Reading Don Quixote Reading
Reading Fiction as an Antidote to the News and Social Media
The True History
“It is evident to me that every nation or language will have its translation of the book.”
- Sansón Carrasco, to Don Quixote,
in part 2 of the novel titled Don Quixote,
about another book called Don Quixote,
which happens to be part 1 of the novel Don Quixote
Don Quixote is one of the pillars of Western literature. It is one of the earliest novels, published in two parts (in 1605 and 1615). Here are some quotes from famous writers about Don Quixote and its author, Miguel de Cervantes:
Don Quixote is the first modern novel, perhaps the most eternal novel ever written and certainly the fountainhead of European and American fiction.
- Carlos FuentesCervantes is the founder of the Modern Era. … The novelist needs answer to no one but Cervantes.
- Milan KunderaIt can be said that all prose fiction is a variation on the theme of Don Quixote.
- Lionel Trilling
The story is basically this: a Spanish gentleman reads so many books of chivalry (tales about knights errant) that he “loses his mind” and believes all these fictional romances to be true. Then, he decides to “bring back” the practice of knight errantry, and christens himself “Don Quixote.” On his trusty steed Rocinante and with the help of Sancho Panza—a local peasant recruited to be his squire—and in the name of his true love Dulcinea of Toboso—a woman he has never met nor even seen—Don Quixote goes on adventures in which he misinterprets almost everything and everyone around him.
Some of his friends try to return him to sanity, but the best way to do so, they discover, is to play along with Don Quixote’s worldview, and even to invent lies of their own to get him to do what they want.
The priest (Don Quixote’s friend): “But isn’t it strange to see how easily this unfortunate gentleman believes all those inventions and lies simply because they are in the same style and manner as his foolish books?”
“It is,” said Cardenio, “and so unusual and out of the ordinary that I don’t know if anyone wanting to invent and fabricate such a story would have the wit to succeed” (257).
Of course, Cervantes invented and fabricated such a story, and its effects are still rippling out in literature and popular culture today. Why is it important to read Don Quixote? What does this 400-year-old book have to offer to our modern world?
You Are What You Read, or You Are What You Consume
And so, let it be said that this aforementioned gentleman spent his times of leisure
—which meant most of the year—
reading books of chivalry with so much devotion and enthusiasm
that he forgot almost completely about the hunt
and even about the administration of his estate;
and in his rash curiosity and folly he went so far as to sell acres of arable land
in order to buy books of chivalry to read,
and he brought as many of them as he could into his house. …
In short, our gentleman became so caught up in reading
that he spent his nights reading from dusk till dawn
and his days reading from sunrise to sunset,
and so with too little sleep and too much reading his brains dried up,
causing him to lose his mind.
His fantasy filled with everything he had read in his books,
enchantments as well as combats, battles, challenges, wounds, courtings, loves, torments,
and other impossible foolishness,
and he became so convinced in his imagination
of the truth of all the countless grandiloquent and false inventions he read
that for him no history in the world was truer.
This may seem like a cautionary tale for those of us who like to read. Read too much and your brain dries up. Read too much fiction, especially “fantastical” fiction, and you begin to believe it’s real.
But Don Quixote is not the only one who reads these tales of chivalry. His two friends, the priest and the barber in his hometown of La Mancha, also read books of chivalry (though admittedly not at his level of consumption). When these two, aided by Don Quixote’s niece and housekeeper, decide to empty his library of books of chivalry, destining them to a bonfire in the yard, they end up debating the merits of each book, and several volumes are saved from the flames because they model and encourage virtuous living.
Many other characters Don Quixote meets on his adventures also turn out to be well-versed in medieval romances and tales of knights errant. In this way, they are able to converse with him about chivalry and the legends of famous knights. However, many discussions turn from civil to violent when Don Quixote’s conversation partner says or implies that these stories are fictional. Don Quixote either gets angry and attacks his interlocutor, or lays out a logical argument for why these knights, such as Amadís and Roland and Lancelot, are real historical figures and their fantastical deeds historical facts.
