Product Description
Published in Spanish, a new short novel, set against the lush tropical backdrop of colonial eighteenth-century Colombia, narrates the story of two doomed lovers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Excellent book. It is now a motion picture and they say it is a great movie too.
Gabriel GArcia Marques is one of the best South American writers. A great book and now it is a motion picture.

No hay Nada
Its a shame because I ordered this book and never received it. I'm sure its a great book, where ever it may be.

ANOTHER GREAT WORK BY MARQUEZ
THE VOCABULARY CAN BE A BIT OBSCURE, BUT IT IS ANOTHER GREAT WORK BY MARQUEZ.

Marquez el mejor
Es un libro precioso como todos los libros del gran Gabo. Lo lei en dos dias y me encanto. Lo recomiendo como recomiendo todos los libros de Gabriel.

excelent book
un muy buen libro .
te mantiene en suspenzo queriendo saber que va a suceder, no pude parar de leer hasta terminarlo. ... Read more

Product Description

Collected here are twenty-six of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most brilliant and enchanting short stories, presented in the chronological order of their publication in Spanish from three volumes: Eyes of a Blue Dog,Big Mama's Funeral, and The Incredibleand Sad Tale of lnnocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother.Combining mysticism, history, and humor, the stories in this collection span more than two decades, illuminating the development of Marquez's prose and exhibiting the themes of family, poverty, and death that resound throughout his fiction.

Customer Reviews (12)

"Collected Stories"
"Collected Stories" is a collection of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short stories spanning 25 years. Some of the stories at the beginning of the collection were a bit repetitive, but it shows his progression as a writer. A good read, especially when one doesn't have much time for novels.

Overrated
I have never thought that Gabriel Garcia Marquez deserved his 1982 Nobel Prize for literature. I think that it was manifestly an award given because of the politicized nature of the author's work. The three novels of his that I've read- Love In A Time Of Cholera, The General In His Labyrinth, and One Hundred Years Of Solitude- are examples of occasionally poetic phrases and images trying to tidy up nonexistent narratives, cardboard caricatures, and a puerile imagination and understanding of the world. In short, they are vapid interminable wordstreams with little deeper meaning. While no great fan of the also overrated Jorge Luis Borges there is little doubt that Borges was the more original and creative of the two writers. In short, without Borges there would have been no Marquez, and like all copies of things, the copies are always less clear and crisp than the originals. I say this merely to admit that I had a bias going into the reading of Marquez's Collected Stories, translated by Gregory Rabassa and J. S. Bernstein, and I'm afraid that my bias was accurate, and eerily prescient.

This is not to say that Marquez is a bad writer, merely that he is vastly overrated, and nowhere near a great writer. There are fleet moments of wonderful description and poetic phrasing, but these are the exceptions. Marquez tends to gizz at the mouth, and his descriptions become curlicues of superfluity. His politics tend to override his narrative and character development, he used heavy-handed and very obvious symbolism, and despite the cliché that anything with a good start and end cannot not be good, Marquez disproves that canard over and again, as many of his tales start and end well, but they have no core, no substantive middle. This book consists of twenty-six stories, culled from his three prior collections: Eyes of a Blue Dog, Big Mama's Funeral, and The Incredible And Sad Tale Of Innocent Eréndira And Her Heartless Grandmother....Marquez never quite gets his fiction into focus- there is something that remains forever blurry in the frame, and that is usually a deeper engagement with his readership. Even in the last story in the book, The Incredible And Sad Tale Of Innocent Eréndira, there is no real attempt to put up a tale of substance, and like most Latin American writers, concision and pointedness are not seen as virtues, as that tale rambles on for forty-nine pages. The story dream-like follows fourteen year old Eréndira, who is haunted by winds of misfortune. Oh, did I mention Marquez and his ilk tend to be a tad melodramatic, too? In response to this breeze she torches her grandmother's posh villa. Instead of bitterness, her grandmother tells Eréndira it would take a lifetime to back the debt you owe me. Thus, Eréndira turns to prostitution, with her grandmother as her madam. Why? To propel the story. This is a classic sign that the tale is not doing well; when the only way to move the plot forward is by its characters doing the dumbest things possible. Then, she meets Ulises, and hope dawns. Really, this is how the tale goes. I won't spoil the rest. Needless to say, the relationship between Eréndira and her grandmother is obviously an allegory for the corrupt and manipulative systems that dominate Latin American politics.

For all of the praise that has been tossed Marquez's way I don't think anyone has ever commented on these two most important facts: a) he is a boring and repetitive writer with very little range, and b) the Magical Realism that has been said to have blossomed with him is nothing new. Similar claims have been made about Postmodern techniques, yet just as PoMo had antecedents going back to Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and arguably to Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, likewise Magical Realism is nothing new- only the term is. The entrance of the magical into the real has been done for centuries, and much better and more subtly than Marquez does it. Think of Nikolai Gogol's satires, Isaac Bashevis Singer's fables, or even Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. Even the best of science fiction and fantasy qualifies as Magical Realism- what else is Flowers For Algernon, or Dracula?

I think that Gabriel Garcia Marquez could have become a good, possibly great writer, and one whose fantastical writers challenged readers, but he, as so many of the other Latin American writes, got too swept up in the delusion that their writings could change the world by political means. This is often the folly of many artists, not content to merely influence individuals. It is sad, but perhaps the greatest fantasy he wove, and that he never grew out of it, was that one; from his really horrid early tales through his later merely repetitive and mediocre ones. Only the easily gulled will rhapsodize over this dull and predictable writing. But, just watch the glazed eyes shine.

Incredible, as always!
Gabo is something else. He is, to put it simply, an astounding writer, with a verve of language and a capacity for fleshing out great characters and fantastic stories unparalleled by any living writer. I daresay he is the best living writer, at least of those who are famous, and I doubt many who read him would disagree that he is at least among the best.

This collection of stories draws upon several other volumes, and spans a fair portion of his very long career (may he live a thousand more years!). If you have read any Garcia Marquez, you will love these little gems as much as you loved his novels-- I enjoyed "Innocent Erendira", "The Very Old Man" and "The Handsomest Drowned Sailor" best of those I recall; sadly, my copy was lost so I don't have a reference at hand.

If you have not read any Garcia Marquez: first, I recommend you do so IMMEDIATELY... there is a reason he is quite famous and a reason he is so renowned; both are very just. This volume is a nice starting point, a gateway drug into the wonderful world of Gabo. Work backwards: the early tales are good, but do not exemplify Garcia Marquez at his fullest strength, and to really appreciate him in the beginning you should really read him at his fullest capacity.

You will almost assuredly devour this little volume and end up begging for more. I recommend, of course, ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE (his masterpiece, and worth reading no matter what you think of his other works!!!), LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA, his COLLECTED NOVELLAS, and his more recent STRANGE PILGRIMS, which is another excellent collection of short stories.

But what are you doing reading my review? Get this book and any other Garcia Marquez you can get your hands on, and read, read, read!

Highly Recommend This Short Story Collection: Good Reading.
You might not like or understand every story, but this is a good read.

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez(1927 - ), or simply Gabo as he was known, was born in Columbia. He started as a journalist, then he became an editor, and a publisher. He won the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. García Márquez has lived mostly in Mexico and Europe and currently lives in Mexico City. The 80 years old author is credited with introducing or popularizing magical realism in modern literary fiction.

Some of his works have been classified as both fiction and non-fiction: Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Crónica de una muerte anunciada) (1981), tells the tale of a revenge killing, and Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del cólera) (1985), is loosely based on the story of his parents' courtship. Many of his works, including those two, take place in the "García Márquez universe." The settings and characters are continued from one book to the next. The stories and novels cross genres and include magical realism: flying people, flying objects, the dead who can still think, etc. He has eight novels and numerous shorter works.

His novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) (1967), has sold more than 36 million copies worldwide.

Based on his writings, it strikes the general that since he has written many short stories and only 8 novels, then it would be interesting to read some of his short stories. At the present time there are three books on the English market, although more have been printed. Five have been printed in the last 30 years, and three are still popular: the present book, The Collected Novellas, and Leaf Storm: and other Stories. Leaf storm has seven stories. The Collected Novellas has Leaf Storm plus two others: No One Writes to the Colonel and Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

The present book has the widest selection since it has 26 stories, long and short, that cover both realism and magical realism. Also, some are aimed at children. I enjoyed the collection and put it in the same class as Joyce's Dubliners, or similar in terms of enjoyment.

My only slight criticism is that his children's stories seem very adult. Some will be surprised with the realism and the lack of magic in many stories.

EnchantinglySurreal
Marquez takes you into a magical tour throughout this wonderful short story book that you can read repeatedly and never tire from it. He is a master at his art and always engulfs you with a subject simply by using his unique surreal style of putting things together in writing.
I have read this book several times in both languages Spanish and English, and grasped more of his "magical realism" in Spanish, simply because it was originally written in that language and there is always something lost during translation, although the English version was pretty decent. Marquez's words are vivid and visual, as you read the stories you imagine them on a movie screen.

The Man With Enormous Wings is a great one, a shabby old man with wings falls from the sky during a heavy rainfall in some tiny South American village, and since the people that live there are superstitious they assume he's an angel from the far away heavens. So they decide to put him in a chicken coop and spread the word that there is an angel in town so people from all over the place come around with bizarre ailments such as a man that could not sleep because the noise from the stars kept him awake at night. Another woman could not stop counting and she had run out of numbers to count. Well, it goes on and on and nothing happens. The freak with wings becomes sick and somehow manages to fly away flapping it's wings like a vulture while Elisenda is cutting onions.

