The Man Who Invented Fiction

Starred review from December 1, 2015
Few readers now even notice the moment in Don Quixote when the narrator digresses to assess the fears of Saavedra, a former hostage of Algerian pirates and a stand-in for Cervantes himself. Yet in this brief digression, Egginton recognizes a transformational pivot toward the complex subjectivity that defines modern fiction. As he chronicles the life that prepares Cervantes to make this creative breakthrough, Egginton limns a trajectory carrying a young soldier, adventurer, and duelist through his costly early idealism, through his mature career as an innovative playwright, and finally to his stunning triumph as the world's first novelist. In creating Don Quixote, Cervantes transcends Aristotle's distinctions between history and poetry, creating a new imaginative space for weighing alternative perspectives on characters and events. Readers see how this interplay of interpretive perspectives revolutionizes literature as they enter the complex give-and-take relationship between Cervantes' deluded protagonist, Don Quixote, and his humble but clear-eyed squire, Sancho. Though Egginton recognizes the early seventeenth-century cultural trends that influence Cervantes as he forges his masterpiece, the novel he shows his readers ultimately helps create a new era, propelling readers such as Hume, Hegel, and Jefferson into new regions of the mind and spirit. A revered classic here becomes strikingly new again. This belongs in public libraries where literary criticism and biography find eager readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)