DON QUIXOTE SUMMARY

At the start of the book, we meet a guy named Alonso Quixano. Alonso is getting on in years and has
enough money to keep him from ever having to work or clean his own house. So he spends most of
his free time reading books, and there are no books that interest him more than books about
medieval knights riding around on horses, and slaying dragons, and kissing the hands of fair
maidens, and well, you get the picture.
It turns out that Alonso likes his books a little too much, because one day, he decides to dress up in
an old suit of armor and become a knight himself. He takes the name of Don Quixote and starts riding
up and down the countryside looking for adventures. The only problem is that giants and dragons
don't really exist. But fear not, because Don Quixote has such an active imagination that he believes
everyday objects (like windmills, for example) are actually giant monsters.
Early in his journeys, Don Quixote gets himself a sidekick named Sancho Panza. Sancho doesn't
actually believe all the crazy stuff Quixote is saying, but he knows that Quixote has a good bit of
wealth and hopes to make some money by hanging out with the guy. As the story continues, though,
Sancho actually finds himself starting to believe Don Quixote's craziness, and he even hopes that one
day the Don will give him an island to rule over.
Once Don Quixote and Sancho set off together for adventures, there are really too many plotlines to
talk about in this brief summary.
There are some friends of the Don's who want to cure his madness, and they devise all sorts of
schemes to get him home to his bed. But they often underestimate the power of Don Quixote's
imagination.

Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 1

We pan in on a village in the Spanish region of La Mancha. The author won't name the exact
village, because he's worried that everyone will try to claim the hero of this book as their own
native son.

We hear that there was once a man who had quite a bit of money and never had to work
because he was getting on in years. In other words, he had nothing to do all day but try to
amuse himself and fight off boredom.

It turns out that in 17th-century Spain, nothing warded off boredom more than a good rousing
tale about knights and dragons and all that stuff you're still likely to see in movies.

But as the dude gets older and more bored, he get really, really into his books until one day,
poof, he decides that he wants to become a knight himself.

The first thing he does is go into a closet and fish out an old suit of armor that belongs to his
great-grandfather. He doesn't have a proper helmet, so he just makes one out of some thin
wood that he ties to a metal hat. It's already looking pretty sad.

Next, the old dude goes to look at his horse, which is basically an old bag of bonesjust like
the old dude himself, really. But when the great Don Quixote (that's our old dude) looks at this
sorry excuse for a horse, he sees a noble stallion. He's kind of living in a post-fact world at this
point. For kicks, he also decides to rename the horse Rocinante. Why? Just because he thinks
it sounds cool.

Okay, so now Don Quixote has some armor, a noble steed, and a name for himself. According
to the rules of those knight books he likes so much, all he now needs is a woman to fall in love
with and to admire from afar. So just like that, he decides that he's going to love a girl from the
nearby town of Toboso. He's never actually seen the girl, but he's heard that she's pretty
enough. He also decides to rename her Dulcinea del Toboso because it sounds more like a
princess's name than whatever her name actually is.

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Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 2

Now that he has all his stuff together, Don Quixote rides off into the countryside so he can do
good in the world and be a hero.

Don Quixote rides around all day but doesn't really stumble onto any grand adventures. Go
figure.

As the day draws to a close, Don Quixote decides that he should try to find an inn (or better
yet, an enchanted castle) where he can spend his evening. Of course, he eventually finds an
inn. But, his brain tells him that he's actually arriving at a castle with a huge moat and
drawbridge.

A couple of ladies see him and start to run away because of his armor. But when they see his
grizzled old face, they realize that he's probably just a crazy person and start laughing at him.

Eventually, the keeper of the inn shows up and decides to have pity on Don Quixote. He talks
to him as if he were actually a knight an invites him inside his (snicker) castle.

As part of the act, the women pretend to be castle damsels and help Don Quixote take off his
armor for the night. Then they ask if he'd like to eat something.

There's just one last thing that's nagging Don Quixote: he can't officially become a knight until
someone else dubs him one.

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Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 3

At first, Don Quixote doesn't want to pay for his stay at the inn, because he can't think of any
book he's ever read that describes a knight having to pay for staying in a castle.

After the innkeeper convinces him of the need to have money, Don Quixote goes outside, sets
his armor in a pile, and stands guard over it.

