Don Quixote (Ignatius Critical Editions)

In the view of the great Russian novelist Dostoyevsky, Don Quixote was the “most perfect . . . of all the beautiful individuals in Christian literature”, adding that “he is beautiful only because he is ridiculous.” He then gets to the mystical and mysterious heart of the novel: “Wherever compassion toward ridiculed and ingenious beauty is presented, the reader’s sympathy is aroused. The mystery of humor lies in this excitation of compassion.” Quixote’s transparent goodness, his lack of guile, and his noble simplicity make him an object of ridicule in the eyes of the cynically worldly and yet evoke sympathy in those who admire his virtue and see something akin to wisdom in his innocence. It is in this light that we should read Don Quixote, seeing its protagonist as a holy fool with whom we should sympathize, even when he is at his most ridiculous.