This so screamed of the invasion of Iraq that I had to wonder if Cervantes had something of a fortune teller in him. As Don Quixote was describing the different knights and their armor, all I could think of was Colin Powell holding up photographs of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction at the UN. Then the excuses, excuses, excuses. There's no ownership taken for bad decisions. There's no saying, "wow, we really screwed things up by acting on bad information." Instead, innocent people (and/or sheep) are hurt and the American public stands next to Sancho Panza, having our shouts ignored and wondering how bad a beating we are going to have to take because of our leader's decision.
I am well aware that Cervantes wasn't forecasting the build up to the Iraq war, there have certainly been wars based on even less sound arguments, but if the shoe fits, or in the case of Don Quixote, the barber's basin (which he thinks is a helmet).... The point here is that such universality is what makes books last, makes them count for something beyond the paper they're printed on.
I think it speaks enormously to the candidacy of Don Quixote as a great book that four-hundred years from its publication, I can find a modern context in which to read its characters and stories. So much of modern fiction gets wrapped up in pandering to our immediate gratification culture, that the writers forget (or don't care) to stop and make their characters real human beings. As outlandish as Don Quixote is, the more I read of him, the more tragically human he becomes.
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