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1. Provide three facts about Quichotte's life, as revealed in Chapter 1: Quichotte, an Old Man, Falls in Love, Embarks on a Quest, and Becomes a Father.

Quichotte is an old man who "lives at a series of temporary addresses across the United States" (1) as he fulfills the duties of his position as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. Quichotte is originally from Mumbai and he is an Indian man.

2. In what way does the theme of appearance versus reality surface in relation to the novel's protagonist, Quichotte?

As the narrator of the novel's first chapter explains the source of Quichotte's delusional thought patterns, it becomes clear that television is the culprit. Quichotte has watched so many reality television shows, talks shows, and so forth, that at times, he feels "incapable of distinguishing" between illusion and reality; it is as if "the boundary between truth and lies" has "become smudged and indistinct" (3). Just as Cervantes's Don Quixote got lost in his courtly romance novels, Quichotte becomes so engrossed in the world of telvision that he loses the ability to differentiate between the real and the pretend.

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