Then there is The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, about some children, playing by the sea and seeing some bulky mass approaching them. At first, they think it is an enemy ship, but discover it is a dead body. The kids drag him into the town and all the women in the village start fussing all over him, especially because he was a big man. They clean him up but couldn't find clothes big enough for him to wear since he was a large man, and they decide to name him Esteban which means Stephen in English, I guess because he looked like a gringo. The men in the village start to get a little jealous about the women fuss too much over this dead Esteban. The women make up stories about what his life would have been like, what he might have done for a living, and felt sorrow over this orphan corpse. Eventually after the women grieve tremendously for Esteban, they gather flowers, hold a funeral, and he's thrown back into the sea (this was supposed to be a children's story).

Well, there are twenty four more wonderful stories in this book that you must read including Erendira and her Heartless Grandmother, and Death Constant Beyond Love.
... Read more

Product Description
“Muchos años después, frente al pelotón de fusilamiento, el coronel Aureliano Buendía había de recordar aquella tarde remota en que su padre lo llevó a conocer el hielo”.

 

Con estas palabras empieza una novela ya legendaria en los anales de la literatura universal, una de las aventuras literarias más fascinantes del siglo xx. Millones de ejemplares de Cien años de soledad leídos en todas las lenguas y el Premio Nobel de Literatura coronando una obra que se había abierto paso a “boca a boca” —como gusta decir el escritor— son la más palpable demostración de que la aventura fabulosa de la familia Buendía-Iguarán, con sus milagros, fantasías, obsesiones, tragedias, incestos, adulterios, rebeldías, descubrimientos y condenas, representaba al mismo tiempo el mito y la historia, la tragedia y el amor del mundo entero. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

super chevere!
Recomiendo este libro a todos los chicos y chicas que van para la playa y quieren leer una obra tremenda! ... Read more

Product Description
A New York Times Notable Book

On the eve of his ninetieth birthday a bachelor decides to give himself a wild night of love with a virgin. As is his habit–he has purchased hundreds of women–he asks a madam for her assistance. The fourteen-year-old girl who is procured for him is enchanting, but exhausted as she is from caring for siblings and her job sewing buttons, she can do little but sleep. Yet with this sleeping beauty at his side, it is he who awakens to a romance he has never known.

Tender, knowing, and slyly comic, Memories of My Melancholy Whores is an exquisite addition to the master’s work.Amazon.com Review
"The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin."So begins Memories of My Melancholy Whores, and it becomes even more unlikely as the novel unfolds.This slim volume contains the story of the sad life ofan unnamed, only slightly talented Colombian journalist and teacher, never married, never in love, living in the crumbling family manse.He calls Rosa Cabarcas, madame of the city's most successful brothel, to seek her assistance.Rosa tells him his wish is impossible--and then calls right back to say that she has found the perfect girl.

The protagonist says of himself: "I have never gone to bed with a woman I didn't pay ... by the time I was fifty there were 514 women with whom I had been at least once ... My public life, on the other hand, was lacking in interest:both parents dead, a bachelor without a future, a mediocre journalist ... and a favorite of caricaturists because of my exemplary ugliness."

The girl is 14 and works all day in a factory attaching buttons in order to provide for her family.Rosa gives her a combination of bromide and valerian to drink to calm her nerves, and when the prospective lover arrives, she is sound asleep.Now the story really begins.The nonagenarian is not a sex-starved adventurer; he is a tender voyeur.Throughout his 90th year, he continues to meet the girl and watch her sleep.He says, "This was something new for me. I was ignorant of the arts of seduction and had always chosen my brides for a night at random, more for their price than their charms, and we had made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and always in the dark, so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were ... That night I discovered the improbably pleasure of contemplating the body of a sleeping woman without the urgencies of desire or the obstacles of modesty."

Márquez's style never falters throughout this recounting of his life and his exploration of love, found at an unexpected time and place.The erstwhile lover is still capable of being surprised--and fulfilled.After an absence of ten years, it is a treat to have another parable from the master. --Valerie Ryan ... Read more

Customer Reviews (119)

What about the girl?
I'm amazed, and dismayed, that among all the reviews, both positive and negative, I found not a word about what I thought most troubling, and reprehensible, in this novel. Not a word about the devastating poverty that had led this young girl to prostitute herself to an old man in order to help her family. She is the figure for whom we ought to be concerned. Instead, there's not a word of sympathy for her plight or that of the hundreds of others whose bodies this John has bought. Instead we are supposed to feel empathy for, and share in the joy of, this old lecher as he drugs and uses a young girl (and many before her) in pursuit of a weird sort of attachment. The only authentic moment in the book is when the old pederast meets a prostitute from his past, with whom he thought he had a special relationship, and she has no clue who he even is. If there ever was a book written purely from a macho, misogynist perspective, this is it.

Missing the Point
I don't write reviews but I have read many of these as well as the negative NYT review. I am writing because I wonder why people feel compelled to react like critics rather than humans.I liked this book.It made me think. I liked To Have and Have Not, as well.Why must we compare each effort by a great writer to that writer's masterpiece?Don't we want our great writers to keep writing?

To me the book is about the surrender of ego, something we should all contemplate.

Memoirs
This short work of fiction was fantastic.A bit horrific to think of all the books dealing with older men yearning for such young flesh (i.e lolita) but the truth in the words is non-the-less breathtaking.

curious, lyrical, heartfelt
this was my second Gabriel Garcia Marquez book, the first being the well known One Hundred Years of Solitude, which i loved so much that it made my Top Picks list.Memories of My Melancholy Whores, although written with similar language, is more of a novella (only 128 pages) and doesn't have nearly the same breadth of scope as One Hundred Years and has a rather curious plot and set of characters.i did enjoy it and it certainly has its merits, but it is understandably not a book for everyone.

the story focuses on a bachelor on the eve of his 90th birthday. having only ever had sex with prostitutes and in proper celebration, he calls upon the Madam Rosa Cabarcas to find a virgin for him.she does this, securing him a 14 year old girl whom he names Delgadina.once with her, the impending sexual encounter doesn't occur, but rather he longingly admires her and falls asleep.the ensuing year long "relationship" with the young prostitute, in addition to costing a fortune, brings our narrator a happiness he has never known.having never found love and never known joy in life, Delgadina awakens in him something new and causes much reflection on our narrators part, on aging, life, love, death, and naturally, sex.

"Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love."

the relationship is a curious one, with little to no dialogue and a rather perverse sense of intimacy, much like their first encounter that is absent of sex.but, his love for her makes brings an honor and genuineness to him that is admirable.as a seasoned journalist, our narrator has a witty sense of humor and i found his reflections on aging particularly hilarious, with his reflections on love heartfelt. though it is odd to imagine the relationship between our narrator and Delgadina (and he does spend quite a bit of time lamenting on her naked form), i never really was all that bothered by the book.it was written with the intention of examining beauty and love and it does that ever so well.

i think the best part of this book, as with One Hundred Years was the language.Marquez just has that lovely, lyrical way of making the most mundane scenes sounds magical and this was no exception.

"When the cathedral bells struck seven, there was a single, limpid star in the rose-colored sky, a ship called out a disconsolate farewell, and in my throat I felt the Gordian knot of all the loves that might have been and weren't."

though i was not blown away, i did enjoy this and would recommend it as a nice, short read for anyone interested in the beautiful shape that words can take.however, if the idea of a 90 year old man with a 14 year old virgin upsets you, this might not be the right book for you, because it is central and crucial to the flow of the book.

An interesting plot gone wrong
"Memories of My Melancholy Whores" started out great but ended up a bit of a dud. The premise of the book is interesting enough: a 90-year-old man decides to treat himself to a young virgin on his birthday. He ends up falling in love with her, and spends the next year obsessing over her and reflecting back on all the prostitutes he's slept with over the years. The book also touches on what it's like to age and fear one's imminent death. Unfortunately, though, many of the narrator's recollections are incredibly bland, making this short novel difficult to plow through. I suppose the author was trying to show us how uneventful the narrator's previous relationships have been, but that technique lost my interest in the process. ... Read more

Product Description
On her twelfth birthday, Sierva Maria – the only child of a decaying noble family in an eighteenth-century South American seaport – is bitten by a rabid dog. Believed to be possessed, she is brought to a convent for observation. And into her cell stumbles Father Cayetano Delaura, who has already dreamed about a girl with hair trailing after her like a bridal train. As he tends to her with holy water and sacramental oils, Delaura feels something shocking begin to occur. He has fallen in love – and it is not long until Sierva Maria joins him in his fevered misery. Unsettling and indelible, Of Love and Other Demons is an evocative, majestic tale of the most universal experiences known to woman and man. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (71)

A short book that packs a punch...
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is quite possibly one of the best authors alive today, right up there with Toni Morrison.Of Love and Other Demons, although short, packs a punch and delivers just as well as his other longer books.

I was completely drawn in to the 18th century world that Marquez created.I couldn't help becoming fascinated with the accuracy of not only the historic elements of the times but by the beliefs and thoughts of the citizens, especially that of the church.The fact that exorcisms and being possessed by demons was a legitimate and real danger that the church presented adds a lot to the realism of the story.His writing is a recursive style, one that will continually backtrack to a person's past in order to fully develop that character before returning to the present time of the story.Add in some of the comical aspects of the characters, slipped in next to the more serious elements, and you have a very rich and deep story.

You have the sorry Marquis going through life being manipulated by almost everything, an unloved child until it is too late, the myths of the slaves and the very dangerous belief in the demon possession.A string of unlikely occurrences that unfold to further the story does nothing to diminish the realism of what you are reading.

Marquez is a joy to read and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend not only this book but anything written by him.

5 stars.

