A selection from the lectures Nabokov gave at Harvard on Cervantes's "Don Quixote".
He was never a fan of the novel, and fulfilled these lectures as a requirement, or debt to Harvard and American Academics.
Now, really, I should have given it (Cervantes's "Don Quixote") a quick reread before reading this. But - that said, there are enough quotes embedded in the notes to the lectures that I already feel I've reread it, and can give it a few more years yet.
Nabokov is certainly one of my favorite authors, and I've a fine appreciation/remembrance of "Don Quixote", so - while it might seem like a bit of a dry read it isn't.
And while I respect and admire a lot of what Nabokov brings to the table, I can't say I entirely agree. There are many things I never thought of, and others I surely recognized but overlooked in service of enjoying the story, and a great many of his observations I took for granted. Nabokov's dissection, a little drier, more academic, and - as always with Nabokov - not necessarily sincere - the inventive force undoubtedly informs and reforms his lectures as much as it does his writing.
Nonetheless it forces me to reconsider my own views and reminds me to perhaps revisit it in it's entirety and not just scraps and quotes.
Which is a good thing, and while I'm enjoying this one-sided argument, it would have been something to sit in on these lectures in person, wouldn't it have?