The ingenious hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha

The premise is interesting: an old man looses his mind and believes himself to be an errant knight and the world to be a huge chivalry novel. So everywhere he sees there is adventure to be had. Giants to kill, princess to save, fame and honor to be gained through valiant deeds.

Don Quixote hires a squire named Sancho Panza, a simple minded peasant that follows his master everywhere he goes. Because he's limited intelligence, Sancho actually believes everything his master imagines. So when Don Quixote says that the he is about to charge are actually giants, he is mistrustful at first, because all he sees are windmills. But when Don Quixote then says that the giants are concealed as windmills by the way of magic from an evil sorcerer, Sancho believes in him.

It is a simple yet sufficient logic. Because although mad, Don Quixote is still an intelligent and rational person.

Together, they travel trough Spain getting themselves into a lot of trouble. No matter what they face though, Don Quixote always maintains his delusional view of himself and the world. When all logical explanations fail, he blames it on magic. It is a perfect kind of madness.

Although not every adventure is very interesting, what killed the book for me were the many short stories intertwined inside the main plot. So Don Quixote might find someone in trouble on the road, and that person would tell him how he came to be in that predicament. Or maybe he finds a book, and then the next few pages is the story of that particular book.

All of these breaks the immersion of the plot and prevents me from appreciating the characters. The story isn't that strong to survive all this interruptions.