I love the language of Gabriel Garcia Marquez; I love his wordiness. There are few writers whose work I find celebrate language, literary language, as much as he does although Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie readily come to mind; each of these three writers plays with language, each story tell and each, it has been said, write magical realism.
Anyway, I missed Marquez. I own most of his novels, novellas and short stories but haven't read them all as yet; I like to savour his canon. 100 Hundred Years of Solitude I read and adored about a decade ago and think it is time for a re-read soon (I have a hopeless retention for books and barely remember parts) and in 2007 I read a few of his works: Memoirs of my Melancholy Whores (of which Love in the Time of Cholera greatly reminds me in parts), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (perfection), Of Love and Other Demons (also very good) and his not-so-very-short story "The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother", which is by far one of the best short stories I've read by any author (excluding Angela Carter); it really is an incredible title story and along with Chronicle of a Death Foretold, is a rich sample of beautiful and perfected writing. After a break of more than a year it was time for some more Marquez and although aesthetically -on the page- pleasing and enjoyable, Love in the Time of Cholera was not as exquisite as his other works, I am sad to say. It is read though and contributes to my plan to read all of his work and to the 1000 Must Read Books challenge.
If you are only going to read one of Marquez's works (why would you do that though?) then I recommend Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Love in the Time of Cholera was too dense in parts, even turgid, although there were passages of infinite joy and I was enchanted by the more than half a century long love Florentino Ariza holds for Fermina Daza.
I read Love in the Time of Cholera over seven days and although I don't regret reading it I want to offset my book footprint by reading seven books over the next seven days.
Anyway, I missed Marquez. I own most of his novels, novellas and short stories but haven't read them all as yet; I like to savour his canon. 100 Hundred Years of Solitude I read and adored about a decade ago and think it is time for a re-read soon (I have a hopeless retention for books and barely remember parts) and in 2007 I read a few of his works: Memoirs of my Melancholy Whores (of which Love in the Time of Cholera greatly reminds me in parts), Chronicle of a Death Foretold (perfection), Of Love and Other Demons (also very good) and his not-so-very-short story "The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother", which is by far one of the best short stories I've read by any author (excluding Angela Carter); it really is an incredible title story and along with Chronicle of a Death Foretold, is a rich sample of beautiful and perfected writing. After a break of more than a year it was time for some more Marquez and although aesthetically -on the page- pleasing and enjoyable, Love in the Time of Cholera was not as exquisite as his other works, I am sad to say. It is read though and contributes to my plan to read all of his work and to the 1000 Must Read Books challenge.
If you are only going to read one of Marquez's works (why would you do that though?) then I recommend Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Love in the Time of Cholera was too dense in parts, even turgid, although there were passages of infinite joy and I was enchanted by the more than half a century long love Florentino Ariza holds for Fermina Daza.
I read Love in the Time of Cholera over seven days and although I don't regret reading it I want to offset my book footprint by reading seven books over the next seven days.
No comments:
Post a Comment