Make a quick post here as a head count.

Me, Saffron.

Me too

Me, three. Ha!

Moi, aussi, as soon as I get my hands on the book, hopefully within a week or so, sorry I can't promise for it to be sooner. Money's a bit tight, as I'm sure everyone understands.

I am currently reading it. I'll be sailing in about 3 weeks so will be away from the internet quite a bit but I'll try to keep up. Very enjoyable, especially when you get into the second book and have come to know Sancho and Quixote better; kind of like how we got to know the Seinfeld characters better as the seasons progressed.

I do, but I will read Musicphilia first.

Is Don Quixote the guy with the big nose?

Dear Chris and other readers

I'm up to chapter seven in Don Quixote. I would like to lead the discussion on this book if you like.

It is racy and unputdownable. The Man of La Mancha is a valiant mad knight fighting for the lost imaginary world of heraldry and nobility, one hundred years after Columbus found America and just as Galileo worked out the solar system. Cervantes is a brilliant genius, satirising the remnants of medieval thinking in the new modern world.

Robert

Robert, you'd be great as a discussion leader. I'll add your name right now.

Me too! Or shall I say yo también? Luckily, tilting at windmills is a favorite activity of mine

I've read bits of this in Spanish, but I think it will be much more fun to read it straight through in my native language.

I still only count as one head but I got the book today, so I'll be able to start reading much sooner than I originally anticipated.

Musicophilia and Don Quixote here we go...whoo hoo!!

Chris, you're thinking of Cyrano de Bergerac.

Or Steve Martin in Roxanne, which is a modern adaptation of Cyrano.

Both excellent entertainment.

or Baron Munchausen maybe?

Don Quixote has my sympathy. Sent mad by reading too many fictitious old books, he stands as the embodiment of chivalrous virtue (except for his murderous actions) in an age of squalor.

His "none shall pass" caper reveals itself as the template for Monty Python's Black Knight in the Quest for the Holy Grail.

Cervantes kindly points out that his writing method, improving an Arabic text of unknown provenance, shares much with the chronicles of chivalry. We might note his method shares much with older texts as well, such as the Bible, that are also reputed to be history, and that have as much claim to be fact as the celebrated Man of La Mancha.

Cervantes takes the opportunity of his entertaining buffoonery to satirise the entire courtly world of Holy Spain, safe in the modern confidence that his deft style can deflect any claims of impiety and other unwelcome attention from censors and critics.