Don Quixote by Cervantes

This is the first book I purchased with my new audible.com subscription.  I thought it would be a good choice for audio because I've already tried to read it and found it way too long-winded to hold my attention.  I always wanted to read it though, because of its reputation and importance in the history of literature.

Don Quixote was originally published in two parts in the 1600s.  It tells the story of Don Quixote, a dude who decides to be a knight, and his squire Sancho Panza, and all the wacky situations they get themselves into.

The narrator (the reader of the audiobook) actually brings a lot to this - DQ is really funny at times, a fact which was less apparent to me in reading it, and I think it had a lot to do with the voices he chose for the characters and his own accent.  It had me feeling like I was listening to a 40-hour episode of Monty Python.  Also, I was able to focus on the humor of the story since I didn't feel like I was wasting my life reading unnecessary flowery phrases.

So, once I got into it I realized that DQ is really entertaining.  Some of the jokes seemed a bit old and cheesy but this book is about 400 years old and had a huge influence over subsequent media, so of course I wasn't going to see something new.

Beyond the comedy, I really enjoyed the relationship between DQ and Sancho and the way it changes over time.  These two characters are very well developed and we see both their goodness and asshattery.

The end was a little disappointing, somehow I expected a little better end for such a well-crafted story, but considering that it's about 2% of the book I can easily forgive it.

All in all I'm glad I finally finished the book, but it's definitely not for the faint of heart, and I won't be reading it again.