Review: Don Quixote is as Senile as Biden (or Maybe It’s the Other Way Around) (Spoilers)

Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an overstatement, but just take a moment to think about it. Both Don Quixote and Biden are two old, senile dudes who don’t know where they are, the only difference being that one is at least strong enough to wear armor and fight people and can form a sentence without a teleprompter while the other would probably die if you put him in armor. After reading this book for school, I can assure everyone that it absolutely deserves its place as the second-best book in the world.

#1: The Comedy

If you’re a fan of laughing at stories of people getting physically hurt, Don Quixote is for you. Almost every chapter involves someone getting hurt. While in some chapters, this pain is not meant to be funny, in other chapters, it’s absolutely supposed to make you laugh and it succeeds at it.

However, the comedy doesn’t just stay at slapstick, as most of it comes from how senile Quixote is. He runs around thinking ordinary things are actually mythical beasts (for example: the windmill incident) and what happens as a consequence of it is often just as ridiculous as the delusion. There’s a lot to laugh at and the comedy holds up well even 400 years after it was written.

#2: Justice for Sancho

Sancho Panza is Don Quixote’s loyal sidekick who decided to join Quixote’s journey for glory because he was promised treasures and titles. Why would this dude fall for the promises of a knight wearing a wooden visor who everyone knew to be the town maniac? I don’t know, but he doesn’t get paid nearly enough for it. While he does eventually become the governor of a town for a bit before deciding to join Quixote once more on his adventures, that’s still a far cry from the governorship of an island that he was promised.

Justice for Sancho!

#3: The Love Story

When I talk about the love story in Don Quixote, I’m not talking about Quixote’s obsession with Dulcinea. That’s not really a love story and is more of a creepy obsession with his imaginary girlfriend.

No, no. I’m talking about the real love story: the story of Cardenio and Lucinda, the two lovers separated by many misunderstandings and brought together by some more zany antics. Lucinda’s backstory is that she loved Cardenio, but her parents forced her into marrying his friend Don Fernando, who she didn’t really love. She was later essentially raped by Fernando, which lead to her running away into the middle of nowhere to get away from everyone, where she would later by chance meet her true love. She and Don Fernando break up and she eventually gets married to Cardenio, all thanks to Quixote’s madness. It’s a sad, but happy story and you are cheering when the two lovers finally get back together.

#4: Moral of the Story

The moral of Don Quixote is: Don’t try to fight imaginary monsters. Not only will it not turn out for you, but it might not turn out well for the people around you.

Until next time,

M.J.