It is a curious paradox that while the two volumes of Don Quixote have been described as the "best novel of all time" and the "best and most central work in world literature", the many episodes that make up the plot of this long work often prove to remarkably silly or sentimental, and occasionally lapse into riotous slapstick. But then, how liberating — for much of the fun of reading or listening to Don Quixote lies in discovering just how near we are in spirit to the audience who first enjoyed this novel in the early years of the seventeenth century. The novel's plot centres on a minor nobleman who, having read as literally true a great many books on knight-errantry, decides that he, too, must become a knight-errant seeking adventures, and who recruits as his squire a local labourer called Sancho Panza. The two set off, and many an "adventure" do they share indeed — though how many of these "adventures" amount to exercises in true knight-errantry, the reader will have to decide. The two volumes of this novel were originally published in 1605 and 1615. The translation is by John Ormsby. - Summary by Peter Dann

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