Great stuff


Marquez is up to his old tricks just writing a darngarn great story chock full of the things a master mixes into his pot, and plasters on the walls. There is a psychological treatise underneath the religious application of possession, in the way of misspent aspirations (the Marquis), depravity, and conviction, both religious and secular, and an excellent read for today's adolescent women.At the very bottom of it, another great tale by a great writer.

Pure human condition, vulnerablility, and nature
This fine novel was meant to be a Literature assignment. Once I opened it, however, I read it continuously whenever I had the time, which did not take long to finish! Marquez creatively describes the human condition so expressively and beautifully that I have not forgotten the characters' vices, dreams and situational miseries. He vividly expresses character vulnerabilty that allows the audience to seek understanding, if not desire to hop-in the novel for modern day intervention! The title was accurately appropriate for such a beautifully written novel!

Masterful Mystical Realism
Only a liar of the magnitude of Gabriel Garcia Marquez would get away with a story like this.
There is a somnolent town with a newspaper looking for something to write about, a reporter goes to look at an excavation going on at a monastery and witnesses an ocean of golden hair flowing from one of the graves.

And the story takes off as it is obvious that the tomb had to belong to a girl named Sierva Maria, born in a planned, hateful marriage of a marquis and the daughter of a petty merchant. The baby was born with bad omens, before time, umbilical cord around her neck and denied of maternal care.

Brought up by the slaves, she learns African languages, spirits and gods. She also has a way of moving gracefully without a sound, dancing like the flames of a bonfire and singing with a voice that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at all.

There is an epidemic of rage, the girl gets bitten by a dog and nearly dies -not because of the dogbite but because of all the well-meaning treatments. As people find the girl defending herself with all the instincts and vigor of a viper and a jaguar, it is decided that she has been possessed by demons.

Marquez cooks up a nice sauce of fear, superstition, Catholic and African traditions, people who lie just for the habit, rumors turning to truths, and the sad fact that whenever people make decisions, they are badly informed, agitated and influenced by malicious people.

I have met people who cannot stand Marquez's exaggerations, his use of screaming colors and pit black. I am not familiar with all the Catholic vocabulary, so there were quite a few words to look up. Well, this is how things are learned...

Is there a moral in Marquez's book?
Strangely, the answer is yes.
Sierva Maria's mother who had planned the marriage and hated every minute of it and her daughter also, degraded into an old fat hag addicted to fermented honey and sexual services bought from her slaves.

Sierva Maria's father who never had the courage to defend or approach her daughter succumbed in loneliness and misery, buzzards picking on his bones.

Sierva Maria's exorcist, after turning to her lover, loses courage and misses the chance to make something of his life.

Sierva Maria return to the dream that she and her lover had shared before they had met and gulps down the grapes that symbolize the days of her life and finally finds herself looking at the snowy landscape, alone.

So much lost life, so much suffering because of beliefs grounded on lies or nothing at all.

This book is a rare polished diamond of Magical Realism.
Gabriel Garcia Marquz has graduated from a Wise Man to a Magician.

A masterpiece of the first order
It is a mark of the genius of Gabriel Garcia Marquez that this is not his best book. It is a sign of his status among writers that it might not even be his second best work. But this says a great deal more about the brilliance of Garcia Marquez's books than it does about the quality of this short novel. I believe that as time goes by, this particular book will come to be regarded more and more highly. There are reasons for this. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE is such a towering masterpiece that it would overshadow the work of any author. And a very long novel nearly as good as SOLITUDE, LOVE IN A TIME OF CHOLERA naturally attracts the next level of interest. The next best known of his books is probably CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD and for a very simple reason. College professors, attempting to select a book by Garcia Marquez to work into a college course, frequently turn to CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD, partly due to its extraordinary excellence and partly due to its brevity. There are very few short novels as superb as CHRONICLE and that is one reason why it is more frequently read than OF LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS, even though the latter is only very slightly longer than the former. One thing that this should alert us to that sometimes is obscured by the genius of SOLITUDE is that Garcia Marquez is incontestably one of the great masters of the short form in literature, whether short novels or short stories. His output isn't as large as some writers, but in quality he has few if any competitors.

What I find most amazing about Garcia Marquez's short novels is how rich and complex they are. A good contrast would be Hemingway's THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, a very great book in its own right, but one in which comparatively little happens compared to OF LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS. When you read the Hemingway story, you get the sense that very little occurs, but you enjoy the slow pace and the way Hemingway allows things to very mildly take their. Hemingway has a single, simple story to tell and he wants to take his time telling it. Garcia Marquez in a similar amount of space wants to create an entire universe, an 18th century world with different beliefs than our own, a cast of characters with richly detailed social relations determined by class, status, wealth, age, and religion. The amount of detail and degree of complexity contained within the pages of the novel is nothing short of spectacular, yet it never, ever feels like Garcia Marquez is overdoing things, that he is putting too much in his story, that he is pushing his subject too far. Instead, everything feels perfect. The story feels perfectly told.

Like many of Garcia Marquez's stories, the premise gives no real clue as to what the story will actually be about. The description of this book -- a thirteen-year-old girl who is bitten on her birthday by a dog with rabies is assessed both by doctors and by churchmen for signs of the disease -- is utterly incapable of doing justice to the novel. Like most of Garcia Marquez's stories, the plot is really quite secondary. What is important is the metaphysics of the situation, the depiction not of what happens, but of the things that can happen in this particular world. It is a world where a husband, lamenting the death of his wife, can find himself deluged with the folded paper birds that she excelled at when alive. And a world where a young girl's hair continues to grow after her death to the length of over twenty meters.

I especially enjoyed the way this particular book began. It begins in the voice of Garcia Marquez himself, recalling allegedly real life events from the late 1940s when he, as a reporter, was sent to report on the moving of several bodies from a former convent prefatory to it being torn down to accommodate a new luxury hotel. There, in the decaying monastery, we encounter most of the major characters that we will encounter in the novel. Here, at the beginning, they are undifferentiated by death; later, in the course of events, they will be distinguished by the roles that they play differentiated by rank, gender, and caste. The richness of the world that they inhabit would appear to be too complex for the length of the novel, but just as Garcia Marquez described himself as a magician, so he performed a magic trick in making a very, very big story fit into a very small number of pages.

I would rank this as not merely one of the finest works that I have read by Garcia Marquez, but as one of the greatest short novels that I have ever read. I absolutely must be read by anyone who loves either Garcia Marquez or great literature. It is pure genius. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excelente relato
Excelente libro. Me devore cada pagina por lo interesante de la trama y su narrativa. Lo recomiendo.

Excelente
Gabriel Garcia Marquez nos impresiona con su gran abilidad de narrar los hechos que estremecieron a Colombia al principio de los años 90. ¡Se los recomiento a todos! ... Read more

Product Description
El último libro de García Marquez.Es una historia de diez secuestros. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

A sad reality about Colombia
Noticia de un secuestro is one of Gabriel Garcia Marquez most dry books in terms of the literary style used. It could be because the theme does not allow for much variety but just an honest recount of the truth. The book gives the reader a realistic view of daily Colombian life, a country that has struggled with guerrilla warfare and drug trafficking for the past forty years and more. The protagonists of the book are the victims of the kidnappers and throughout the book we learn about the cruel reality of these people who have changed the life of many Colombians by use of violence and cruel killings without mercy. I think the book was well written with revealing details of how the victims feel (mentally and physically) and how their families suffer when they are forced to negotiate with the drug dealers etc. for the safe return of their family members. Also, we clearly see the role that the government plays in the rescue process. The style used by the author is very journalistic, thus making the book and story very dry in comparison to his other literary works. However, perhaps this style was chosen simply because this is the reality of Colombias daily crisis. The book is excellent, has much eye-opening information and is a wonderful read if you wish to learn more about the socio-economic problems of this great South American country. Arriba Colombia.

excelente obra narrativa
Noticia de un secuestro

Para: Gloria Leticia Fernández, en Cali.

Noticia de un secuestro de Gabriel garcía Márquez es un libro que se deja leer y que presenta y representa la narrativa en su forma más pura. Con un estilo periodístico claro y directo el Gabo nos hace penetrar en lo más hondo de las vidas de los secuestrados y nos hace sentir sus horrores de la manera más sutil, pues en ningún momento se centra su atención en los crímenes o torturas sinoen la vida en común de captores y capturados,ylos esfuerzos del gobierno y de sus familias para liberarlos. Una cosa parece cierta y es que la realidad supera siempre a la ficción y este relato de la vida real lo demuestra por lo novelesco quea veces nos parece y lo increíble de las cosas que pasan en Colombia sacudido como esta por el trafico de drogas, las guerrillas y las constantes luchas internas. Aun así sus habitantes aun viven y trabajan, tratan de forjarse un futuro y muchos luchan por el bienestar de su pueblo. El libro esta narrado de forma magistral como un gran reportaje en que el autor se abstiene de intervenir y es simplemente un narrador de hechos contados por otras personas. Nunca nos deja ver el Gabo sus sentimientos ni estropea la obra con rebuscados sentimentalismos que hubieran hecho de este libro un dramón insoportable. Nota: en Colombia se produjeron mas de tres mil secuestros el año pasado y la practica llamada pesca milagrosa ( asaltar gente en las carreteras sin saber bien quienes son para luego de depurarlos pedir rescate toma fuerza). Los cuerpos elite no dan abasto y el país tiene un índice de peligrosidad muy alto. Espero que mi amiga gloria que se encuentra en Cali este bien y si estas leyendo este articulo, sepaque tiene un amigo en uepa.com y que me puede escribir. Espero que este todo bien en su amada Cali y que la paz llegue pronto a Colombia, que los latinos podamos unirnos en un interés común y hacia objetivos nuevos, que todo el mundo deje de halar para donde más le conviene y que al final podamos progresar en paz.

