Harold Bloom once wrote that Montaigne created one character (himself), Cervantes created two (Don Quixote and Sancho Panza), and Shakespeare created dozens and dozens. That looks like putting Shakespeare way out in front, but Cervantes’s two are remarkably vital and durable. Dr. Johnson said Don Quixote was one of only three books he ever wished were longer.
William Egginton, a professor at Johns Hopkins, has written a book on Cervantes and his creation, timed to mark the 400th anniversary of the author’s death, that is easy reading and unsatisfying. I mean both as terms of praise. The Man Who Invented Fiction is short, lively, and jargon-free. Egginton’s argument, broadly speaking, is that Don Quixote represented something new in literature and therefore in human consciousness, which seems absolutely right. When he explains why, I don’t accept all his reasons, but even his overshoots and his dead ends are stimulating.
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