It turns out that Don Quixote's armor is right beside the water trough, where people come to
get water for their mules and horses. One guy comes by for this very reason, and Don Quixote
knocks him out cold with his lance, thinking he was trying to steal the armor.

Soon after, a second guy comes along, and Don Quite knocks him down, too.

People hear this second row and come running out of the inn to see what's up. They find Don
Quixote standing over the two fallen men, looking as proud as a cat does when it brings you a
dead bird.

Some people who are friends with the fallen guys grab every rock they can hold and start
whipping them at the Don. Quixote tells them that they're a bunch of scoundrels and that he'll
kill them all, and the people stop throwing stones because they realize that this guy is definitely
off the rails.

The innkeeper realizes that he really needs this Quixote to be on his way. So he picks up the
first book he finds and blesses Don Quixote as a knight. There, now that that's done, Don
Quixote can leave the inn and be on his way... The innkeeper doesn't even care if Don Quixote
pays for the food that he and his horse have eaten.

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Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 4

After he leaves the inn, Don Quixote hears some feminine-sounding cries coming from nearby. For joy!
It sounds like it's finally time to have an adventure.

Don Quixote soon rides into a thicket of trees where he sees a middle-aged man whipping a young boy.
By the sounds of things, the boy is the guy's servant and has messed up on his job because of
carelessness.

The Don isn't going to stand for something like that, though, because it's always the job of a knight to
fight for the underdog. He points his big lance at the older man and orders him to pay the boy all the
wages he owes him and then some. Of course, he also orders the guy to untie the kid and let him go.

The man is disappointed, because he was just getting his whipping arm all nice and loosened up. But
the man unties the kid. Don Quixote also makes the man promise to go to the village of Toboso to tell
Quixote's damsel, Dulcinea, what a brave thing Don Quixote has done. The guy promises, and Don
Quixote rides off.

The second Don Quixote has left, the man just grabs the kid and whips him twice as hard as he would
have if Don Quixote had never shown up. Obviously, he doesn't think much of Don Quixote's threats to
come find him if he doesn't do what he's told.

Don Quixote rides off thinking about how lovely Dulcinea del Toboso is. For the time being, he decides
to just let Rocinante (his horse) roam wherever he wants and see if they come upon some adventure.

Soon, Don Quixote comes across a caravan of merchants and tells them to stop, by the name of the
great Dulcinea del Toboso. They realize right away that he's crazy and decide to humor him.

Don Quixote says he'll only let them pass if they admit that Dulcinea is the most beautiful woman in the
world. The men say that they've never seen her, so they can't say one way or the other. The Don
doesn't care whether they've seen her or not. He just wants them to agree with what he's saying.

To Don Quixote, this all comes across as a great insult to Dulcinea, so he charges them on his horse.
But Rocinante is such a bag of bones that he trips and falls on the way. Don Quixote goes flying onto
the ground and can't get up because of the weight of his armor. The merchants just continue on their
way, while Quixote shouts after them, "Don't you dare walk away from me, you scoundrels." It's all
pretty hilarious for everyone but Don Quixote.

One of the dudes in the crew, though, doesn't like Don Quixote's big mouth. So he walks back, breaks
Don Quixote's lance into pieces, then starts hitting him until Quixote has a few broken ribs to show for
his trouble.

Eventually, the guy stops, and Don Quixote is in so much pain he can't get up. But he's happy to think
that this is all part of the job when you're a wandering hero.

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Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 5

As Don Quixote lies in the dirt, he tries to think of some episode from one of his knight books
that might help him get back to his feet after taking a beating. But when he can't think of any,
he just starts singing some old tunes from these books.

Luckily for him, a plowman happens to be passing at this moment. The man finds Don Quixote
and asks him what's wrong. Don Quixote just answers with a bunch of jabber that makes the
guy realize he's crazy.

The guy comes over and pulls the wood off of Don Quixote's helmet. He recognizes Don
Quixote and figures that something must be terribly wrong. The guy lifts Don Quixote onto his
own donkey and brings him, the suit of armor, and Don Quixote's horse back into Don
Quixote's home village.

When he gets back to the Don's house, everything is in confusion. No one knows where Don
Quixote has been, and the people most worried have been his niece and his housekeeper.

