I recently finished the book after about four weeks of sustained readings. While I am already reading something new -- Dostoevsky's The Idiot --, Don Quixote has stayed with me more than I expected it would. The book had almost no imagery, and prior to the last two hundred pages, there was no character development. Of course, the lack of character development was the source of much of the comedy and tragedy: neither Don Quixote nor Sancho ever change (again, until the last two hundred pages) much. Don Quixote continues to attribute every apparent failure to enchantment, and Sancho spits out as many proverbs as he can. Furthermore, I felt that it was weird that a book that has some of the most famous characters in world literature had such a small cast. The priest and the barber are present at the beginnings and ends of both parts of the book, but even then, they are absent from most of the tale (especially in the second part). The effort Cervantes made to introduce Sanson in the second part was appreciated by me, and I was glad to see him playing the role he ended up with. In short, I loved this book, although I am not sure why...

I read the Tom Lathrop translation. I have no means of comparing that translation to any other, although I thoroughly enjoyed Lathrop's translation. I found the footnotes profoundly helpful. The only thing I disliked was how clear he made his agenda: he had published some articles insisting that some of the mistakes (such as Don Quixote getting a character's name wrong) were not to be attributed to Cervantes' error, but instead were Don Quixote's own mix-ups. Now, while I can appreciate that point, I felt that it was an observation that should have been relegated to the translator's introduction and, at most, one footnote in the text (say, at the first instance of a mistake). However, it appeared way too often in footnotes. This heavy-handed approach was the only downside of the translation, although it didn't bother me too much. There are other editions of his translation, some of which differ greatly from the one I have. Here's mine: http://www.amazon.ca/Don-Quixote-Miguel-Cervantes-Saavedra/dp/0451531817/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1405802405&sr=8-5&keywords=Don Quixote In contrast, there seem to be other editions of his translation that are aimed at "students," and they include, on each page, a summary of the goings-on of each page. I didn't have such an edition of the book, and I didn't even know one existed until this moment.