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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love.
Why were you so old when we met? I answered with the truth: Age isn't how old you are but how old you feel.
She likes to try everything, out of curiosity, but she'll be sorry if she isn't guided by her heart.
The invincible power that has moved the world is unrequited, not happy, love.
The secretary who had kissed me on the afternoon of my birthday asked if I was sick. I was happy to respond with the truth so she would not believe it: Sick with love. She said: Too bad it's not for me! I returned the compliment: Don't be so sure.
I don't know if it was because of the many pedophilic references, the fact that an old man wanted to bed a little girl or what but I didn't enjoy reading this book and it made me irk and feel icky (I don't know how I finished reading it). I'm giving it a star to be fair because the life of the main character was kinda interesting but overall the theme makes me frown upon Gabriel.
GGM's writing is superb to be sure. This is the first book I've read by him, and I didn't quite know what I was in for. This reminded me a lot of Lolita, not just because of the subject matter - which was not so much pedophilia and more a lifelong absence of true love. I liken it to Lolita because of the age difference of the main characters, but also in how beautiful the writing is and how at the end of the novella, I wanted to sympathize with the narrator. Story, in a nutshell, is about an aging bachelor (who is never identified by name) gifting himself a 14 year old virgin for his 90th birthday. He is a mediocre journalist that never married, but spent most of his earned money on hiring women for his sexual needs and looking for the ultimate experience in untouched purity. He never experienced true love, but after he meets his virgin, and falls in love with her. Having fallen in love with her, he cannot bring himself to complete the act and instead spends night after night sleeping beside her instead, inventing a relationship in his head between them. The story ends before he sleeps with her. Most of the book are flashbacks to the various women he had slept with in his younger years minus true love. Moral of the story: it's never too late to find true love!
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The book's mostly fine but my primary memory about this book is I accidentally turned it into the wrong library, so I go in to see if they can grab it out of their pile so I could truck it over to the right library. I'm standing at the front desk with an elderly man and a woman with her toddler in line behind me.
"I recently returned a book and one of them was from [DIFFERENT LIBRARY]. Would I be able to get that back?"
"Sure, what was the title?"
"...it was by Gabriel Garcia Marquez."
"Great, what's the title of the book?"
"...memoyfmmechnors"
"Sorry, what was that?"
"..."
"..."
"MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES."
"I recently returned a book and one of them was from [DIFFERENT LIBRARY]. Would I be able to get that back?"
"Sure, what was the title?"
"...it was by Gabriel Garcia Marquez."
"Great, what's the title of the book?"
"...memoyfmmechnors"
"Sorry, what was that?"
"..."
"..."
"MEMORIES OF MY MELANCHOLY WHORES."
emotional
funny
fast-paced
An old man who is prepared for death and lives a comfortable, lonely life finds unexpected love in a young virgin.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A lovely quick read and great introduction to Márquez's prose. I delayed reading this for a while because I was turned off by the premise, but in the end it was a celebration of finding love long after you gave up looking.