Mis saludos al pueblo Colombiano.

Crazzyteacher.

VIOLENCE IN A WONDERFUL COUNTRY
This book is really interesting, because tell us the political and social problems of one of the most important countries in latinamerica: Colombia.

Great chronicle
One of the best books I've ever read about Colombia and its problems.

Mejor de lo que pensaba
La verdad es que le hice el quite a este libro durante tiempo, pensando que era una especie de producto de los talleres que hace G.M. pero hace poco lo leí de una sentada y me sorprendió. No está a la altura de ninguno de sus libros de ficción y tampoco es gran periodismo, pero todo el trozo que cubre la reclusión de las mujeres y la forma que buscan para sobrevivir al encierro es notable. Lo que más molesta del libro es que no toma ningún riesgo. Es plano, ultracorregido y sobreeditado. Y además, esa tendencia a describir a todos los parientes de las secuestradas poco menos que como personajes de teleserie es desagradable: son unidimensionales, incorruptibles, incansables. No hay drama ni interés ahí, sino que en el encierro. Lástima que el libro no comenzara y terminara dentro de esas cuatro paredes. Para leer una pura vez. ... Read more

Product Description
No writer alive today exerts the magical appeal of Gabriel García Márquez. Now, in the long-awaited first volume of his autobiography, he tells the story of his life from his birth in 1927 to the moment in the 1950s when he proposed to his wife. The result is as spectacular as his finest fiction.

Here is García Márquez’s shimmering evocation of his childhood home of Aracataca, the basis of the fictional Macondo. Here are the members of his ebulliently eccentric family. Here are the forces that turned him into a writer. Warm, revealing, abounding in images so vivid that we seem to be remembering them ourselves, Living to Tell the Tale is a work of enchantment.Amazon.com Review
Living to Tell the Tale, the first of three projected volumes in the memoirs of Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Márquez, narrates what, on the surface appears to be the portrait of the young artist through the mid-1950s. But the masterful work, which draws on the craft of the author's best fiction, has a depth and richness that transcends straightforward autobiography.

Echoing Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited, Márquez uses his memoir as justification for telling an artful story that challenges notions of authoritative record or chronology. Time is porous in Márquez's Colombia, flowing back and forth among the mythic moments of his personal history to accommodate his fascination for place. While recalling a trip he took as an adult to his grandparents' house in Aracataca, he veers suddenly back to childhood and his earliest infant memories in that house. Nearly one hundred pages have passed before he returns effortlessly to the pivotal moment on the trip when he declares to himself and family: "I'm going to be a writer... Nothing but a writer.'

Similarly, Márquez toys with the boundaries of truth and fiction throughout his book. He acknowledges that his memory is often faulty, especially with regards to his crucial, formative years with his grandparents. And his explorations of key moments in his life show that, despite his vivid mental snapshots, the events were often temporally impossible. Further, he colors his tale with recollections of ghostly presences and occult events that pass without a wink into his narrative, alongside the documented accounts of his early successes as a poet and singer or details of his first published writings.

With its play on time and truth, memory and storytelling, Living to Tell the Tale's literary form acts as early evidence for Márquez's inevitable calling as a writer, and the language of Edith Grossman's translation, which frequently skirts the boundaries of poetry, mirrors Márquez's effort. While he meanders on his picaresque artistic journey--distracted by trysts with a married woman, the tumult of Colombian politics, and the raw energy of the journalist's life--he ends this first volume with the tantalizing promise of the literary career about to explode, and the impossible prospect of even greater riches for his readers. --Patrick O’Kelley ... Read more

Customer Reviews (53)

Great read!
I am a lover of Gabriel Garcia Marquez - and this book was just as interesting as his fiction and his writing just as descriptive. Truth really is stranger than fiction.His early childhood and young adulthood are fascinating and amazing.The only criticism I have is that it ended and there is no sequel yet!

Damn! This kid's going to be a writer
In this candid autobiography G. G. Marquez gives us a rare glimpse in the making of a Nobel Prize winning author by commenting on those people and events which influenced profoundly his life, opinions and writings.

Strong women, brutal men
For the author, `the essence of my nature and way of thinking I owe to the women who ministered my childhood. They had strong characters and tender hearts, and they treated me with the naturalness of the Earthly Paradise.'
Also, `My intimacy with the maids has allowed me to feel more comfortable with women than with men. It may also be the source of my conviction that they are the ones who maintain the world which we men throw it into disarray with our historic brutality.'

Family, education, early life
He was brought up in a family of fifteen people comprising children fathered out of wedlock.
He defends the Montessorian method of education because it makes children sensitive to the beauties of the world and awakens their curiosity regarding the secrets of life.
As a young journalist he lived in utmost poverty. `If you're going to be a writer you have to be one of the great ones ... After all, there are better ways to starve to death.'
Not until his forties could he live decently from the royalties of his works.
As a journalist he was all the time confronted with censorship.

Writing and literature
In school he was a very bad pupil in grammar and he continues to write spelling atrocities.
He was a voracious reader and some works influenced him profoundly, as W. Faulkner (Intruder in the Dust), F. Kafka (The Metamorphosis), J. Joyce (Ulysses), N. Hawthorne (The House of the Seven Gables) and A. Carpentier (The Kingdom of the World).
He still considers that the short story reigns supreme over the novel.
And, 'a brothel is the best residence for a writer, because the mornings are quiet, there is a party every night, and you are on good terms with the police.'

Politics
As Lenin said, `If you do not become involved in politics, politics will eventually become involved in you.'
In Colombia, G.G. Marquez lived in an environment of continuous political violence with as nadir the murder of the socialist leader Jorge Gaitàn and the subsequent slaughtering of the opposition by the Conservatives: `every dream of fundamental change vanished. The dead amounted to more than a million.'(The TV-chain Deutsche Welle showed last year a remarkable analysis of this political murder).
Another of his youth friends was the revolutionary priest, Camillo Torres.

This book written by a formidable storyteller is a must read for all lovers of world literature.

Lying to tell the tale
Lying to tell the tale

García Márquez, Gabriel (Author), Edith Grossman (Translator) 2003 Living to Tell the Tale. Knopf (Random House New York) ISBN-10 1400041341 ASIN B0002130PY It is not always easy to distinguish talent from evil.Few if anybody will deny that Gabriel García Márquez has magnificent talent; however far fewer are aware of his role as a propagandist especially in support of Fidel Castro; and even less the sad effect this has on the lives of deceived youth in Latin America.His books distort reality and demonize his ideological opponents. This volume gives perhaps the most famous example the 1928 massacre of banana workers in Ciénaga, Colombia.We can read starting on page 14: "It was here my mother told me that day, where in 1928, the army had killed an undetermined number of banana workers ... three thousand men women and children ... "Page 27 " ...doubts still persisted regarding the historic truth: three dead, or three thousand?"Page 62-63 "My mother's version had such meager numbers and a setting so abject for the imposing drama I had imagined that it caused a sense of frustration in me. Later I spoke with survivors and witnesses and searched through newspaper archives and official documents, and realized that the truth did not lie anywhere.Conformists said in effect that there had been no deaths. ... I kept the number at three thousand, in order to preserve the epic proportions of the drama ... in the end the real life did me justice (sic,or perhaps sick) ... the speaker in the Senate asked for a minute of silence in memory of the three thousand anonymous martyrs sacrificed by the forces of law and order. "The trouble with all of this is that in memory of the almost certainly fictitious "three thousand" many more mislead idealists died. And above all Gabriel García Márquez apparently feels no guilt.

Delightful trip
This book had me traveling over the time, places, aromas and dreams. I enjoyed it.

Always Brilliant...
I have enjoyed reading this book and look forward to the next two in this trilogy.I will say the book has not been as "captivating" as some of Marquez's other titles, but since I love this writer, I will continue to seek out and read his writings!The rich history he decribes of Colombia is fascinating! ... Read more

Product Description
Premio Nobel de Literatura

“Una obra atrevida y cautivadora… García Márquez retiene una voz admirable y vital, y la pluma de un ángel”.
—Los Angeles Times Book Review
 
El 26 de octubre de 1949 el reportero Gabriel García Márquez fue enviado al antiguo convento de Santa Clara, que iba a ser demolido para edificar sobre él un hotel de cinco estrellas, a presenciar el vaciado de las criptas funerarias y a cubrir la noticia.
 
Se exhumaron los restos de un virrey del Perú y su amante secreta, un obispo, varias abadesas, un bachiller de artes y una marquesa. Pero la sorpresa saltó al destapar la tercera hornacina del altar mayor: se desparramó una cabellera de color cobre, de veintidós metros y once centímetros de largo, perteneciente a una niña. En la lápida apenas se leía el nombre: Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles.
 
Cuenta el propio García Márquez: "Mi abuela me contaba de niño la leyenda de una marquesita de doce años cuya cabellera le arrastraba como una cola de novia, que había muerto del mal de rabia por el mordisco de un perro, y era venerada en los pueblos del Caribe por sus muchos milagros. La idea de que esa tumba pudiera ser la suya fue mi noticia de aquel día, y el origen de este libro". ... Read more

Product Description

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.

With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez introducedLatin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated into morethan two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss in Macondostands at the apex of 20th-century literature. --Alix Wilber ... Read more

Customer Reviews (541)

A True Classic
I read this book what seemed like 100 times in college (in Spanish).It is not an easy book to read, but it became more interesting (and easier to understand) each time I read it.The writing style, timeline and naming convention of the characters make the book challenging to understand, but also make it quite hysterical once the reader can get past that.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a story about life and generations (each generation becoming the same as the previous).It's about history and culture.I would recommend this classic for anyone who has the patience to read through the challenging parts and push through to reflect on the deeper themes posed by Garcia Marquez.

