(Obed Lira) Don Quixote and the Art of Reading

What is reading? Is it an art? Few books explore what it means to read as compellingly as Don Quixote. Guided by a character who writes and reads himself into the world, the novel's numerous characters also appear to write and read themselves into dizzying stories as the book unfolds. The world, it seems, wants to read itself in narratives. To live in the world is to read the world. And yet, as we read, the book warns us that although reading ought to be edifying and delightful, it may easily prove harmful to individuals and dangerous to society. What lies at the center of this ambiguity in reading? Jests and metafictional trickery notwithstanding, the unrelenting violence depicted in the novel suggests that Cervantes might be deadly serious about a predicament that arises when thinking about reading more broadly: how are we to read the world, and what are we to do with how the world reads us.

graphic: Honoré Daumier (Don Quixote) circa 1868