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abbie_'s review
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
While Strange Pilgrims isn’t perfect (showing some signs of its time), I enjoyed a lot of these stories. They mostly all focus on one Latin American main character who find themselves far from home in Europe, either visiting, just travelling through, or having moved there permanently. While they are not connected, they do all fit together nicely and have the same slightly wistful and sometimes slightly unsettling atmosphere.
Some short story collections can feel jarring because it takes you a while to get used to each new setting. Not so with Márquez. He has a gift of instantly situating the reader within each new story, almost as if you were picking up where you left off with a full length novel you’d been reading.
Some of my favourites included the very short but very chilling The Ghosts of August; I Sell My Dreams featuring a woman who makes a living off her prophetic dreams; and Maria dos Prazeres, a sad yet funny story about an ageing prostitute teaching her dog how to cry.
But as I mentioned, there are some throwaway lines and tropes which are problematic, like the villainous lesbian matron and a character intent on perpetuating the stereotype of the hyper-sexualised Black man. Márquez wrote these stories between the 70s and early 80s, which isn’t an excuse, but yeah some parts haven’t aged well.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood and Suicide
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