“When she was finally crazy because she was about to have an abortion, she conceived of the most insane idea that any woman can think of. Which is to love. How can a woman love? By loving someone other than herself.”
One of the more interesting things about this book is that it takes on Don Quixote and remixes it. Don Quixote itself is a remixing of romantic epics (or romantic adventures) of the 1300-1500s leading to the titular Don making his way into the world supplied only with the knowledge of his reading. In the second half of that book he seeks out the author who championed his efforts. I wish Kathy Acker did the same in her modern retelling. Using the title Don Quixote, our heroine here goes out into the world seeking love and looking for it in the world of Nixonian America, and a kind of mythic London. At times the writing is funny and charming and raw, showing an erudition that Kathy Acker sometimes hides from readers and other times not as clear, experimental and vague as to the goals of the book. The book hinges on your enjoyment of the fractured nature of the writing, which is at times funny and weird, and other times weird and also weird. If you’re into it and it’s working, great! If not, watch out!
The result can be a mixed bag, and reminds me as much of Don Quixote as two other books that precede this book and I think we can at least suppose Kathy Acker might have read: Samuel Delany’s Dhalgren and Joanna Russ’s The Female Man. (I think I like both of those books better too).