A Slightly Difficult Read but a Masterful Book
With a foundation in magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitudefollows the growth of the Buenda family and the city of Macondo. Drawing from childhood stories, Márquez pens an extraordinary tale of love, death, and loneliness. The book begins with a foreboding sense of determinism when Márquez writes:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buenda was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice" (p. 1).


In fact, an impending sense of helplessness meanders through the book as the family expands with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. With each generation, the names of Aureliano, José Arcadio, and Remedios are recycled. There is a sense in which each person is merely an extension of a larger character. "There was no mystery," claims Márquez,

"in the heart of a Buenda that was impenetrable for her because a century of cards and experience had taught her that the history of the family was a machine with unavoidable repetitions, a turning wheel that would have gone on spilling into eternity were it not for the progressive and irremediable wearing of the axle" (p. 396).


Just as each character blends with previous characters that have come and gone in the narrative, each lives and dies in resolute isolation. Whether through external circumstances or internal influences, each family member succumbs to a life of seclusion. For example, Márquez describes a character's despair, saying:

"Instead of going to the chestnut tree, Colonel Aureliano Buenda also went to the street door and mingled with the bystanders who were watching the parade. He saw a woman dressed in gold sitting on the head of an elephant. He saw a sad dromedary. He saw a bear dressed like a Dutch girl keeping time to the music with a soup spoon and a pan. He saw the clowns doing cartwheels at the end of the parade and once more he saw the face of his miserable solitude when everything had passed by and there was nothing but the bright expanse of the street and the air full of flying ants with a few onlookers peering into the precipice of uncertainty. Then he went to the chestnut tree, thinking about the circus, and while he urinated he tried to keep on thinking about the circus, but he could no longer find the memory. He pulled his head in between his shoulders like a baby chick and remained motionless with his forehead against the trunk of the chestnut tree" (267).


Originally written in Spanish, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a difficult read. The sentences are long and the narrative does not follow a singular arc. However, the book brings harsh questions into focus. Are we free to choose the direction of our lives or have they been set in motion long before we were conscious of our choices? No matter how many friends and loved ones orbit our lives, are we actually alone? I encourage you to pick up Marquez's masterpiece and struggle your way to your own answers.

Originally from Where Pen Meets Paper Blog

My first Marquez Encounter
I'd never read anything like this book before.Never even thought about almond trees until this book had me imagining it's smell.Although I was a bit biased at first this book opened me up to a whole new kind of prose.Needless to say this book had me reading every Marquez novel I could find.

Brilliant
Gabriel García Márquez who has created in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" an enchanted place that does everything but cloy. Macondo oozes, reeks and burns even when it is most tantalizing and entertaining. It is a place flooded with lies and liars and yet it spills over with reality. Lovers in this novel can idealize each other into bodiless spirits, howl with pleasure in their hammocks or, as in one case, smear themselves with peach jam and roll naked on the front porch. The hero can lead a Quixotic expedition across the jungle, but although his goal is never reached, the language describing his quest is pungent with life:

"The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of steaming oil and their machetes destroyed bloody lilies and golden salamanders. For a week, almost without speaking, they went ahead like sleepwalkers through a universe of grief, lighted only by the tenuous reflection of luminous insects, and their lungs were overwhelmed by a suffocating smell of blood." This is the language of a poet who knows the earth and does not fear it as the enemy of the dreamer.

Near the end of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" a character finds a parchment manuscript in which the history of his family had been recorded "one hundred years ahead of time" by an old gypsy. The writer "had not put events in the order of man's conventional time, but had concentrated a century of daily episodes in such a way that they coexisted in one instant." The narrative is a magician's trick in which memory and prophecy, illusion and reality are mixed and often made to look the same. It is, in short, very much like Márquez's astonishing novel.

This book gives you kind of a feeling of living in a dreamland that is all too real. I highly suggest checking this book out asap

A Spellbinding Fairy Tale
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is my all time favorite book. It is a brilliant showcase for Marquez's powerful imagination and genius for storytelling. I won't go into any plot details because I believe this is the kind of book that needs to be experienced instead of explained. I will say, however, that I responded on a deep level to the vivid language and emotionalism of this novel. Marquez literally paints pictures with words, creating a story that is both comic and tragic, romantic and heartbreaking, surreal and earthy. Marquez's voice is articulate as well as accessible, making it seem as if were are sitting down to hear a family patriarch tell a colorful fairy tale. There is a great deal of symbolism and fantasy in this book, but the main running theme throughout is - as you may have guessed from the title - solitude. Despite the novel's surrealism, the heart of the novel is something any human being can relate to. All of the individual characters (and there are a myriad of them) deal with some form of loneliness at certain points. The Buendia family is often described as possessing a solitary gene, and while some of them are forced to face life alone through adverse circumstances, others choose solitude because of a sense of alienation, loss, or insecurity. The Buendia family spend most of their time together yet, as Ursula tragically points out at one point, none of them truly understand each other. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is famed for being a part of the magical realism canon, but I believe the true gift of this novel is that its a beautiful, stirring, complex portrait of family and the existential loneliness of the human condition. ... Read more

Product Description

Contains Leaf Storm, The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings, Blacaman the Good, Vendor of Miracles, The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship, Monologue of Isabel Watching It Rain in Macondo, Nabo

Customer Reviews (5)

Disappointing
Leaf Storm is inferior compared to Strange Pilgrims, another collection of short stories by Marquez.Maybe I'm being too harsh on Leaf Storm but I do love Strange Pilgrims and One Hundred Years of Solitude so perhaps my expectations were too high.This is basically Marquez's first work of fiction and it took 7 years to publish.I understand why.

Leaf Storm is the name of the first story or novella to be precise.The story of the death of a hated doctor and how he became hated as well as why a grandfather, his daughter and grandson are the only ones who are willing to make sure he gets a proper burial.Parts are done well but the story is inconsistent throughout.

There are 6 more, much shorter, stories.My favorites were The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World, Blacaman the Good: Vendor of Miracles, and The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship.Blacaman and Ghost Ship have especially dark turns at the end.

If you have read previous Marquez you may want to skip Leaf Storm since your bar is probably too high.

A great short story.
I bought this book to help my study on Spanish. I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but the original is still too hard for me. This translation work is quite acurate while maintaining the flavor of Garcia Marquez. It helps me greatly and speed up my understanding. However, In addition to be a study aid, the book also provides a great deal of enjoyable reading. I recomend it for a summer reading.

Gabo is great from the beginning
'Leaf Storm' is known as the first novella published by Gabriel García Márquez. And from this debut is possible to see how big he would become one day. This book tells a very simple story that acquires multiple levels as it is told.

After the death of an infamous doctor of Macondo his only friends, this friend's daughter and her son gather to the funerals. The dead man is known as the devil and everyone hates him. His death made the city very happy. As the story is unfolded, we learn why he's so hated and how come the threesome ended up there to mourn him.

Using multiple points of views, Gabo gives the three protagonists chances to speak to themselves and we can find out how dreadful is to each of one be there. The writer is able to switch the point of view, and also the language --after all, a little boy does not speak as an old man. This is one of the remarkable qualities of this wonderful novella.

This is the very first time that the imaginary place Macondo appears in Gabo's story and it became a seminal place of his stories --among them the masterpiece 'A Hundred years of solitude'.

Dreamy
I loved this novella and the short stories that were included in the volume.

"Leaf Storm" isn't a conventionally plotted novella.Instead, it's more of a dreamy and dreamlike character study of three people and their reactions to the suicide (or possible murder) of the town outcast and recluse.When the novella ends, we are left with many unanswered questions, but still, we feel fulfilled for we sense there are things about this suicide/murder that it's best simply not to know.

I have to disagree with opinions that Gregory Rabassa didn't do a good job with the translation.I think he did a superb job.He not only translated the story for us, he managed to capture the rain-soaked, steamy melancholy that is the essence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.Rabassa is well-known as having been one of the world's premier translators and it's easy to see why.

I loved the two fantasy stories, "The Hansomest Drowned Man in the World" and "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings."They are filled with the brand of magical realism that only Gabo can write and are just wonderful.I also liked "Monologue of Isabel Watching it Rain in Macondo" and "Ghost Ship."

This book gives us a glimpse into the world of Macondo and it's a very seductive glimse indeed.

The book that started it all......
This wonderful book by GABO was the first one he wrote.So, it is very subject to the rules of writing.Later on the author would change completely to get the highest level at EL OTOñO DEL PATRIARCA, passing by "ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE".The story is a killing that the author did not witness but that everybody in Colombia knew, and nobody talked about.Maybe because of fear for their own safety.GABO's grandfather told him the story when he was less than 6 years old.As a grown up he investigated by himself.The story happens at the Banana Plantation in Northern Colombia, where the explotator owned the life of their workers because they did no follow the law.American gringos bought the final product.A revolution wanted to start but was stopped by the worst masacre ever in that area.I read this book the first time whenit was published by chapters in the local newspaper.Then we knew that this man was going to be the greatest of all times, the Mohamad Ali of the Spanish literature in the 20th century.This book is a must for everybody interested in GABO's work. Jose ... Read more

Product Description
Estos relatos tempranos de Gabriel García Márquez fueron escritos y publicados entre 1947 y 1955, aunque, como libro, Ojos de perro azul no aparecería hasta 1974, cuando el escritor ya había publicado otros dos libros de relatos y cuatro novelas, de las que la última, Cien años de soledad, le proporcionaría su primer gran éxito internacional.
 
