Between the Pages

I went into Don Quixote knowing very very little of the story at all. ‘Tilting at windmills’ was about as familiar as I was with the adventures of the knight-errant. I had minimal exposure to the musical via one episode of Quantum Leap where Dr. Sam Beckett leapt into an actor in a production of Don Quixote. I had also seen a movie which I believe was based on the musical featuring Gerard Depardieu as the titular knight. And that was it. 

The book was substantially longer than I had expected and I was surprised to see the ‘tilting at windmills’ event was easily within the first fifty pages of the novel. So what on earth was the rest of the story going to be? I’d already discovered that it wasn’t going to follow the movie that I’d watched, and it was obviously different from the musical in that Don Quixote didn’t start the book in prison--Though the intro informed me that Miguel de Cervantes did come up with the idea for what would eventually become the novel while serving a stint in prison. 

I was also surprised to discover that Miguel de Cervantes was a contemporary of Shakespeare and that some people consider Don Quixote to be one of the first ‘novels’ as we define them today. My familiarity with 17th century literature was pretty well limited to Shakespeare's plays (though it seems that as we make our way through this list, that may very well change) so it was interesting to read a story in ‘regular’ story format and know that it was over 400 years old. Of course, this was in most part thanks to the translation of Tobias Smollett which I’ll talk more about in my next post! 

I’ve finally decided to sit down and write this blog post because if I don’t start somewhere, I’ll never get anyway. This post should have been finished last week but unfortunately the ever-changing List got the better of me. After reading over a hundred pages into Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way before re-checking the List and realizing Don Quixote had surpassed Proust as the #1 book. I am realizing that this may happen often, particularly further down the List so I will have to keep an eye out to make sure I don't miss any of the great works of literature.

I had thought Proust would be a good novel with which to start because I had actually already read it once before and it would allow me to make a point which was one of the main reasons I had wanted to start this project in the first place.

I was listening to Neil Gaiman's book A View from the Cheap Seats and simply being pleasantly lectured to about books from someone who loves books and writes books and is probably generally surrounded by books (or at least would like to be) at all times; it made me realized that there must be things in these books, these greats of literature, that I missed. Or that I avoided. Or that I was too young to understand the meaning of.

I think that especially occurred in my college years as an English major dropped to minor. I was exposed to many wonderful stories, plays, and poetry, but as is so often the case in our education system, I was reading under pressure.As a student, I needed to put distance between the front cover of whatever I was reading. It was a hundred pages or more a night and you needed to be able to discuss the main events. Which is fine...if you don't want someone to enjoy a book or look deeper and find something that resonates within them.

So here I am, nearly three years out of college and finally, finally I miss reading.I miss enjoying books and experiencing the adventure or romance or clever wordplay that accompanies a well written story. And I've decided to jump back in. For myself, to enjoy the greatest works. For the works themselves, many of which I know I didn't give the attention they're worth. And for you, darling reader, who may feel similarly. I'm not a professional, this won't be a terribly impressive blog I'm afraid, but it will be mine. Ours, if you want it to be.