Don Quixote's Delusions: Travels in Castilian Spain FROM THE PUBLISHER
In 1987, when Miranda France spent a year in Madrid as a student, the new freedoms of post-Franco Spain were intoxicating: divorce, regional languages, contraceptives, kissing in the street, even the public consumption of drugs had become legal. At the university where, in 1936, Republicans had fought Nationalists in hand-to-hand combat, girls with Snoopy folders now sat alongside men with well-washed hair and boat shoes. Yet Madrid was also a mecca for fiery South American communists and moody Basque nationalists. Against this background, Miranda France describes a love-affair with a Peruvian revolutionary, as well as an eccentric cast of characters -- landladies, roommates, neighbors, and fellow students.
Then, in 1998, she returns to Spain to revisit the countryside, towns, and treat cities of the central part of the country -- Madrid, Toledo, Avila, Segovia, Salamanca -- and to discover how much has changed in ten years. With the new prosperity, much has altered, and the old bargain between men and women is over. But many values have endured, as she learns from a private detective, a shepherd, various nuns, two belly dancers, and a Castilian separatist, among others.
Alongside this narrative is her investigation into the world's first novel, Cervantes' Don Quixote -- published in 1605 and the most translated book after the Bible. She discovers a work of genius, a book that even modern Spaniards believe holds the key to their identity, their failings, and triumphs. In Don Quixote's Delusions, Miranda France has captured those moments and details that can help us understand ourselves, as well as a foreign culture. She has distilled her experiences into a book that is both unsparingly truthful and absurdly, delightfully, funny.
SYNOPSIS
This is a reprint of English-born France's 2001 publication, in which the author describes her experiences as a student in Madrid in 1987, and new realizations about Spain during a return visit in 1998. She connects her personal journey and discoveries to an examination of Cervantes' novel, Don Quixote. This unusual combination of literary analysis and autobiography may appeal to scholars, travelers and general readers alike. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Sunday Times London
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.
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. (Aug.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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 Cahners Business Information.
Booknews
This is a reprint of English-born France's 2001 publication, in which the author describes her experiences as a student in Madrid in 1987, and new realizations about Spain during a return visit in 1998. She connects her personal journey and discoveries to an examination of Cervantes' novel, . This unusual combination of literary analysis and autobiography may appeal to scholars, travelers and general readers alike. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Kirkus Reviews
British travel-writer France (Bad Times in Buenos Aires, 1999) seeks to understand how the Spanish view themselves and their country. There is more than just a little of Quixote in the Castilian mindset, she suggests; as a political theorist writing during Cervantes' time noted, Spain is "a nation of enchanted people who live outside the natural order." Of course, what France finds during two extended sojourns in the country, as a student in 1988-89 and again during a passage through Castilian towns in 1998, is more complex than that. Yet there is a fascinating interplay between the value and interpretation of truth throughout Spanish history that bears an uncanny resemblance to Quixote's sortie against windmills. Among her examples: the Spanish state's trumping-up of a threat from the Moors, the nation's chimerical wealth during the reign of Philip II, the Church's solace and oppression, the mirage of fundamental change during the Republic, when independent institutions of democracy and compromise never took hold, even France's own self-deluded relationship with a radical young Peruvian during her schooldays. This is not only an extended psychic evaluation of the Spanish anima; there are also stunning and intimate descriptions of Salamanca, Avila, Toledo, Burgos, and Segovia, often enough accompanied by descriptions of strange personal encounters. Yet whether talking of Quixote or the transvestites who live across the street, the author is most interested in coping with life's complexity and uncertainties, considering whether it might be best to follow the example of Quixote and "create a philosophy, a pattern, and force yourself to follow it. If others reject it, so much the better-youcan consider yourself misunderstood, but in the right." France herself has no urge to be judgmental; she loves Spaniards too much, with all their idiosyncrasies and peccadilloes. A portrait out of time true to the author's vision about the force of belief.
Home