En este libro se incluye su primer cuento célebre, el Monólogo de Isabel viendo llover en Macondo, escenario de sus obras posteriores. El personaje de Isabel reaparecerá en su primera novela, y el tema de la lluvia cayendo interminablemente, en su personal versión del diluvio universal, acabaría integrándose suave y flexiblemente en Cien años de soledad.
 
Este relato, incluido en todas las antologías del cuento latinoamericano de nuestros días, fue la primera piedra de ese gigantesco edificio, tan imaginario como real, que terminaría fundando el espacio literario más poderoso de las letras universales de nuestro tiempo: Macondo. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A Short story to revisit for a life time
The story captivates the imagination each time some how diffrent.Leaving the sensation that we might have been there in a dream or in real life.
A gem!a must own.

es muy bueno
i'm from Venezuela, this is the first book i bought when i got here, i bought it in english "to practice" and i thought it wouldn't be the same but it's a really great book. i don't really like short stories but i loved this one. i think anyone who likes any book from Gabriel García Marquez would love this one to. i like everything i've red from him, the last one (i red), "El amor en los tiempos de colera", was just beautiful.

UN CUENTO PERECTO
Aunque toda la obra de Garcia Marquez es brillante, considero que Ojos de Perro Azul goza de las caracteristicas de un cuento perfecto. Es magico e inesperado. Transporta al lector a un mundo de ensueño que se va revelando sutilmente. Definitivamente, vale la pena leerlo, mas de una vez.

De como Gabriel se hizo inmortal .....
"Ojos de Perro Azul" es una recopilación de cuentos publicadospor GGM entre 1947-1952 -antes que apareciera su primera novela.En cadauno de ellos se puede evidenciar con claridad su evolución comoescritor.

En los cinco primeros veremos a un Gabriel desconocido -sinuna dirección aparente-, misterioso, onírico, fantaseando con la vida y lamuerte.Empleando, además, un lenguaje intrincado que obstaculiza unalectura fluida debiendo el lector detenerse, y a veces hasta retroceder,para descubrir si el personaje que está en escena es el vivo, el muerto, oquizás el muerto que pensaba estar vivo -así de escabroso resulta en susinicios.Sin embargo, recien en "Ojos de Perro Azul" -publicadoen 1950 y el cual con justicia le confiere el título al libro- es donde GGMse encuentra con el escritor que luchaba por nacer .... y nació.Deja delado los monólogos y logra establecer diálogos, omitiendo frasestruculentas y reemplazándolas más bien por otras sencillas y de fácilcomprensión.

A diferencia del resto de sus obras -que se publicaríanposterior a "Ojos de Perro Azul"- ésta no constituye una hebra delo que en su conjunto se llamaría "Cien Años de Soledad".Por locontrario -y es allí donde radica su exquisita rareza- nos muestra mundos ypersonajes distintos a través de los cuales aún no se vislumbra a Macondoni mucho menos a un Aureliano Buendía.

Esta obra es, pues, una joya"histórica" invalorable para aquellos que admiramos a Gabo, y nosrecuerda que, alguna vez, él también fue humano antes de convertirse en eseser mágico e inmortal que ahora conocemos como .... Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Eyes of the Blue Dog,is one of my favorites.
Is a Great Book!. (Ojos De Perro Azul,es uno de mis favoritos y es tremendo libro.) ... Read more

Product Description
A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. Just hours after marrying the beautiful Angela Vicario, everyone agrees,Bayardo San Roman returned his bride in disgrace to her parents.Her distraught family forced her to name her first lover; and her twin brothers announced their intention to murder Santiago Nasar for dishonoring their sister.
Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to stop it?The more that is learned, the less is understood, and as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion, an entire society--not just a pair of murderers—is put on trial. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (129)

The master did it again, this time with a non traditional sequencing.
First of all, the reader should understand this is a Nobel prize winner.He is a true master, at times hard to read.

The beauty, and very high complexity, of this short piece of work is its violation of the traditional organization:introduction,development,climax, resolution, etc.In this work you know the end from the beginning (a guy got murdered), but there is a climax and resolution in every single chapter.He managed to do this by recreating all the events from the point of view of different characters in each chapter.As a reader, you relive the murder every time, but from different (and incomplete) points of view.The complete picture is achieved by "seeing" each individual point of view as a sum.

While apparently short, this text is by no means fast or easy reading.In Spanish speaking countries, it is reading used in College to precisely show what a non-typical writing is.This is how I got involved with this book.

To those arguing the book is repetitios, well ... it does repeat part of the events, but from the eyes of different witnesses.

College question (we all got it wrong in the test, way back in 1984):who did sleep with the killers' sister?None of us, college boys, were able to get this one, so I feel compelled to tell.It will make it not repetitous, but a mistery!It was the narrator, who is her cousin!Find it out yourself!

Didn't read but...
Book was purchased for my daughter's IB English class.Since its part of the assigned reading, I assume its worth the read.

Brilliant
One of the best books written by Garcia Marquez, and everything he writes is a masterpiece!

Good delivery!
The condition of the book was good. Recipient was satisfied. Order was delivered on time. Tracking shipping very useful.

I'd like to make some suggestions
Don't even read this unless you've read the book. This review is not intended to help you figure out whether you ought to buy or read the book - of course you should, at least, read it - but to help some readers appreciate it.

Reviewing the plot: the beautiful Angela Vicario marries the powerful Bayardo San Roman, but on her wedding night she is found not to be a virgin; devastated, Bayardo returns her to her family. She tells her brothers, Pedro and Pablo Vicario, that her "perpetrator" was Santiago Nasar. The brothers, to preserve the family's honor, kill Santiago. At the time of the murder the narrator was sleeping with a prostitute - a prostitute whom Santiago loved. Twenty years later the narrator decides to return to the village and investigate the murder. Memories are faded and confused; people tell the narrator stories that contradict what they'd told an investigator so many years before - but the investigator's report has also been partly lost, damaged in a flood.

It's already obvious that the fallibility of memory is a central theme, for which the flood damage to the investigator's report is a simple (and perfect) symbol. The narrator even calls the village "forgotten." One level deeper, the fallibility and pseudo-infallibility of texts is being considered as well.

Another favorite for commentators is social class: Bayardo is able to choose his wife because of his money, and she is unable to reject him because of her poverty; Bayardo unintentionally kills an old widower by offering so much money for the man's beloved home; a poor young woman, Divina Flor, who works for Santiago, "feels herself destined for his furtive bed," as he molests her; and so on. However, the poor get their day: the lowly Vicario brothers kill the rich Bayardo, with the help of Divina Flor, who accidentally (ahem) collaborated by (mistakenly) telling Santiago's mother that he was in the house. In fact he was outside, so when the mother locked the door, she locked him out, putting him at the mercy of the killers.

Now it is obvious that the unreliability of the reports is another theme. Several characters report not believing each other, and nearly everyone here seemed to mention the inconsistent reports of the weather. But most interestingly to me there is no reason beyond typical readerly gullibility for so many readers to believe what Divina Flor (twenty years afterward) tells the investigating narrator about her mistake. Even if she made an honest mistake about Santiago being in the house, she or her mother could have warned him of the danger earlier in the day when he was eating breakfast, but they both chose not to. She tells the narrator that her mother wanted Santiago dead; but the only reason she can give for failing to warn him was that she was just a scared naive little girl: in other words, a virgin.

So we have every reason to suspect Divina Flor and her mother of active collaboration in the crime. Of course neither of them admit to it, but there are interesting problems with their testimonies. For instance, Divina says that before he was killed, she'd seen Santiago come in holding something she couldn't see clearly, but looked like a bouquet of roses. After he was repeatedly stabbed by the brothers, Santiago in fact does enter the house, carrying his intestines. Clearly the Divina of twenty years later has confused what she actually did see after the murder with what she claimed to see beforehand. But at the time, what had she seen? Perhaps - nothing?

Perhaps there are allusions to Oedipus Rex - the repeated reference to birds ~ the sphinx, blindness, foreigners, prophecy, the quest for truth, and as we'll see below, arguably even incest - though none are undeniable. But unlike poor Oedipus, Divina Flor triumphed over her unwanted fate ("Santiago's furtive bed"), even if she really did believe that Santiago was in the house. I'm saddened a little that most readers to not appreciate her triumph, and I'm forced to blame the rather incompetent narrator.

But is he so incompetent? A question far too few reviewers have asked is who in fact deflowered Angela. The narrator gives us pretty good reasons to believe that it was not Santiago, who seemed completely unaware of the crime and startled by the accusation. One obvious suspect looms large, and I am very disappointed that none of the reviewers here have suggested... obviously... the narrator.

Of course the narrator reports that (twenty years later) he asked Angela Vicario and she insisted that it was Santiago - calling the narrator "cousin" as she does so. But why trust him? Have we really read Fitzgerald, Kafka, Salinger, Nabokov and so on without learning to suspect the narrator? The narrator who is in some obvious ways the double of Santiago? We'll never know (and too few readers will ask) why the narrator decided to dig up all these memories twenty years after the fact, visiting several people now scattered around the country to get their testimony, and telling us how much work it was to find the investigator's report in the flooded basement of a government office in a distant city. Had he really nothing else to do?

Many other reviewers do a good job of discussing the significance of gender and especially "machismo." A few mentioned that, as with other GGM stories, there may be allegories or symbols of Colombian politics. But did anyone notice that Angela's birthday is a national holiday, or wonder why? And that her husband, with his melodramatically offended honor, is the son of a great national hero?

The last theme I'd like to mention is ir/rationality. The story is loaded with inconsistencies, explanations that don't make sense, unreasonable reasons. Santiago's mother can accurately interpret dreams provided she hasn't eaten yet, Santiago never used the back door of his house when he was dressed up, and so on. It is not clear whether the narrator is trying to make sense of such things, or is comfortable with their senselessness - were it clear, it would be less thematic.