Later in the novel, especially in Part 2, people begin to take advantage of Don Quixote’s belief in tales of chivalry. They convince Don Quixote of all sorts of things, because they dress it up (sometimes with elaborate actors, costumes, and props) in the language and tropes of stories of knight errantry.
So reading by itself is not the issue. There is something particular and peculiar to Don Quixote. He has “devotion and enthusiasm,” “curiosity and folly,” and what we might say today, “gullibility.” More importantly, he desires that these histories be true, and that enchanters and knights, giants and castles, exist in the land he inhabits. His desires shape his reading, so that when he reads, he confirms what he already believes. Today, we call this “confirmation bias.”
Other characters can read these tales for entertainment, knowing they are fictions. Don Quixote reads them as true histories, because that is what he desires them to be. In our culture of fast news, fake news, clickbait, conspiracy theories, advertisements, bluster, prejudice, sloganeering, and stereotypes, can we say otherwise?
Now there is desire, shaped by and shaping one’s reading. And there are the effects this has on worldview and action.
“I Imagine That Everything I Say Is True”
Since everything our adventurer thought, saw, or imagined
seemed to happen according to what he had read,
as soon as he saw the inn it appeared to be a castle
complete with four towers and spires of gleaming silver,
not to mention a drawbridge and deep moat
and all the other details depicted on such castles.
I had a seminary professor who often joked, “I don’t believe anything that isn’t true.” So true! And why would we believe in something if we didn’t think it was true? People say, “I’m just stating the facts. The facts don’t lie.” But we gravitate toward the facts we want to be true. And it’s all too easy to translate someone else’s opinion into our mind as fact.
The media we consume influence how we interpret the world around us—including how we pre-judge other people. When I get lost in Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts (often duplicate content), I usually start in an emotional state of relaxed entertainment. But if I watch for long enough, the algorithm subtly changes, and soon my head is filled with content that makes me afraid of other people; that makes me cynical about whether people or systems can change; that makes me angry about people being jerks; that fatigues my ability to show compassion. And then I feel gross. And then I feel depressed because I wasted my time consuming media that did not feed me—it force-fed me content that made me sick.
Now I go out into the world in that state—everything I see starts to match the content I consumed. I fear people unlike me that I see on the street or public transit. I’m wary of the “Other” in the store or my place of work. I assume that anyone who cuts me off in traffic is an entitled jerk. I’m envious of those who have more money or leisure time or friends or who go to fun events. I’m so tired of looking at sad, hungry, displaced people on my phone, that I feign distractedness so I can ignore a houseless person asking for money. I can’t save the whole world, so I can’t do anything.
“Everything [I] thought, saw, or imagined seemed to happen according to what [I] had read.” If you watch the news so you can find more monsters to hate, you’ll start seeing monsters everywhere.
When Don Quixote approaches his famous windmills and takes them to be giants he must slay, his new squire Sancho Panza warns him, saying, “Look your grace, … those things that appear over there aren’t giants but windmills, and what looks like their arms are the sails that are turned by the wind and make the grindstone move.”
To which Don Quixote responds: “It seems clear to me … that thou art not well-versed in the matter of adventures; these are giants.” Then he charges. The narrator goes on to say that “he was so convinced they were giants that he did not hear the shouts of his squire, Sancho, and could not see, though he was very close, what they really were.” His lance gets crushed in the windmill sail, he and his horse are lifted from the ground, and then he and his horse fall and are “very badly battered.”
When Sancho reprimands his master, Don Quixote replies:
“Be quiet, Sancho my friend. Matters of war, more than any others, are subject to continual change; moreover, I think, and therefore it is true, that the same Frestón the Wise [an enchanter] who stole my room and my books has turned these giants into windmills in order to deprive me of the glory of defeating them: such is the enmity he feels for me; but in the end, his evil arts will not prevail against the power of my virtuous sword.”
