The LRB Podcast What Don Quixote Knew
Tom McCarthy, a renowned writer and artist known for his Booker-listed novels, dives deep into Cervantes' 'Don Quixote.' He explores the character’s unique perception of reality and the influence of literature on his madness. McCarthy discusses the modern implications of Quixote’s adventures and the ways in which media shapes perception, drawing parallels between Quixote’s delusions and contemporary society. They also reflect on narrative techniques, the clash of fantasy and reality, and how Quixote laid the groundwork for modern storytelling.
01:03:25
Novel As Machinery Revealer
- The novel exposes the machinery behind authenticity by making narrative systems themselves the subject.
- Tom McCarthy calls this the tension between the wizard's illusion and the man behind the curtain.
Reading Becomes Identity
- Don Quixote becomes what he reads: chivalric books take possession of his imagination.
- Cervantes uses that possession to probe imitatio, verisimilitude and genre itself.
Early Media Theory In Cervantes
- Don Quixote anticipates media theory: older media form the content of newer ones.
- McCarthy compares Quixote's seduction by chivalric books to Zidane's childhood craving for TV commentary.
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Intro
00:00 • 2min
Why 'The Man Behind the Curtain'?
01:47 • 55sec
Don Quixote: the basic setup
02:42 • 5min
Aesthetics and media theory in Cervantes
07:36 • 40sec
Quixote as media subject
08:17 • 2min
Belatedness and anachronism
10:34 • 3min
Books, contagion and the library
13:29 • 2min
Pastoral episode and collective fantasy
15:35 • 2min
Burning books and growing enchantment
17:57 • 28sec
McLuhan, trance media and Don Quixote
18:25 • 1min
Sancho: earthy pragmatism and susceptibility
19:43 • 3min
Enchantment as explanation
22:14 • 5min
Narrative glitches and metafiction
27:04 • 2min
Quixote's fantasy fulfilled in book two
29:16 • 1min
Labor, idleness and productive economy
30:40 • 4min
Mills, machinery and modernity
34:40 • 4min
Spectacle, theatre and the puppet show
38:31 • 3min
The Duke and Duchess as Truman Show
41:24 • 2min
Book one versus book two: self-delusion and external trickery
43:10 • 2min
Acting, Hamlet and theatrical naivety
45:40 • 3min
Disenchantment and double consciousness
49:10 • 4min
Psychoanalysis, pleasure and pathology
53:14 • 4min
Mimetic desire and the novelist's stance
56:50 • 3min
Don Quixote as model for novelists
01:00:11 • 47sec
Cervantes' prologue and the man behind the curtain
01:00:58 • 2min
Outro
01:03:00 • 24sec
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In The Man Behind the Curtain, a bonus Close Readings series for 2026, Tom McCarthy and Thomas Jones examine great novels in terms of the systems and infrastructures at work in them. For their first episode, they turn to the book that invented the modern novel. Don Quixote, the ingenious man from La Mancha, is thought to be mad by everyone he meets because he believes he’s living in a book. But from a certain point of view that makes the hero of Cervantes’ novel the only character who has any idea what’s really going on. Tom and Tom discuss the machinery – narrative, theoretical, economic, psychological and literal (those windmills) – which underpins Cervantes’ masterpiece.
This is a bonus episode from the Close Readings series. To listen to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrna
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsna
Further reading in the LRB:
Karl Miller on ‘Don Quixote’:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n03/karl-miller/andante-capriccioso
Michael Wood: Crazy Don
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n15/michael-wood/crazy-don
Gabriel Josipovici on Cervantes’ life:
Robin Chapman: Cervantics
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v08/n16/robin-chapman/cervantics