Don Quixote is often called the first modern novel; many would argue it is the greatest novel ever written. But compared with other world masterpieces--from the Iliad to Paradise Lost, or from Oedipus the King to Hamlet or Life is a Dream, for example--the storyline of Don Quixote is remarkably uninspiring and lowly: a middle-aged man becomes mad reading novels and makes a fool of himself by believing he is a hero. The first great modern novel is...