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Don Quixote | 
 enlarge | Author: Miguel De Cervantes
Creator: Edith Grossman
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $5.39
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Rating:  81 reviews
Sales Rank: 7510
Media: Paperback
Pages: 992
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5 x 1.8
ISBN: 0060934344
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780060934347
ASIN: 0060934344
Publication Date: May 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Moderate wear, tight binding, Good - A book that shows more general signs of wear. The spine may be cracked or pages may have yellowed. This book may also contain markings or highlighting.
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Product Description
Edith Grossman's definitive English translation of the Spanish masterpiece. Widely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. You haven't experienced Don Quixote in English until you've read this masterful translation. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 76 more reviews...
 Faulkner's Favorite November 4, 2003
299 out of 309 found this review helpful
Faulkner said Don Quixote was his favorite book and that, along with The Bible, he dipped into it yearly. I'm not sure what Cervantes would have made of some of Faulkner's more troublesome work, but the world has designated Don Quixote the Father of the Modern Novel and perhaps the greatest novel ever. I'm a fan of this book and a habitual (some would say neurotic) comparer of translations. Since I don't read of speak Spanish, I have to rely on the English translations that have been published. There are three that are worthwhile: Ormsby's, Samuel Putnam's and now Edith Grossman's. Grossman, who is the translator of Garcia Marquez's books into English, has produced a translation that's contemporary and authentic--somehow, not an oxymoron. It has a fresher feel than Putnam's (the translation Nabokov used when teaching the book), though I wouldn't say it supplants Putnam. If you're looking for a copy of Don Quixote in English, Grossman's translation is a good first choice. She manages to maintain the feel of the language Cervantes wrote in (as far as I can tell) yet her translation, as the NY Times reviewer noted, is as readable as the latest novel from Philip Roth. You can't go wrong with Putnam or Grossman, but on this one, I have to give the nod to Grossman.
 Which New Translation to Choose? March 22, 2005
davenport47
151 out of 157 found this review helpful
Edith Grossman's is the hot new translation, but there may be a tendency to confer too much praise on a fresh reading. From what I have sampled, I have no doubt of Grossman's excellence, but this is not the "definitive" DQ (no one's is), and frankly, after some comparison of the early chapters, I've decided to spend my time with Burton Raffel's translation, now only a decade old. Raffel sometimes opts for a colloquial word or two, but it's never jarring, and his overall style seems not only less pretentious to me than Grossman's, but a superior combination of a modern reading with a traditional "tone." Tone and style are important, and Raffel sometimes makes Grossman seem too abstract or fussy, though this is difficult to describe. Raffel's phrasing is more focused and vigorous than Grossman's--though both are said to be accurate. Let me offer a couple of examples that shifted me toward Raffel:
Grossman:
"Some claim that his family name was Quixada, or Quexada, for there is a certain amount of disagreement among the authors who write of this matter, although reliable conjecture seems to indicate that his name was Quexana. But this does not matter very much to our story; in its telling there is absolutely no deviation from the truth."
Raffel:
"It's said his family name was Quijada, or maybe Quesada: there's some disagreement among the writers who've discussed the matter. But more than likely his name was really Quejana. Not that this makes much difference in our story; it's just important to tell things as faithfully as you can."
(Notice how Raffel makes immediately clear in the last sentence what Grossman so literally translates.)
Grossman:
"His fantasy filled with everything he had read in his books, enchantments as well as combats, battles, challenges, wounds, courtings, loves, torments, and other impossible foolishness, and he became so convinced in his imagination of the truth of all the countless grandiloquent and false inventions he read that for him no history in the world was truer. He would say that El Cid Ruy Diaz had been a very good knight but could not compare to Amadis, the Knight of the Blazing Sword, who with a single backstroke cut two ferocious and colossal giants in half."
Raffel:
"He filled his imagination full to bursting with everything he read in his books, from witchcraft to duels, battles, challenges, wounds, flirtations, love affairs, anguish, and impossible foolishness, packing it all so firmly into his head that these sensational schemes and dreams became the literal truth and, as far as he was concerned, there were no more certain histories anywhere on earth. He'd explain that Cid Ruy Diaz had been a very good knight, but simply couldn't be compared to the Knight of the Flaming Sword, who with one backhand stroke had cut in half two huge, fierce giants."
Notice that Grossman is rather fussy-sounding in the phrase: "countless grandiloquent and false inventions he read that for him no history in the world was truer." Compare with Raffel, who always seems to solve little problems like this with charm, precision, and even a little wry swagger that's so appropriate to Cervantes' intent. So my advice is to seek out both of these new translations and spend a little time with each before deciding. Don't take others' opinions that Grossman's has superseded Raffel's. Grossman avoids some of the more colloquial English one may find in Raffel, and this may please snobs, but the accuracy of Raffel's translation is not in question, and overall he seems to me to have done the best job.