This book deserves several reads because of its complex cleverness. I strongly disagree with reviewers who have called it heartbreaking, harrowing, shocking, brutal, and so on. People who feel that way need to read "Sophie's Choice," "Lolita," "A Tale of Love and Darkness," "In the Forest" and so on. This is not a criticism of the story. Those inaccurate adjectives are supplied by readers created in the image of the original investigator, who, although striving to find a rational explanation for things, merely glosses everything with romantic cliches: "the fatal door" is given as a typical example. The book is immensely clever - more so than most reviewers have appreciated - but rather than tragic (or any other typical romantic aspiration) it is essentially ironic, wry, darkly comic. It seems the final joke, one destined to be poorly appreciated, is on the reader. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Remarkable writer
I am a follower of Marquez and have read most of his works. This one continues to be my very favorite and I have read it several times in Spanish. I purchased your recent offer as my paperback copy was falling apart. The book can still teach us lessons that fit today's world.

Must read
One of the best books written originally in Spanish by Nobel Prize Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I read both the Spanish and the English versions and for purposes of reviewing this item, I have to say the English version is very good. Well worth the reading! Add it to your collection of must read, obviously if you enjoy good literature.

An amazing book...
I have read this book 10 times in Spanish and three times in English and evrey time I have enjoyed it a lot, in both languages.I would say this book is a classic in the modern latin american literature.

A "must have" of Latinamerian literature
I read this book for many year and found it simply wonderful!! I have now bought it for a German friend that can speak and read good Spanish. This is a "must" of Latinamerican literature, beautifuly written, splenid story, with a touch of magic mixed with the real world. Gabriel Garcia Marques has been, together with Mario Vargas Llosa and a couple others, for the last twenty or thirty years one of those authors that are constantly writting novels and stories nobody can ignore.

Not my kind of book
After reading all kinds of reviews about how wonderful this book is, I had to read it.I could not get beyond the first 25 pages. Boring beyond belief. Maybe the story picks up, but I doubt it.

During the 1st few pages it tells the story of this guy who buys a strong magnet from a Gypsy in an attempt to find gold with it.The magnet is so strong that it pulls the nails out of the walls of the houses and the houses collapse.See what I mean. ... Read more

Product Description
Latin America's finest contemporary stories are featured in this anthology that includes works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortazar, Jorge Luis Borges, and Juan Rulfo. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Cien anos de soledad (en espanol).
This is the most fascinating book one has ever read before. This book tells us about the only thing, which is interesting for a human being - solitute. Tne iternal solitute. The auther explains that all man's efforts to imporove his own nature a re in vain, if you do not comprehend the nature of his own solitude. This book brough me the enourmous sadness. This should be so. Also, I'd like to note, that we, in USA, do not encourage, young man, who long to read such beautiful books, likes Marquez's "100 anos de soledad". Our government should encourage young talents (gifted)and provide us with "100 .." free. That's all. Thanx. ... Read more

Product Description
“El año de mis noventa años quise regalarme una noche de amor con una adolescente virgen.”

Un viejo periodista decide festejar sus noventa años a lo grande, dándose un regalo que le hará sentir que todavía está vivo: una jovencita. En el prostíbulo de un pintoresco pueblo, ve a la jovencita de espaldas, completamente desnuda, y su vida cambia radicalmente. Ahora que la conoce se encuentra a punto de morir, pero no por viejo, sino de amor.

Así, Memoria de mis putas tristes cuenta la vida de este anciano solitario lleno de man’as. Por él sabremos cómo en todas sus aventuras sexuales (que no fueron pocas) siempre dio a cambio algo de dinero, pero nunca imagino que de ese modo encontrar’a el verdadero amor.

Esta nueva novela es una conmovedora reflexión que celebra las alegrías del enamoramiento y contempla las desventuras de la vejez, escrito en el estilo incomparable de Gabriel García Márquez.



“In my ninetieth year, I decided to give myself the gift of a night of love with a young virgin.”

An elderly journalist decides to celebrate his 90 years in a grand way, giving himself a present that will make him feel like he’s still alive: a virgin.In the brothel of a picturesque town, he sees the young woman from the back, completely naked, and his life changes radically. Now that he meets her he finds himself close to dying, not of old age, but rather of love.

Memoria de mis putas tristes is the story of this eccentric, solitary old man, a narrative of his sexual adventures (of which there were many), for which he always paid, never imagining that this would be the way he would discover true love.

This new novel, written in Gabriel García Márquez’s incomparable style movingly, contemplates the misfortunes of old age and celebrates the joys of being in love.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (60)

mal libro para empezar
talves este es un muy mal libro para empezar con este autor, tiene partes y enseñaszas interesantes pero nada mas haya...talves otro de sus grandes exitos me diga porque es tan famoso

Great book!!!
I am not a reader, but once I started reading this book, I was unable to stop. Everything you are looking for, on a short novel.

a moving interesting story
I picked this book up in Spain because i wanted to read a book in Spanish. it was the first one i ever completed. and no mystery to that, as its so short. but i mean honestly i liked the topic, i liked how it delved into the taboo topics of prostitution and what goes on there. i thought it was interesting and moving and i appreciated the prose.

Magnífica lectura, pero no recomendable para todos los públicos
La prosa de García Márquez es sencillamente brillante, cada párrafo es una obra de arte.

El libro acerca las realidades de una Colombia muy actual en una historia conmovedora y a la vez escalofriante--por lo creíble del argumento, y por lo delicado de uno de los principales temas tratados: la prostitución infantil--. Es por ello que lo desaconsejaría a personas muy sensibles o susceptibles.

INTENSA!
Memoria de MIS Putas Tristes (Spanish Edition)
FACIL DE LEER, AMENA, BREVE E INTENSA! ... Read more

Product Description

In this exhaustive and enlightening biography—nearly two decades in the making—Gerald Martin dexterously traces the life and times of one of the twentieth century’s greatest literary titans, Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez.
 
Martin chronicles the particulars of an extraordinary life, from his upbringing in backwater Columbia and early journalism career, to the publication of One Hundred Years of Solitude at age forty, and the wealth and fame that followed. Based on interviews with more than three hundred of Garcia Marquez’s closest friends, family members, fellow authors, and detractors—as well as the many hours Martin spent with ‘Gabo’ himself—the result is a revelation of both the writer and the man. It is as gripping as any of Gabriel García Márquez’s powerful journalism, as enthralling as any of his acclaimed and beloved fiction.

Customer Reviews (12)

Insightful Account of Latin America
A riveting account of one man and his relationships with his home country and the intertwining cause and effects of the associated western world, which transpired so eloquently in the biography.It provided a better understanding of the inspirations of his many writings.

A. Spencer
Chicago

Gabo's Labyrinth

Gerald Martin has taken on an outsized task in this book which defines Gabriel Garcia Marquez's long and complex life and his resulting outlook. It is obviously a labor of love, spanning almost 20 years.

The work is chronological, tracking his life and its synergic literary output. Martin shows how GGM's novels illustrate the scenes, people and tenor of his unusual youth in a politically unstable county. GGM pulls from the experience of his home region which he never really leaves despite a long departures and the purchase of foreign residences.He essentially marries the region in marrying Mercedes to whom he proposed in their adolescence. Despite their pre-marital differences in life experience, the marriage worked and still holds together after 50 years. Like the marriage, his life takes long and circuitous routes back home.

Martin takes the reader through what might be GGM's deepest thoughts as expressed through his novels and political writing. The saga covers continents and powerful international events. Over time, the early passion for socialism peels away. It is not expressed in words, but what else can be made of GGM having dictator friends who imprison and/or execute his intellectual colleagues? There is no real answer as to why he tolerates these leaders who trample on human rights, sometimes with their bank accounts full of the country's money. GGM points to the few he's used his influence to save, but the argument is weak considering the enormity of the rights violations of these leaders whom he supports.

There are many episodes that could be their own books (some have extensive treatment elsewhere as noted by Martin).A few are: his travels behind the Iron Curtain, the saga of the Nobel Prize, the Castro relationship, and the affect of his fame on his country, region and family.

The reader benefits not only from Martin's extensive research, but also from his understanding of Latin America and his specific knowledge of 20th century Colombian events.For the reader there are lots of names to lose track of, I was grateful for the index.

Several years ago GGM put his pen to the topic of his childhood and youth in Living to Tell the Tale.The autobiography, like his novels, is atmospheric and metaphoric (Martin demonstrates that even the title is so). If you plan on reading it, I advise that you read Martin's biography first for orientation. If GGM's orinally promised volumes 2 and 3 are ever produced (doubtful, given Martin's final chapters) Martin would be a good preparatory read for them as well.

I highly recommend this book for anyone with an interest in Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Disapponted by greed
Enough said. Overpriced and no text-to-speech.There have been many long-anticipated new releases lately that have been refreshing in their refusal to squeeze an extra 3 or 4 dollars out of kindle readers.To those who make the purchase, this is a case of the emperor's new clothes: they charge you more so you think it must be worth it.

