CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez says Don Quixote is a must-read for Venezuelans, and his government has printed 1 million free copies to mark the 400th anniversary of the classic novel chronicling the adventures of the knight who dared to dream.

As Chavez praises the tragicomedy, some Venezuelans are comparing their self-described "revolutionary" leader to the wayward idealist in Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's masterpiece.

"Don't be left without your Quixote!" Chavez said this week. "We are all going to read Quixote to feed our spirit with this fighter who came out to get rid of injustice and fix the world."
"To some degree we are followers of Quixote," he added.

Thousands of Venezuelans lined up in public squares across the country yesterday for abridged copies of the novel that produced "quixotic," the adjective meaning foolishly idealistic, and the phrase "tilting at windmills".

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