Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction

by Carroll B. Johnson

Book Overview

Written in an easy-to-read, accessible style by teachers with years of classroom experience, Masterwork Studies are guides to the literary works most frequently studied in high school. Presenting ideas that spark imaginations, these books help students to gain background knowledge on great literature useful for papers and exams. The goal of each study is to encourage creative thinking by presenting engaging information about each work and its author...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1577661486
• ISBN13: 9781577661481
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: Waveland Pr Inc
• Length: 133 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.5" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Very much in fashion

In these times, with all the talk about "contractors", the war in Iraq and Yihadist kidnapings, this book should be of interest. Miguel De Cervantes was himself a proud marine (he fought with the Spanish Naval Infantry in the battle of Lepanto) who also suffered captivity at the hands of Muslim pirates for five years... Well, all that was in the 16th Century. But still...

Good place to start

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.

Don Quijote-Why the most important book of all time

My comment. I took a two semester course on the Quijote. This book is excellent in that it points out why this work of Cervantes is landmark for all world literatures in the way that it discusses fiction and metafiction, and also, the merits of the different theories about realism and verisimilitude in literature. It very simply and easily points out to the reader why the Quijote is such a masterpiece and why it continues to be. ...BW

A perfect pony for thin nights

I'm a fan of the Twayne's series of studies, which offer an undergraduate course in about 100 pages. Johnson's little book on Don Quixote is one of the best. It's much better than either the Nabokov book or the studies in the Norton edition, all of which are chatty and interesting but not very helpful in coming to terms with Cervantes' long, often boring, brilliant novel. Johnson provides enough dollops of literary theory, history, biography, culture, and critical exegesis for the reader to really start to work independently. What I liked most was his final reading of Quixote as a man fleeing his incestuous desire for his niece, madly projecting and fantasizing to relieve the pressure. His description of a world where Moors and Jews lived secret lives while passing as Christians, ne'er-do-well aristocrats like Quijano suffered lives of quiet desperation, and encounters with the Other in the New World radically altered Western consciousness at the very time that print brought people into closer communion, provided grist for many hours of thought and appreciation. The sections on reader-response and literary theory were a bit more conventional, but they were clear and compelling nevertheless. If you choose one pony while mounting Rocinante, this is the one to ride.