Don Quixotes Delusions: Travels in Castilian Spain [Hardcover]

Miranda France (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2002

Miranda France is a travel writer-cum-literary critic with an unsparingly truthful and delightfully absurd voice. "She has a wonderfully quick and vivid eye for convincing detail," said Christopher House in The Spectator. Her new book tells us about Spain by juxtaposing Cervantes's life and his character's adventures with the author's own delightful anecdotes, incomparable characters, and insightful observations.

At the heart of Miranda France's utterly engaging book are two very different visits to Spain, set ten years apart. In 1987, the author spent her student year in Madrid-when post-Franco ebullience was at its height and pornography and soft drugs were legalized, along with divorce, party-affiliation, and kissing in the street. A return trip to central Spain, taken in 1998, shows France that much has changed in the country, but also that much has endured. An incomparable cast of real-life characters, along with France's compelling investigations of the world's first novel, Cervantes's Don Quixote-published in 1605 and, the author finds out, the most translated book after the Bible-reveal much about the identity of modern Spain and its people.

"Miranda France is an adroit narrator, with an eye for deft character sketches and an instinctive tendency to see the funny side of everything. . . Don Quixote's Delusions is a sophisticated, multi-layered book." (Sunday Times [of London])

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Perhaps it is fitting that all is not what it appears to be in this travel ode to Spain and its best-loved fictional character, Don Quixote, the titular subject of Cervantes's 1605 novel. At first, France (Bad Times in Buenos Aires) seems poised to write about the continuing importance of Quixote in modern-day Spain. However, when the author sets up a return to Madrid after living there as a student in 1987, a time comparison looms large. Both themes crash in a very shaky beginning. When establishing her story, France repeats details that might be considered lurid (the brothel across the street, the junkies in the doorway) and forsakes essentials: Who is she and why is she so taken with Don Quixote and Spain? France drops hints, but they are wholly unsatisfying (e.g., "My university studies demanded that I spend a year in Spain and I had chosen the capital, where I knew no one"). "Things seemed not to have changed much in the intervening years," she writes, without revealing how many years had intervened. Two years? Twelve years? The first clue comes three pages later, in this ungainly sentence: "The house was a wreck when we lived in it, and ten years on it had become more desperate." France doesn't hit her stride until chapter six; from there on out, both style and substance shine. France reflects on a few highlights of Spain's political and social history; she cross-references these with various interpretations of Don Quixote. Spaced out over several chapters, France's overview of what is often cited as the world's first novel is excellent and functions equally well as a refresher or introduction. Throughout, France recalls life as a 20-year-old in Madrid amid a rich cast of characters, from her incredibly beautiful roommate, Carmen, to her lover, a Peruvian revolutionary. France's passion and curiosity for her subjects are contagious, and in the end she proves she is clearly up to the task.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

British-born France (Bad Times in Buenos Aires) spent time as a student in central Spain in 1987 when the post-Franco euphoria was at its height and returned some ten years later to see whether much has changed in the country. Using Spain's greatest literary masterpiece, Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605), as a springboard to discuss the Spanish character and way of life, France contrasts the adventures of Cervantes's characters with her own to present a compelling portrait awash with frank observations of the people she met and the cities and villages she visited on both journeys. In the end, France concludes that although much has indeed changed in Spain since her first visit, much has also remained the same. Readers come away with a better understanding of Spanish civilization as well as the distinct style, origin, and inevitable cultural impact of Cervantes's masterpiece. Although not scholarly in tone, this travelog belongs in academic as well as public libraries because of its literary character and its focus on the novel itself. George M. Jenks, Bucknell Univ., Lewisburg, PA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (August 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585672920
• ISBN-13: 978-1585672929
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,432,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fails to tilt my windmill, October 8, 2002

By 

Jonathan Lemon (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Don Quixotes Delusions: Travels in Castilian Spain (Hardcover)

Quixote aficionados breed an unquestioned loyalty to their hero. Cervantes' novel is justifiably the most translated and printed book after the bible and indeed, adherents like myself will re-read our much-thumbed tomes on a regular basis in awe.

Thus I was giddily looking forward to this book. So giddy in fact that I failed to notice that it wasn't--as I was expecting--an informative travelogue or daring adventure retracing the step of the Knight of Sorrowful Countenance through Castilian Spain. Nor that of his originator Cervantes (who lived an equally, if not more fantastic existence than his literary creation), but a rather turgid and woeful and self-indulgent account of the author's student year abroad in Madrid. Sadly she doesn't come within even a lance thrust of a windmill.

Interspersed like filler are quixotic minutiae, scholarly summaries, historical data and literary references about Cervantes, Quixote and ninetieth century Spain in addition to the alleged Quixotic nature of modern day Madrid, the latter almost exclusively in the form of quotes from the authors body of acquaintances. The lurching back and forth between this factual and admittedly well-researched Quixote trivia to banal and meaningless memories about meeting Basque separatists in Tapas bars is really disconcerting. Several pages are taken up paraphrasing some choice passages from the novel or quoting verbatim (from the inferior Cohen translation - Samuel Putnum's version is the definitive English language version) with no apparent context.

Miranda France comes across as a prudish conservative English woman and gullible to any half-truth or rumor in order to dramatize it in prose and spice up her mundane middle-class existence. Her long-gone student leftist viewpoint can apparently now be attributed to youthful indiscretion. Indeed it comes off as a glib when she joins a street demonstration hoping to get "some exercise and a good tan". Her glee in "slumming it" with the unfortunate Madrileño low-life is just plain embarrassing and patronizing. She rarely seems to personally interact with anyone and her translation blunders like "Coño a Spanish word that refers to the female genitalia" add to the general awfulness of the book. Her student memories are for the most part remembered apocryphally; maybe even dare I say delusional. Although this is entirely within the spirit of a Quixote book this missed opportunity is quite a quixotic disappointment.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars La ruta de Quijote, October 14, 2002

By 

Jonathan Lemon (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Don Quixotes Delusions: Travels in Castilian Spain (Hardcover)

Two highly recommended by hard to find books that do actually trace the Don Quijote trail are:

"On the trail of Don Quixote : being a record of rambles in the ancient province of La Mancha" by Augusto Floriano Jaccaci

"Through Spain with Don Quixote" by Rupert Croft-Cooke

5.0 out of 5 stars A Stunning Synthesis of Experience & Culture, April 4, 2003

By 

True Independent (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Don Quixotes Delusions: Travels in Castilian Spain (Hardcover)

Miranda France achieves an elusive task in this travel narrative. She blends a keen cultural analytic eye with an awareness of the history of a great work of literature and with her own present-day experience. The result is a work which provides a unique and vital insight into the evolution of Spanish society in the last two decades of the twentieth century, from an outsider's point of view. The author also travels adroitly between commentary on sweeping cultural narratives and the gritty everyday reality of the younger generation. It's a necessary read for anyone interested in knowing more about the quixotic character that is proudly embraced by many Spaniards and the evolution of contemporary reality in the post-fascist democratic era.