Lectures on Don Quixote (1983)

A good accompaniment to Don Quixote, marred only by Nabokov's less-than-complete love for the novel. It is six lectures he gave at Harvard that ranges from more conventional discussion to more novel presentations, like a scorecard that goes through the 40 "battles" in the book, classifies them into different types, and calls each one a win or a loss. Turns out the final score was 20-20.

Nabokov might be right that the novel would have been even better if Don Quixote's final combat was with the false Don Quixote from the false Part Two that wasn't written by Cervantes. Oh well. ( )

I hate to say this, but I recommend reading this over actually reading Cervantes' Don Quixote (which admittedly I could not finish). Don Quixote is probably one of those books that should be talked about but not read. Nabokov's account and criticisms are enjoyable enough, and it saves you the pain of plodding through Cervantes' original work. ( )