"While clearly an impregnable masterpiece, Don Quixote suffers from one fairly serious flaw - that of outright unreadability. This reviewer should know, because he has just read it. The book bristles with beauties, charm, sublime comedy; it is also, for long stretches (approaching about 75 per cent of the whole), inhumanly dull.... Reading Don Quixote 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."
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Novelists from EnglandEssayists from EnglandShort story writers from EnglandScience fiction authors from EnglandScreenwriters from England
Original Language: English
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Opening paragraph of his review of The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, translated by Tobias Smollett
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Amis
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Martin Amis
Sir Martin Louis Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023) was a British novelist, essayist and short story writer. He was the son of Kingsley Amis.
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