Don Quixote

Have you ever read Ulysses, Tristram Shandy or Moby Dick? I've managed to get through a couple of these literary classics but, more usually, I grind through the first twenty or so pages, skip a few pages, try a few more chapters and eventually give up. Classics they may be but the style is so ponderous or distant that they just don't do it for me.

After our trip to Castilla la Mancha I was reminded of Don Quixote which I did read when I was young. I can still remember that dread almost of ploughing through it, a few pages each evening until boredom set in.

I still have the same copy, pages browned at the edges now but useable enough. 940 pages including the introductions. And I read it, and what's more I enjoyed it. I was amazed.

My dad once commented on my liking for the bitter lemon sweets. "You won't like those when you're older, your tastes will change." He was wrong about the sweets, they're still one of my favourites but maybe he would have been right if he'd talked about tastes in literature.

I don't think I'll bother with the re-read of El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel Cervantes Saavedra in the original Castillian though!