The housekeeper has noticed the missing suit of armor and has figured out that Don Quixote is
trying to act out all of those books of knight-errantry he has been reading. She puts two and
two together and blames the books for what has happened. She has seen Don Quixote
gradually pretending more and more that he is a knight himself, but she hasn't taken it
seriously until now.

The housekeeper says all of this to a religious man or "curate" named doctor Perez, who
decides that the best thing to do is to burn all of Don Quixote's books about knights and their
adventures.

At this point, the plowman announces that he has brought Don Quixote home. When Don
Quixote is carried in, he asks everyone to send for a magician or wizard to cure his wounds.

As they bring Don Quixote to bed, he keeps saying crazy stuff that just makes the curate even
more certain that burning Quixote's books is the best thing to do. To help out, he calls up a
local barber named Mr. Nicols.

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Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 6

This entire chapter just gives us a list of all the books from Don Quixote's library that the curate
and the barber decide to burn. For the most part, they decide to burn the books that are totally
fictional and not based on anything real.

When the curate and the barber decide to burn a book, they just chuck it out the window onto a
pile on Don Quixote's lawn.

One thing that the two guys decide to spare is Don Quixote's poetry collection. They don't
really have an issue with poetry.

Guess what happens then? The barber actually pulls a book from the shelves that was written
by Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote. The curate says that they shouldn't burn
the Cervantes book because they aren't really sure whether it's good or not.

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Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 7

While recovering in bed, Don Quixote starts getting really agitated and hallucinates again.
When the Curate and barber burst back into his bedroom, they see him fighting the air with his
sword, thrusting and slicing in every direction.

This just makes the barber and curate speed up their work with the books, so they seal off the
door to Don Quixote's library and tell him that some sort of sorcerer must have stolen an entire
room off of his house.

Don Quixote decides that this won't stand, so he makes ready to dress up like a knight again
and go off in search of adventures. His niece and housekeeper beg him not to, but he doesn't
listen.

No one has the power to stop Don Quixote by force, so he just walks out his front door,
dressed in his armor again.

This time around, the Don decides that it might be good to have a trusty sidekick or squire. A
lot of other famous knights in books have them, you know. For this purpose, he gets a pudgy
little dude named Sancho Panza from a neighboring village to come along on his adventures
with him.

Why does Sancho go, you ask? Well, frankly, it's because Don Quixote promises him all kinds
of riches, and the little man knows that Don Quixote has enough money to make this happen.

But the thing that really gets Sancho on board with the whole operation is Don Quixote's
promise that one day, he'll give Sancho an entire island to govern. As in, he'll really be the
governor.

To pay for his new adventures, Don Quixote sells one of his houses and mortgages another
(both at a brutal financial loss).

When Don Quixote and Sancho hit the road again, all Sancho wants to talk about is the island
that he'll be ruling over someday.

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Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 8

Get ready for what is probably the most famous chapter in Don Quixote (probably because
most people don't stick around to read the whole book). This is the chapter in which Don
Quixote gets into a battle with a whole army of giants. The only problem is that the giants aren't
really giants; they're just windmills.

As Don Quixote and Sancho Panza ride over the Spanish countryside, Don Quixote spies a
field of windmills in the distance and decides that they are a bunch of evil giants.

Sancho glances toward the windmills and says they're just windmills, but the Don doesn't
believe him. He charges the windmills with his new lance and gets totally clobbered by the
blades of one of them.

When he finally realizes that he just tried to fight a windmill, Don Quixote decides that some
evil magician must be playing tricks on him and turning giants into windmills. Sancho realizes
that the whole explanation is crazy but eventually goes along with it.

Don Quixote and Sancho spend the night under some trees. The Don doesn't sleep at all.

The next morning, Don Quixote promises Sancho that they'll have all kinds of dangerous
adventures. But Sancho isn't all that interested in danger.

As they talk, Don Quixote and Sancho see a group of holy monks approaching them in front of
a covered carriage. Don Quixote assumes that the carriage must contain some sort of
imprisoned princess. He stops the carriage and demands that the monks release the lady.

Don Quixote attacks the monks, who flee. But there's one man in the group, who's willing to go
toe-to-toe with the Don. He pulls out his sword and gets ready to fight.

At this point, Cervantes hits us with a cliffhanger, and we have to wait for the next chapter to
see how this fight plays out.

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