I started out reading Don Quixote.  I mounted my trusty horse; had my faithful companion by my side; and I started out reading Don Quixote.  But I only got to the bit about the windmills.

I started out reading Don Quixote.  I mounted my trusty horse; had my faithful companion by my side; and I started out reading Don Quixote.  But I only got to the bit about the windmills.  And I don’t think that I am alone.  I’ve said it before, but no one who professes to have read Don Quixote ever talks about anything but the windmills.

I started out reading Don Quixote.  I mounted my trusty horse; had my faithful companion by my side; and I started out reading Don Quixote.  But I only got to the bit about the windmills.  Now the windmills appear at the start of chapter 8 of Don Quixote.  Most modern translations of Don Quixote divide the work up into two books, the first part consisting of 52 chapters and the second part consisting of 74 chapters; on this basis, the episode involving the windmills appears roughly one sixteenth of the way through the entire book.

I started out reading Don Quixote.  I mounted my trusty horse; had my faithful companion by my side; and I started out reading Don Quixote.  But I only got to the bit about the windmills.  I think the reason that I, like so many other readers of Don Quixote––even the ones who claim to have read the entire book––only manage to get one sixteenth of the way through, is because the novel is famously episodic.  One chapter starts out in much the same way as the next chapter; as the next chapter; as the one after that.

I started out reading Don Quixote.  I mounted my trusty horse; had my faithful companion by my side; and I started out reading Don Quixote.  But I only got to the bit about the windmills.  Reading Don Quixote is a bit like watching endless back-to-back episodes of The Fast Show.  Either you enjoy the repetition of the sketches––“Brilliant!”––or you don’t––“Oh, bugger.”

I started out reading Don Quixote.  I mounted my trusty horse; had my faithful companion by my side; and I started out reading Don Quixote.  But I only got to the bit about the windmills.

© Fergus Longfellow

Fergus Longfellow only got to the bit about the windmills.  Nice.