Despite seeing the windmills right in front of him for what they are, Don Quixote still stands by his view that these are giants, only enchanted by some sorcerer. He cannot let go of his view of the world. And so he invents wilder and wilder justifications for why things are not as he says they are. The theory of enchanters changing the appearances of people, places, and events becomes a recurrent excuse in Don Quixote’s adventures, so recurrent that it becomes a fact, a foundation upon which he builds ever more elaborate fantasies.
I’m sure you can think of someone you know who is like this. Someone whose worldview is completely different from yours, who doesn’t see “the facts” right in front of them, but believes conspiracy theories and misinterpretations until they have a warped understanding of reality. You can surely see this tendency in others. But can you see it in yourself? Would you admit it if you did? (What does your media consumption lead you toward: greater fear and self-righteousness or greater love and compassion?)
Reading Practices
When you fill your head with news, with op-eds, with political commentary, it can easily make you cynical and fearful, angry and self-righteous. We are so caught up in our time, in the tenuous now before the uncertain future, that it feels necessary to consume all the facts to have the “best” understanding of the world. We do, supposedly, live in the “Information Age.”
But as Qohelet, the author of Ecclesiastes, says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” The issues we face today are the same issues faced by our ancestors. It may feel like we’re making progress because our technology is sooooo advanced, and health and human rights and standard of living and agricultural yield are better than they used to be. (At least for some people more than others.)
But each generation must learn anew what it means to be human: to love, to suffer, to show kindness, to be a community, to welcome, to listen, to be humble.
The news won’t give you that. The news may keep you informed, but they make money from fear and anxiety and anger. Maybe laughter. Social media is a monster of its own, algorithms out of control distributing the most popular/profitable—not the most healthy or uplifting—content. If you want to find that content, you’ll have to hunt for it.
So how can each generation learn anew what it means to be human, to love, to suffer, to show kindness, to be a community, to welcome, to listen, to be humble? From each other, of course. But that’s for a different post. This post is about reading Don Quixote reading chivalric texts.
If you want to consume content about what it means to be human, read books, particularly fiction. But read poetry, too. Definitely read poetry. People are afraid of poetry, but you don’t have to read the hard stuff. There are poets writing masterful work that is also accessible. Read essays, memoir. But read more fiction.
Fiction is “made up,” “completely untrue” stories that just burst upon some writer’s imagination. But fiction isn’t about facts. Fiction is about exploring what it means to be human: to love, to suffer, etc., etc. It’s like a test run for ideas about how to live. Every story has some central (sometimes more than one) question or issue it’s dealing with. It puts a character into a situation where that issue becomes potent. The reader gets to experience that potent situation vicariously, and can—as has been shown in scientific studies—increase empathy for others (see, for example, Emil Zaki’s book, The War for Kindness, chapter 4; some of what is discussed below also comes from that chapter).
Fiction can lead to self-examination—do I act like that? Do I justify myself in the same way as this unlikeable character? Do I hold that view? I didn’t realize that could be the logical consequence of my belief.
Fiction can alter your behavior. In a study of the impacts of fiction on prison inmates, one participant, after reading about an alcoholic character who refuses to return to his favorite bar, decided that he could also stay sober like this character. Other studies showed that recidivism rates decreased when inmates were allowed to participate in reading and writing programs while in prison (see Zaki). (And people say the humanities are good for nothing!)
Fiction can help reduce intergroup conflict (again, see Zaki). Fiction can help readers to consider new perspectives and can reduce “out-group” prejudice.
Fiction can explore contemporary issues in an oblique way. An essay might address an issue head-on, but this could cause an opposed reader to shut down, to poke holes, to read inhospitably. But fiction, by focusing on how a character’s story intersects with that issue, can lead to more openness for a reader. (Of course, essay can do this, too; and fiction can sometimes be too on-the-nose.)
A Case for Reading More Fiction
Don Quixote reads too many books and believes he is bringing chivalry back. But while his reading has led to a warped worldview, he is actually in his right mind most of the time—many of the other characters say so. He can discourse wisely and kindly on a variety of topics, but when it comes to tales of knights errant, he himself is “errant.”