Quintessential Masterpiece of European Literature November 3, 2003
Adam Dukovich (Roseville, CA United States)
118 out of 127 found this review helpful
I have read this book both in English and Spanish, and I can honestly say that it loses very little of its power, wit or message in translation. For all those who have considered reading this book, here are a few good reasons: this book is a very nuanced look at escapism and identity, a wonderful parody of knight stories, along with being a rousing (and very funny) adventure centering around the titular hero, a man who reads one too many books about knighthood and chivalry and decides to become a knight-errant himself. After recruiting a sidekick and choosing a lady to woo per narrative convention, he sets out to conquer the forces of evil, which include, among other things, giant windmills and rogue "knights". Cervantes' insight and ability to parody were both ahead of his time, and in a time where escapism and voyeurism are well and thriving, it is not difficult to imagine someone watching too many TV shows and believing they're a wild west outlaw or what-have-you. A very fascinating experience, and it works well in any language. Highly recommended.
A matter of taste November 14, 2003
Gulley Jimson (Bethesda, MD)
35 out of 36 found this review helpful
This is a wonderful translation. I first read Quixote seriously in the Putnam, and was completely swept away by it - the prose was just as readable as it is here, and Putnam communicated a love for the text in his notes (as well as a hatred for the translators that had butchered it before) that was a nice accompaniment to the actual story.Grossman's language is smoother, and I suppose Putnam's prose does have the dust of fifty odd years on it - but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't mind if an old book reads a bit like an old book: slightly dated English gives a book a certain flavor. I like Putnam for the same reason I enjoy Maude's translations of Tolstoy. Grossman does write a better sentence, I think, and she certainly doesn't make the book any more colloquial than Cervantes did - although I was annoyed at her constantly having Sancho say Wassup. Putnam's Quixote, incidentally, is filled with notes: more notes than most people who aren't scholars will want. Every one of Sancho's proverbs is explained (and those aren't exactly the comic high point of the book, either) and he constantly takes potshots at Motteux and other translations, a la Nabokov when he translated A Hero of Our Time. They're sort of funny, but eventually you want him to get out of the way of Quixote, which is what one actually wants to read - not the translator's thoughts. But then again: a note can easily be skipped, and it's nice to have the extensive information that Putnam packs in, about the historical situation in Spain, potential variant readings of a passage, all the brouhaha about the fake second half of Don Quixote that actually ends up having a part in the book - and lots of other stuff. Still, a good translation of a book that can be read a hundred times in a hundred different ways is always worthwhile. Don Quixote truly never stops being funny or sad (especially when you know which parts can be skipped the second and third time around) - people who expect a dreary classic will be surprised to find an author that is as relevant today as he ever was. (Kidding about the Wassup.)
 Looking for a Counterpoint? March 20, 2005
Joe Felice (NYC, and elsewhere)
29 out of 76 found this review helpful
[Edit: As you can see this review is unpopular. What sucks is there's no way to know if they're voting to defend a book they love or they find my review inappropriate or confusing independent of the opinion it advances. I'm inclined toward the former, but afraid of the latter.]
At the risk of rousing the sycophant's ire, there are some things you should know about this book.
It's not like most old books that make it all the way to present-day. It's not difficult; it's not dense. It's simple, repetitive and often cute. There are funny moments, and there are interesting, dramatic moments, which together would make a great, rewarding 1 or 200 page book. The scene where the man fakes his own mortal wounding to win the marriage of his love is fantastic. But there are more consistently impressive sources of melodrama out there, like Dostoevsky.
I can't tell you why this book is so beloved by so many exceptional writers of greater complexity. You'll hear people justify the crudeness of this book as the progenitor of a form we only know in its derivative. I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. Clowns are eternal. Buddy stories are eternal. I have 2 alternatives if you want a great clown experience. For dense readers, Moby Dick is the hilarious story of a clown who ends up on a whaling ship. Ishmael is not dark, he's a buffoon. For lighter fare, try Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry. It's a play/comic book from 1896 that started the avant-garde movement.
Edith Grossman's style as a translator is more like the older school that doesn't want to interrupt the reader's communion with the story. It's different from, say, Pevear & Volokhonsky's recent translations of Russian lit, or D.J. Enright's reworking of Proust, which respect the readers by informing us more often of instances where no single English phrase can fully capture the original. I don't understand what turns some folks off when they see a bunch of footnotes--I want to understand the pull the translator feels. (In fairness, I am an editor.)
If you do dive into Quixote, good luck, I hope you're of a different mind than me, and remember that there is no shame in quitting after part 1. Part 2 is really a different book that was published later and adds little to what good storytelling there is in part 1.
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