Most insightful biography of Marquez
If you love real latin literature, this book is the most insightful biography of Marquez and his colleagues I have read. It lends itself to understanding the influences on his writing and his political stance. it is well researched and organized for the student but also most enjoyable for avid readers.

fascinating literary and regional history : much more than macondo deciphered
this captivating book at once encapsulates the idiosyncracies of latin american history experienced by GGM and explains his writing in the context of the world as he has lived it, in the way only a gifted literary critic could do. inmensely readable, entertaining, relatively objective, and truly informative. It is only "relatively" objective because Professor Martin is clearly not immune to the charms and charismatic appeal of his subject; however he strives to explain the positions of those who disagree or dislike his subject. This is an engrossing and most readable introduction to latin american intellectual and political life in the later 3/4's of the 20th century, and includes important references to the complex relationships of its intellectuals with its former colonizer, with France, and with the US. Professor Martin interviewed an impressive array of intellectual and political power brokers from Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Spain, France, and the US, in addition to a very extensive network of his subject's lesser known friends and relatives. Despite the participation of so many high powered personae, the book does not dwell on their fame, but rather limits their participation to shedding light and understanding on this most remarkable of writers. Additionally, this book serves as a fascinating, informative and remarkably clear portrayal of Colombian history since c. 1920 that will be helpful to all who are either curious about the country or who struggle to understand its labyrinthine and violent complexities. ... Read more

Product Description
In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortunetelling position with a wealthy family. In Geneva, an ambulance driver and his wife take in the lonely, apparently dying ex-President of a Caribbean country, only to discover that his political ambition is very much intact.

In these twelve masterly stories about the lives of Latin Americans in Europe, García Márquez conveys the peculiar amalgam of melancholy, tenacity, sorrow, and aspiration that is the émigré experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Pleasantly typical
What an ideal book for my Garcia Marquez collection. Some stories appear to have no point--but that's a North American viewpoint. South Americans: "It is what It Is."My favorite story about children turning on the lights in their apartment and being magically realistic is in this collection. Short story books serve two purposes for me: One, when I can't sleep and need a boost toward dreamland, and Two, the paperback is easy to cart around while I'm in waiting rooms for appointments. The book can also serve as a "test run" for a new reader who wants to sample his style, characters, sentences ending in ways you'd never expect but can appreciate, and plots (some, "sort of").

Late
This book was part of an order of three books. Two of them arrived really fast but the third one came up very late. Other than that, the book was in good condition (same as stated)

Dying means never being with friends anymore
This bundle of short stories contains some of the greatest highlights of G.G. Màrquez's prose, like `I Only Came to Use the Phone', `Miss Forbes's Summer of Happiness' or `The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow'.
It contains also another version of Y. Kawabata's `The House of the Sleeping Beauties' (`Sleeping Beauty and the Airplaine'), which continues to fascinate the author. He even wrote a short novel about this theme (`Memories of My Melancholic Whores').

There are also outspoken political stories, ingredients or comments in it: (South-America) `A continent conceived by the scum of the earth without a moment of love: the children of abductions, rape, violations, infamous dealings, deceptions, the union of enemies with enemies.' (`Bon Voyage, Mr. President') or, like the Spanish Franco scene in `Maria dos Prazeres.'
Of course, there are also the sex histrionics and the `miracles' (`The Saint').

These stories shine through their `surrealist shocks' (`The Ghosts in August'), the evocation of the unpredictability of human fate, the meditations on the fugacity of human life and the possibility of a sudden death, or the melancholic memories of crucial personal confrontations and happenings.

They constitute a perfect introduction to the author's major and larger novels, like `One Hundred Years of Solitude' or `Living to Tell the Tale'.
A must read for all lovers of world literature.

Awesome short stories!
As with all of the Marquez works, this grouping of short stories is like walking through the thoughts of a creative genius.

Literary Magic from a Literary Master

The author Gabriel Garcia Marquez is well known as a master of the novel, something which the current movie adaptation of his LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA confirms very well. The twelve stories that comprise his STRANGE PILGRIMS demonstrate he's also something of a magician when it comes to shorter fiction as well.

On one level, these are tales of fantastic adventures and encounters experienced by Latin Americans both in their native lands and as they make their way around the world. On a wholly different level, the stories address the more universal and sometimes disturbing question of individual human identity and destiny. On whatever level a reader engages them, they provide first-rate provocative entertainment as well as ample evidence of why Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981.

Marquez is celebrated worldwide for his skillful use of magical realism but in these stories moves beyond the formula to create some of the best work from one of the best writers in the business. Inhabiting these tales are saints, clairvoyants, ex-presidents, and specters. Rounding out this already compelling cast are mesmerizing portraits of such famous individuals as the poets Pablo Neruda and Aime' Cesaire. This book dazzles and satisfies in ways that few books can.

by Author-Poet Aberjhani
author of Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History)
and founder of Creative Thinkers International

... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Fantastic piece of literature!
This book is excellent! What can be expected from a great author like GGM. Strongly Recommended!!

Excellently done.
The book itself includes the novel that carries the same name and several other short stories that are splendidly written. This is not another 'One hundred years of solitude' but it is just as entertaining to read and will present another dimension of his magical realism style, also a must-have, when wanting to explore the way Gabo has evolved throughout his lifetime as a writer. The text is rich, filled with many words that will certainly contribute to a wonderful reading experience.

The stories that come before the novel are important to read because some of their main characters appear in the novel itself and all of the stories if I am not mistaken, and I remember correctly, present a sterile landscape with the most basic elements: water, earth, wind, and the smell of putrid roses.

'La increíble y triste historia de la cándida Eréndira y de su abuelita desalmada' represents the harsh reality Eréndira endures as a young girl and later as a teenager. Gabriel's humor and distinctive way of narration makes you want to finish it in one seating.If you like his writing style do not hesitate in buying it.It is definitely underrated in comparison to other works. Hope this helps!

Gabriel Garcia Marquez es maravilloso
Solo le doy cuatro estrellas porque en realidad el libro es una compilacion de cuentos cortos del autor.Pero sobresale la calidad de escritor de Gabo Marquez, como siempre, transporta al lector al lugar donde se desenvuelbe la historia.
Mi autor favorito.
... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (39)

A great read if you stick with it
I have been a big fan of Mr. Marquez for many years now, and have read at least four of his other books.This one intrigued me when I read about it, since it is reputed to have been his first.

I found the first fifty or so pages difficult to get into because, typical of Marquez, he tends to write in run on sentences, no paragraphs, and differing persons.Stick with it, however, and the book will captivate you.For anyone familiar with one or more of the dictatorships typical of South America, either past or present, you will become enthralled with his eye for detail.A great read, and an object lesson for would be dictators.

The inclemency of death toward the majesty of power
G.G. Márquez's book is a written version of a polyptych by Hieronymus Bosch on the universal theme of `Evil' (on a moral, personal, political, social, economical or psychological level).
The main character in this book is a solitary despot.
His `regime of infamy' is an avalanche of killings, summary executions, massacres, suicides, cruelties, tortures, horror laboratories, expulsions, explosions, illnesses, plagues, obscenities, perversions, depravations, rapes, promiscuities, corruptions, hallucinations, evil omens, doubles, apparitions, filths, putrefactions, stenches, pestilential vapors, false messages, fictionalized photographs, physical deformities, alleged miracles, bird and child cries.
His most scorned enemies are men of letters, `worse than politicians, worse than priests.'

This forceful and relentless stream of (sur)real visions and violent images is a must read for all G.G. Márquez fans and for all lovers of world literature.

Soporific
The title of my review sufficiently sums up the novel but brevity does not constitute a review in the eyes of Amazon. As far as the novels of Marquez are concerned, I have heard it said (more than a few times) that there are three masterpieces: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera and Chronicle of a Death Foretold - I ignored the warning and paid the price as I laboured through 'Autumn', fighting off sleep at every page.

The Terror of the Miracle
Unlike other writers who embed the Christian ideals and symbolism into their work to evoke mystery and majesty, Marquez uses a religious vernacular to cast the dictator into the same shadow of doubt into which he wants the reader to hold the god figure. Marquez' countless allusions to Christ and his Mother render the reader into a surrealistic land of never-ending make-believe deaths and resurrections.

The Autumn of the Patriarch rends the "terror of the miracle" (p. 237) in the form of the macabre mini-miracles of Marquez' magical realism: the general who sprouts fish scales, the general's weathered skin turning into infant skin, the cows who eat from paintings, leaving little doubt that these miracles dominate the novel. What is less evident is that Marquez' assertions after these or the more debased miracles occurring in the form of tyranny are a screed against the dictatorial nature of religion. The dictator is not the anti-Christ but rather the reverse embodiment of Jesus Christ. The General of the Universe becomes the King of the Universe and neither comes out well ahead of the game in the telling.

The accumulation of religious detail is sometimes so evident and overpowering that one wonders whether Marquez is merely ornamenting the Roman Catholic Latin American culture begun by Spanish clerics in the 1500s. However, religious imagery and incantation cannot convey a sense of religiosity within the dictatorship because they blaspheme rather than uphold a religious connotation of the novel. If the General "[remembers] suddenly that cow was written with a c" then Marquez also writes god with a lowercase `g.' (p237)

The General's meditations on the aloneness of power stand as counterpoint and counterpart of his partner in the game of all-powerfulness. The General does becomes Christ meandering in the desert of his solitude, wondering if his lofty perch is worth enduring.Like the General who is pained since birth with his malformed [...], Christ was born to and had no choice but to endure. For Marquez, the question is not one of endurance but rather a perdurance of "uncountable years." The General and Christ suffer the "fiction of commanding without power, of being exalted without glory and of being obeyed without authority." (p. 254) Marquez fuses the actions of the debased General by debasing the inauthenticity of Christ.

Marquez at his best - a masterpiece
Amazing.
I have no other words describing this book. The narrative style, for those complaining - is in my humble opinion Marquez BEST : spell binding magic realism.
The book details in long and convoluted sentences the minutiae of every day life of a maniac, a universal type of tyrant - which just happens to be caught in Marquez writer's cross hairs in South America. It may be one of the many South American dictators and it could easily be one of their European monster counterparts. Marquez is sometimes sublime, often bold and always funny in a strange way. Recommended ! ... Read more