrase. I enjoyed the "Rueful Countenance" and found it to be well-suited for the style of the novel though I have not read other translations.
In the end, though, you cannot go wrong. 'Don Quixote' is a pure joy to read and we are fortunate to have the ability to do so.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Beyond windmillsJul 12, 2008
All my life, I had heard about the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. I had heard about his tilting at windmills and charging the herd of sheep and the fair Dulcinea. So when I got about eighty pages into the book and we'd already met the windmills and the sheep, and Dulcinea had been explained, I wondered, "What are the remaining 860 pages going to contain?"
Good question. There's the tale of the shepherdess Marcela, the magical helmet of Mambrino, the enchanted inn, the galley slaves, the novella of the Man Who Was Recklessly Curious, and the conquest of the giants at the castle--I've left out a lot and that's only up to page 330. Believe me, friends, everything you learned about Don Quixote as I did from other people's references to it is only scratching the surface.
But there's even more than the adventures. Cervantes finished and published the first part in 1605. It got published and translated into several languages. Then, in September of 1614, someone else wrote a spurious Part Two. Cervantes had been working on his own Part Two, and was probably close to finishing, when this other work hit the scene. So, here is where the fun begins. When the true Part Two comes out in 1615, Don Quixote, as he travels on his various new adventures, keeps meeting people who know of him from having read Part One. Several people have questions about apparent contradictions in the First Part, and Don Quixote and Sancho Panza answer these questions in their own words. Towards the end of the novel, he starts meeting people who have many misconceptions about him from having read the spurious Part Two. So Don Quixote repudiates that false history. Then, in a truly glorious "postmodern" moment, Don Quixote meets a character from the spurious Part Two who has just left another Don Quixote in an insane asylum (as he had in the other version). When OUR Don Quixote explains that he is the true Don Quixote, the two become friends.
I can't believe I've never read this before. It's deservedly famous. Funny, for sure, and sobering. The sobering part is less on his account than on account of the human condition. He's chosen to live this life entirely by noble principles, as have many of us. That makes him an alien, a madman, a fool. But there's so much wisdom in the madness, it's hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. Whatever the case, there is much to relish in this book.
I read the Edith Grossman translation, which is somehow both rollicking and full of great footnotes. A lot of Cervantes's humor is in word play, so Grossman captures what she can and explains the rest. She explains historical, cultural, personal, and literary references, too.
3 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Purchase Audio CD for Guidall's PerformanceJun 12, 2008
Don Quixote is one of those books that is better listened to than read. It is a great book and it is about many things but at its heart, Don Quixote is a comedy of manners. Narrating a comedy is the most difficult of all jobs for the professional actor. It requires great comedic timing and subtly to pull it off. George Guidall is a mature actor who has narrated countless books. He has that special gift that seperates the best actors from the rest of us. This afternoon, I reached the 35th and final CD and I did not want it to end. It was a really long journey and I felt very fortunate that I had George Guidall as my guide. The highest recommendation.
0 of 18 found the following review helpful:
 "Don Quixote"--the pure definition of the word "boring"...Jun 10, 2008
Yep. I read it. Boring? Yes. Boring beyond belief.
It is also mundane, vapid and worthless.
Read Hemingway or Faulkner. Read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Even the "comic section" of your local rag is better than this work of literaly trash.
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