In Vladimir, Julia May Jonas's debut novel, Don Quixote is something of a minor motif. The protagonist and her husband—both English literature professors at a liberal arts college—are fans of the work and have even retraced the famous character's journey through Spain. Late in the novel, the protagonist's husband, who has been accused of sexual assault, implies that he thinks of himself as a modern Don Quixote—"an old man who refuses to see the world as it is."

Don Quixote was written by Miguel de Cervantes and published in 1605. The book follows Alonso Quixano, a minor noble whose obsession with chivalric romances drives him mad—he fancies himself a knight, takes on the name Don Quixote, and travels around La Mancha in Spain with his squire, Sancho Panza, getting into adventures while on his mission to revive chivalry. Of course, he interprets his adventures differently than others do, as he's seeing them with his romance-tinted glasses: he sees chained ...