s p o t l i g h t
QUIXOTE'S COMPANIONS
SUFFICE IT to say that Cervantes' Don Quixote has left an indelible impression on readers the world over. And of course, among those readers are writers.The following list highlights a broad spectrum of writers whose work has been deeply influenced by the misadventures of the world's beloved hidalgo ingenuoso. Fans of the First Modern Novel will likely find a host of new epiphanies, insights and conundrums after reading some of these works, which speculate a quixotic experience for their characters and communities across time, space and the constructs of modern life.
We've also included a couple of nice children's texts with hopes that the parents among our readers will consider keeping the impossible dream alive with their own budding dreamers, romantics and visionaries.
DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA
by Margaret Hodges, author; Stephen Marchesi, illustrator
Released: 1992 (oversized hardcover, children's book)
Summary: From Alibris: "Hodges's inspired selection of incidents, her engaging retelling and Marchesi's warm, realistic pictures will give young readers a memorable introduction to a masterpiece of Spanish literature."
DON QUIXOTE AND THE WINDMILLS
by Eric A. Kimmel, author; Leonard Everett Fisher, illustrator
Released: 2004 (hardcover, children's book, Parent's Choice Foundation recommended book)
Summary: From Kristi Jemtegaard for Parent's Choice: "Senor Quexada, better known as Don Quixote, peers nearsightedly out at the reader from the cover of this brief re-telling of the most famous episode in his legendary career. Kimmel’s text is straightforward, even workmanlike, and the drama comes almost entirely from Fisher’s color-saturated figures set against stark white backgrounds. The expressions on the face of the hapless knight’s horse, Roscinante, provide a wry wordless commentary on the action, while the short, fat Sancho Panza stolidly munches his bread and cheese in the background. This will make an excellent introduction for younger readers to Cervantes famous comic figure and perhaps encourage more interest in reading about his further exploits. At the very least, it provides an entertaining explanation of the expression 'tilting at windmills.' "
DON QUIXOTE: WHICH WAS A DREAM
by Kathy Acker
Released: 1989 (paperback, adult fiction)
Summary: From the Don Quijote Virtual Museum: "If you're on the lookout for an unconventional, surreal, thoughtful, shocking, hilarious, crude, sensitive and generally disconcerting novel/literary analysis/ treatise/social commentary, check out Acker's Don Quixote and you won't be disappointed."
THE ENAMOURED KNIGHT
by Douglas Glover
Released: forthcoming November 2005 (paperback, literary criticism)
Summary: From Dalkey Archive Press: "Through the prism of the great Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky, Douglas Glover provides a scrupulous reading of Cervantes’s Don Quixote, opening this 400-year-old Spanish masterpiece to a new generation of readers, showing how Cervantes made his novel, and, finally, revealing how we as readers participate in his magic creation. Glover’s brilliant accomplishment resides in his ability to seduce the reader with his own stunning prose and penetrating insight, while also creating the means for anyone to see into Cervantes’ genius."
MEDITATIONS ON QUIXOTE
by José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
Released: 2000 (paperback, literature and philosophy)
Summary: From University of Illinois Press: "A call to his fellow Spaniards to join him in forging a new Spain, Ortega's Meditations on Quixote is also an invitation to his fellow humans to take up the challenge of literature, opening our minds and seeking all-embracing connections with the world and its people. "
MONSIGNOR QUIXOTE
by Graham Greene
Released: 1982 hardback; 1990, paperback (adult fiction)
Summary: From Fantastic Fiction: "With his Sancho Panza a deposed communist mayor, and his faithful Rocinante an antiquated motor car, Monsignor Quixote roams through modern-day Spain in a picaresque fable that offers enduring insights into our life and times."
QUIXOTE: A NOVEL
by Bryan J.L. Glass, author; Michael Avon Oeming, illustrator
Released: 2004 (paperback, graphic novel, adult fiction)
Summary: From Zaldiva Comics: "This 300-page novel written by Michael Avon Oeming (Marvel’s Thor and Powers) and playwright Bryan J.L. Glass, is heavily illustrated with spot illos and full-page splashes, blurring the lines between comic and novel. Four hundred years in the making, the release of this modern-day retelling of Don Quixote coincides with the fourth centennial anniversary of the classic Cervantes novel. Fighting on city rooftops with demons and monsters, the story and art deliver a punch to the gut and a light to the mind."
THE RETURN OF DON QUIXOTE
by G. K. Chesteron
Released: 1927 (clothbound, collector's item, classic fiction)
Summary: From Fantastic Fiction: "Michael Herne is a gentle, unassuming librarian. When he is asked to play a king in a medieval play he reluctantly agrees. After the play is over, however, strange things begin to happen. Michael refuses to change back into his everyday clothes and other actors find it impossible to return to their real character. …Set in the early 20th century, this is the intriguing story of the rise of a new Don Quixote who introduces a medieval government into the world of big business."
SANCHO'S GOLDEN AGE
by Robin Chapman
Released: 2004 (hardback, adult fiction)
Summary: From Oxbow Books: "After Don Quixote's death, his squire, Sancho Panza, has been unable to settle back into his former life. He longs for more romance than reality can supply. He confides in the local barber and together they conspire to escape from their village and create an ideal pastoral life for themselves up in the hills. Once there they will live like classical shepherds in Arcadia writing sonnets, enjoying milk and honey and wooing perfect shepherdesses. When they turn this fantasy into reality, the resulting confusions are observed, and partly related, by Don Quixote's old horse Rocinante, and Sancho's ageless donkey, Rucio. Thanks to their knowledge of their owners' previous adventures, readers of this sequel to Don Quixote need not have read Cervantes's masterpiece."
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