Last autumn, I walked the dry road beyond Argamasilla with a notebook and an inconvenient question: when does a windmill become a giant? Cervantes gives the answer by refusing to settle the matter. The world is ordinary; conviction makes it strange, and the printed page keeps both versions alive.
A road made of conviction
That uncertainty is the book’s enduring trick. A battered helmet catches the afternoon light, a basin becomes a crown, and a village inn acquires the dignity of a castle. The joke lands, then lingers: every life is partly an argument with its evidence.