Gabriel Garcia Marquez



The first book I read by Gabriel Garcia Marquez was "100 Years of Solitude" which was given to me as a gift by AK in 1998 (or possibly 1997). I read it in early 1999. I'd started it during my "january of free lunches" as I waited for my peace corps assignment to begin, and finished it on a plane over the atlantic somewhere between New York City and Johannesburg. I'm sure I thanked her at the time for the book as courtesy demands, but I'm not sure if I've ever commented on how that book got me started on a torrent of literature that has persisted for 6 years now. Garcia Marquez led directly to Rushdie, to Eco, and to Saramago. Prior to this the only authors I could claim any real depth of familiarity with were Bellow and Borges.

I recently read Marquez's latest book "Memories of my Melancholy Whores", which was more memory than melancholy. Good. Short. I won't be able to disentangle this from Eco's "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" which I'm listening to these days. Both have older main characters who are closer to the ends of their lives than the beginnings and are trying to process the memory of it all. Marquez's story turns into an unlikely love story, Eco's into something else. Good, but far from the best thing by Marquez that I've read. Worthwhile to recall the author's voice.

--
My Gabriel Garcia Marquez "credentials": Since 1999, I've read "One Hundred Years of Solitude", "The General in his Labyrinth", "Strange Pilgrims", "Collected Stories", "Love in the Time of Cholera", "Of Love and Other Demons", and "Memories of my Melancholy Whores"

Posted: Sat - January 28, 2006 at 05:48 PM      

©