This faith comes from his reading, and his reading is madness He [Don Quixote] ceases to be a reader of the novels of chivalry and becomes the actor of his own epic adventures Because we read it and do not see it, we shall never know what it is that the goodly gentleman puts on his head: the fabled helm of Mambrino, or a vulgar barber's basin character [Don Quixote] knows that he is being written about at the same time that he lives his fictional adventures In order to mock Don Quixote, the world disguises itself with the masks of Don Quixote's obsessions
Yet, can any one disguise himself as something worse than his own self? Do not our disguises reveal our reality with greater truth than our everyday appearance? The disguised world of those who have read Don Quixote within the pages of Don Quixote reveal the undisguised reality of the world: its ignorance, its injustice, its stupidity Don Quixote finds out, as we all do in our lives, that things do not belong to all; but words do. Words are like air: they belong to all or to no one (Carlos Fuentes, 1-27).
Melissa Miles writes this second review:.
Any great work must, in my opinion, first be new and original. The amount of innovation in a given work, whether it is in terms of theme, plot or characterization, must be notable. Innovation progresses a literary piece into new dimensions, which challenges the reader and future writers. It sets the work apart from other novels of the day, and it helps elevate the craft past boundaries and limitations of yesterday. Innovation is the cornerstone of invention, and the craft of writing a great masterpiece necessarily births inventive and innovative approaches to the art of literature. The next criteria is that of depth. Depth is both the quality and complexity that a given novel portrays, both for the writer's attempt, and the reader's point of view. A masterpiece of depth looks at complex thematic issues, challenging psychological characterizations, and plot structure which is more than a chronological rendering.