But what is the effect of his warpedness? Is it greater fear, anger, envy, self-righteousness, greed, lust? No (except maybe for self-righteousness; and he does tend to have a temper, but this is not a result of his reading—it is just his temperament).
On the contrary, his reading leads him to “noble” deeds and attitudes. Yes, he mistakes an inn for a castle—but does this not honor the inn as a place of great worth? Yes, he calls two prostitutes “highborn maidens”, but does he not honor their dignity in so doing? Yes, he causes property damage and—sometimes—physical harm to those he thinks are his enemies, but he is more often defeated, beaten, humbled, humiliated. And still he pursues his noble quest to do a deed of such greatness that he will earn the love and devotion of his Lady Dulcinea.
Don Quixote is a complicated figure trying to make sense of the world, and trying to do right by his beliefs. His inordinate reading has made it so that “in his imagination he saw what he did not see and what was not there.” But his reading has also guided him into living a “virtuous life,” with noble ideals and a compassionate sense of justice. He runs into problems when, instead of applying only the virtues in his life, he also seeks to imitate the particulars of those chivalric books. But still he tries to live by those virtues.
His reading has showed him what it means to be human: to love, to suffer, to offer kindness, to work justice. When we read fiction, we can encounter the same.
In our world, we need more people reading fiction. When we read too much news, and especially too many viral social media posts, we add to the world’s anxiety and fear. There are certainly things to be anxious about and afraid of. But these are not new. There is nothing new under the sun. In fiction, these fears and anxieties are presented again and again, each story with its own take, its own possibility for how to cope, to overcome, to embrace hope in the face of inevitable suffering.
What I like about fiction is that it has been around for centuries, for millennia. Humans are natural storytellers. What stories offer is insight into what it means to be human. So if you read a story a thousand years old, it’s going to feel relevant (to some degree) to your life, because it’s ultimately about the human experience. Why do you think religious texts have survived so long? It’s not because people are blinded by faith. It’s because there is something in those texts that remains relevant, resonant in each generation.
I wrote in an early Substack post about (quoting Robinson Jeffers) “the honey of peace in old poems.” I think what I wrote there is relevant here as well:
While contemporary poetry can be powerful, there is something especially comforting about the words of those writers who are long dead. They have no stake in our well-being. They aren’t trying to be marketable or relevant or informed by the latest research. They wrote in their time and culture, according to their particularities. They wrote how it was for them. They do not fear our sorrows. They do not try to control or explain our grief. They do not try to force our healing. They are dead. Their words remain, their poems remain.
Dead poets are not writing for me. They first and foremost write for themselves, making art of their own experiences and epiphanies. However, good poems reach beyond the personal experience of the writer and connect with our common humanity. I explored this connection at length in my post “The Tourist and the Artist.” I wrote there that “the work of the writer is to recognize and articulate a common humanity through the particularity of their own experience. A reader can then find in the text that’s written … a connection to their own particular experience.” What has survived may be valuable, helpful, comforting—or not. It is up to us, the readers, what “honey of peace” we find in the words of the dead.
The dead wrote in their own time, under the burden of their own issues. Yet their words can speak to the human condition in ways more “truthful” than our contemporaries. And that truth they write about—whether fiction, essay, drama, poem, etc.—can be a balm, a “honey” to us now.
Read Don Quixote, I recommend it. It is quite long. If you want something shorter, try Moby Dick. Or Eugene Vodolazkin, Laurus. Shorter you say? Try Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek. George Saunders, Tenth of December. Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic. James Baldwin, Going To Meet the Man. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (even a monster tale can tell us what it means to be human: to love, to suffer, etc.).
Let me know what fictions have made an impact in your life. What fiction has deepened your empathy / understanding, has widened the circumference of your compassion? What fiction has, to use a worn but useful phrase, “changed your life”?