Quichotte

A Novel

By: Salman Rushdie

Narrated by: Vikas Adam

Length: 16 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER

An epic Don Quixote for the modern age, “a brilliant, funny, world-encompassing wonder” (Time) from internationally best-selling author Salman Rushdie 

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 

“Lovely, unsentimental, heart-affirming...a remembrance of what holds our human lives in some equilibrium - a way of feeling and a way of telling. Love and language.” (Jeanette Winterson, The New York Times Book Review) 

Named One of The Best Books of The Year by Time and NPR 

Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where “Anything-Can-Happen.” Meanwhile his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own.

Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirize the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the listener on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of Rushdie's work, the fully realized lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction.

Praise for Quichotte

“Brilliant...a perfect fit for a moment of transcontinental derangement.” (Financial Times)

“Quichotte is one of the cleverest, most enjoyable metafictional capers this side of postmodernism.... The narration is fleet of foot, always one step ahead of the reader - somewhere between a pinball machine and a three-dimensional game of snakes and ladders.... This novel can fly, it can float, it’s anecdotal, effervescent, charming, and a jolly good story to boot.” (The Sunday Times) 

“Quichotte [is] an updating of Cervantes’ story that proves to be an equally complicated literary encounter, jumbling together a chivalric quest, a satire on Trump’s America and a whole lot of postmodern playfulness in a novel that is as sharp as a flick-knife and as clever as a barrel of monkeys.... This is a novel that feeds the heart while it fills the mind.” (The Times, UK) 

©2019 Salman Rushdie (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic Reviews

“Rushdie weaves together all of his subjects, sharply observed, with extraordinary elegance and wit.... Cervantes’s hero, who is eternally modern perhaps because he is essentially anti-contemporary, couldn’t be a more inspired transplant into the mad reality of the present day, which Rushdie sends up in terms both universal and highly specific, tragic and hilarious, strange but hauntingly familiar.... At least here’s something worth reading as civilization crumbles around us, before we succumb to our fates. Right?” (Entertainment Weekly)  

“Quichotte is a novel that attempts to reflect back to us the total, crumbling insanity of living in a world unmoored from reality - that shows what happens when lies become as good as facts.... And if Quichotte drives you nuts, that’s fine. It’s meant to. It’s layered in such a way that you will lose yourself in the shifting reality of it.” (NPR) 

“Quichotte, Rushdie’s Trump-era reworking of Cervantes’s Don Quixote, is a frantically inventive take on ‘the Age of Anything-Can-Happen’ we’ve endured these last few years. It’s a concoction of narratives within narratives that blends the latest news headlines with apocalyptic flights of fancy.... Rushdie doesn’t offer much hope for our dispiriting times. But in a frayed and feverish way, he captures their flavor exactly.” (The Boston Globe) 

The Best Narration I have Ever Heard

First, a word about Vikas Adam, the Audible narrator of this fascinating book. It is the best narration of the 134 Audible books I have heard. He has a remarkable way of giving voice to multiple characters (male and female) speaking mostly English with accents of Hindi (what Mr. Rushdie calls Southern Asia), England, Italy and various American inflections including New York, California and rural middle America. I have no idea how he does it, but he is a genius and the Audible book is worth a listen just for his skills.
Mr. Rushdie’s is one of the world’s great English writers and this book blends so many themes not the least of which is Cervantes’ Don Quixote which after the Bible is the most translated book in the world. Like Don Quixote it follows a man driven by the impossible: a love of a woman he has never met but whom he sees on television. She is an Indian Oprah Winfrey who has become famous in the United States after a quixotic life in India. The characters are numerous and memorable, some imagined, and some brought to life from nothing. The story weaves from the story’s characters to the author/creator of the characters, his life and beyond. It is a wonderful journey, unique and in many ways. The story sometimes mirrors Mr. Rushdie’s life and experiences. At many times one wonders where he is going and why, but that is the point. It is at times funny, frustrating and overly complex, but Mr. Rushdie’s style is always wondrous and delightful. It is well worth the trip.

Tough to follow, closes strong

I think this would be best read and not listened to. Although I will say that the narration is really, really good on this novel.

That said, I had a lot of trouble following the story line and the character building in the early part. The last third of the book is much more engaging and drama-filled and I did not feel cheated at the end,

This was my first Rushdie book and I was left unimpressed overall. I would strongly recommend a physical book and/or Kindle version.

Wonderful fantasy

Classic Rushdie. Magical realism but with that underlying sadness and longing that he has in all his books. Vijay Adam’s performance is magnificent. He has an uncanny ability to give each character a distinctive voice.

Five Stars Re Not Enough

I’ve put off reviewing this book since I finished it a week ago. That is because I don’t have the reviewing skills to do it justice. So let me just say that was far and away my favorite bo

excellent story! great science fiction....

I loved the story and it was fantastic and the narrator was superb.. love it... love all the characters...
I was really hesitant to buy it because some of the reviews were not so good and critical about the story line. However all said that the narrator was superb. I was glad I gave it shot. love the ending...Great job all around...

Different levels of reality

A novel has different levels of reality. The level of the reader, that of the novelist, that of the characters. In this case, the logically central character is also a novelist, who created the title character. Quichotte himself also creates a character, who knows Quichotte, but suspects the other levels. This character also has a sort of Jimeny Cricket character who might be in on the whole scheme.

Interesting plays as it all works out, with the stories intertwining. If they hook up with Rushdie's own story, he isn't telling.

I found the ending a little abrupt.

My first Salman Rushdie. I am hooked!

Quichotte was the first book that I have read by Salman Rushdie. Whimsical, magical, and just fun. Fly with him on his magic carpet of imagination and explore the world through current as well as historical eyes makes it overall fun to read.
The story weaves between truth and life, which can be quite bleak, and the story that the writer is writing within the story, which carries contemporary culture and the problems of the world with sweet-natured escapism.
I loved the book and now must go and purchase some of his others.

A fantastic Don Q for the 21st century.

Rushdie demonstrates that he is a brilliant reader of Cervantes, a maze of broken stories, the blur of reality and fiction, the play between popular culture and high literature. Every word is a gem. But the performance of Vikas Adam is also outstanding, playing characters and accents like a master, I love his Italian Beppe Grillo. Not to be missed!

Still delivers the goods...

Rushdie delivers again with wonderful dialog, vibrant fleshed-out characters, and surprises until the end. I quite enjoyed it!

Quichotte

Excellent book!An author is writing a book that mirrors his life.Which is real?Rushdie weaves worlds together and apart in this story of immagrants in NY.Brown people being harrassed,a ham faced tyrant and other topical things from the news.I loved it!Excellent narration too!