Don Quixote

By: Tobias Smollett - translator, Miguel de Cervantes

Narrated by: Robert Whitfield

Length: 36 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Don Quixote is one of the world's first novels and by far the best-known book in Spanish literature, was originally intended by Cervantes as a satire on traditional popular ballads, yet he also parodied the romances of chivalry. By happy coincidence he produced one of the most entertaining adventure stories of all time and, in Don Quixote and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, two of the greatest characters in fiction.

(P)1998 Blackstone Audiobooks

What a classic

Really amusing tale with the dignities of our heroes intact. I wonder who is truly the madman!

A MUST READ CLASSIC

A must read classic says it all

Excellent

An excellent narrator and an excellent novel. Contrary to the statement concerning the received opinion about philosophical and literary merits in Wikipedia, the first part is better than the second, unless you really really like the idea of jokes being played on Don Quixote at his expense. I find audio books an excellent way of finishing really long books that I have never managed to read to completion on the printed page. Cervantes makes Don Quixote pay for his misguided love of chivalric tales with more beatings than the human body could realistically stand. This sadism is presumably the result of Cervantes' feelings regarding this literary genre. But ironically, in the novel nearly everyone else gets caught up in Don Quixotes' madness, and the common Romantic reading of the book is to find Don Quixotes' behavior admirable. The book is heralded as a eulogy to chivalry and Quixotic enterprises when the intent was to ridicule and quash. One can admire doomed enterprises for a worthy cause - but Quixotes' undertakings are all misguided and/or cause more harm than good. It's a pity another emblem for such things cannot be found.

Wonderful!

One of the distinctive things about "Don Quixote" is its episodic structure. The Knight wanders around the Spanish countryside, mistaking everything for enchantment, running into thieves and shepherds and shepherdesses, extolling the virtues of love and the honor of his profession. (Two minutes later, of course, he's flat on his back and Sancho is running for cover.) The narrative is richly textured: four hundred years before "Inception," Cervantes mastered the trick of embedding a tale within a tale within a tale -- and maintaining perfect artistic control throughout.

Fortunately, with Robert Whitfield's outstanding narration (Whitfield is actually Simon Vance), this all goes down smoothly and easily, like chocolate ice cream. The tone varies from incident to incident, but the pace remains steady, a kind of comfortable jog through the woods. It took me several weeks of listening on and off to finish it, but it was time well spent: I can say without hesitation that it's one of the most enjoyable audiobooks I've ever listened to.

Don Quixote is the butt of many jokes in the book, but in some ways he has the last laugh. Cervantes refuses to pigeonhole any of his characters: Quixote is a fool and a clown AND a truly decent and honorable man. His simple goodness puts the elaborate courtly behavior of others to shame. His favorite term for addressing his squire (at least in this translation) is "Friend Sancho."

If you're familiar with "Man of La Mancha," you mostly know the first half of the book. The second half contains many surprises. Among other things, Sancho finally gets a chance to govern his "island," and though his government comes to a calamitous end, his rough-and-ready country wisdom has plenty to recommend it.

The translation is by Tobias Smollett. It's a little old-fashioned but still reasonably brisk and easy to follow: from a prose standpoint, this is the period of James Boswell and Thomas Jefferson: not a huge stretch.

Amazing!

An amazing book with brilliant narration. I knew of Don Quixote but didn’t realise what a masterpiece it is.

Wasn't as interesting to me as expected

Just like with Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" the first 10h of this book needed getting used to and were quite uninterestintg to me, however after approx. the first 10h the book became incredibly interesting and I really enjoyed some of the stories told in it. The narration was very good and the translation in my opinion was superb!

Definitely one of the best books I ever heard!

Every turn of this true and authentic history of the Ingenious Gentleman and Knight of a Rueful Countenance is full of laughter and mirth. Wonderfully performed! Strongly recommended

good narrator

the narrator did a good job of creating the voices of the characters and kept the voices consistent

Good-humored and bittersweet

A lengthy (37 hours; it's close to a thousand pages) but enjoyable listen as there are so many adventures it resembles a collection of novellas.
The sweetest is saved for the very end.
Speaks strongly of the power and need for make-believe.

Excellent

I was a little apprehensions about the length of this "book" and due to some of the comments about the narration. After having given it one listen I can attest to the quality of the narration and to the fact that it uses a good translation (Tobias Smollet) which I thoroughly enjoyed especially due to the "Shakespearean" quality of the text. The narration is very well done using different voice characterizations and a variety of British accents to differentiate each character. Very funny. "You are in the right, friend Sancho."