> My problem is with artificial, curated reading lists, rather than something organic that arises out of interest.

This reads like a non-sequitur. OP pointed out that your summary of Don Quixote clearly shows you failed to understand the book at all, thus you're criticizing it out of ignorance. Hence the comparison of your summary with claiming that Moby Dick is a story of a guy who hates whales.

A critique made in ignorance is still valid. You don't get to say it is invalid just because you think the person doing the critiquing "didn't understand it", as even if that is true the fact that they didn't understand it is part of their experience of the work.

Of course critique is largely subjective, so you're free to have a very different experience of the work.

The media determines the popular culture which determines what is “organic.” Everything is artificial.