Don Quixote

By: Miguel de Cervantes

Narrated by: David Case

It's the classic adventure of a madman: the "renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha". He attacks windmills, believes a peasant girl to be a lady, and fancies that he is a knight-errant, dedicated to righting wrongs and rescuing damsels in distress.

Don Quixote is a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha in central Spain. Obsessed with the chivalrous ideals touted in the many books he has read, he decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked. After a first failed adventure, he sets out on a second one with a somewhat befuddled laborer named Sancho Panza, whom he has persuaded to accompany him.

In many works, the experiences of a man like Don Quixote would probably appear tragic. He's repeatedly beaten, chased away, lied to, and misunderstood. But in the hands of Cervantes, these events are comic.

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Terrific Narrator

David Case is fantastic narrating this book. For those like me who wish to know the translation used, it is Walter Starkie. I have read Edith Grossman’s translation but after listening to this audiobook, I prefer the Starkie—it’s simply the funniest. It’s more the sort of clever wording and humor you get with Dickens and other great literature.

The audio is a bit muffled at times as others have mentioned here but it’s such a great rendering, just overlook that. The recording is from 1989. It is unabridged and David Case brings so much humor to the characters. This is especially true for the peasant women and Don Quixote himself when his pitch rises as he berates Sancho over his of proverbs.

An absolutely rewarding listening experience. Seek out David Case’s other audiobooks, often under the name Frederick Davidson.

Get This Version: Absolutely the Best Narrator

Don Quixote is an established masterpiece of world literature, so there is no point in reviewing the work itself. This review concentrates on the qualities of the narrator and, to a lesser extent, the translation.

Audible has several other fine editions of the unabridged Quixote. So which one should you get? The answer is simple: get the one narrated by David Case.

Forget the negative reviews of the narrator. Those reviewers simply do not know what they are talking about. David Case, also known as Frederick Davidson (and many other names depending on what company he was recording for), is probably the best narrator ever to live. This is not only my opinion. Just google his name and you'll see that he has won more awards for narration than anyone else in the world with the possible exception of Sir Derek Jacobi. He was first ballot Audio File Hall of Fame narrator, "Golden Voice," as they say, with more than 700 narrations to his credit. A negative review of David Case reading is like a negative review of Magic Johnson playing basketball.

One negative review questions the use of a narrator with an English accent. That is just bizarre. What accent should they have used? A West Texas accent? Would a Spanish accent have been better? If so, then should Brothers Karamazov be read with a Russian accent, Magic Mountain with a German accent, etc.?

It is true that while David Case is an amazing narrator, this is not his finest performance. There are a few recording errors, and the quality is not quite up to modern standards--the recording was done in the 1980s.

Nonetheless, Case captures the contrasts in tone better than any other narrator could. And getting those contrasts right is essential to the humor of Don Quixote. What make the book so funny is that the main character's language is completely out of place with whatever circumstances he is in. Even though he is mad, he remains the quintessential straight man taking everything far too seriously and literally. The rich tones of Case's upper-class British accent are perfect here.

Not only does Case get the Don's voice pitch perfect, but he also gets Sancho absolutely spot on. I don't know enough about British accents, but he definitely uses a working class one for Sancho. Case's voice also perfectly captures subtleties like the cruelty of the Duke.

In conclusion, get this version for the narration alone.

Let's now turn to the translation briefly. The only negative here is that it is not the latest version. Case reads from Walter Starkie's 1957 translation--a very fine work, but probably not as good as Edith Grossman's. I first read Don Quixote using Starkie's translation. I am now reading Grossman's. My Spanish is now good enough to read Don Quixote (although with some difficulty) in the original, and Starkie's version seems fine to me. Very few people in the world would be able to tell a good translation of Don Quixote from a great one. I certainly cannot. You would not only need to be perfectly and equally fluent in English and Spanish, but also a pretty competent scholar in the Spanish of the early 17th Century. How many people can really say that?

So even though this reading is not in the (probably better) Grossman translation, you should still get this version.

Great narraton.

I found it difficult to appreciate this classic but the performance makes it worth listening to and definitely better than reading the book. Voices of Quixote and sancho ponza excellent - one of the best narrations I've heard

Complicated read in every war

Maybe because of the current climate or maybe it’s cause I’m Mexican but I didn’t find Don Quixote as lovable as I thought I was gonna. An old fool who wants to make things great again. Sounds bad to me. Also it was very interesting to see a satire of a culture long gone

Cannot believe how much I loved this

Would you listen to Don Quixote again? Why?

Probably not. It is VERY long.

What did you like best about this story?

Characters were unforgetable.

What about David Case’s performance did you like?

His voice renderings were brilliant and fully captured the personalities of each character. He must be a wonderful actor.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

This story could never be made into a movie that would do it justice.

Any additional comments?

I started listening to this as a "labor of love." I ended up looking forward to every minute of it and am sorry it is over.