Criticisms of Three Masterpieces

I do not agree with all that is said in the article but I thought it made some interesting points. From Big Think:

A popular example of a good book with bad writing is Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which follows a seemingly insane Spanish nobleman-turned-knight on a quest to prove that chivalry is still alive. Published in 1605, the writing of Don Quixote — its full title being The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha — is drawn-out and convoluted, even for the time.

The book has attracted its fair share of criticism over the centuries, including from British novelist Martin Amis. Although Amis credits Cervantes for having created an “impregnable masterpiece,” he also scorns the author for his “outright unreadability.” Reading Don Quixote, he writes in a collection of critical essays and reviews titled The War Against Cliché,

…can be compared to an indefinite visit from your most impossible senior relative, with all his pranks, dirty habits, unstoppable reminiscences, and terrible cronies. When the experience is over, and the old boy checks out at last (on page 846 – the prose wedged tight, with no breaks for dialogue), you will shed tears all right: not tears of relief but tears of pride. You made it, despite all that Don Quixote could do.

Not everyone agrees with this interpretation, though, and some choose to believe that the book’s unreadability is intentional, rather than a reflection of Cervantes’ shortcomings as a writer. The nonsensical plot and the endless digressions, they argue, are not supposed to be taken at face value but as parodies on the “vain and empty books of chivalry” with which Don Quixote himself is obsessed. (Read more.)

 

I always loved the film Man of La Mancha with Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren.

And my favorite song from it.

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To fight for the right without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

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