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verytwilly's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
This is my third time reading Márquez. Love in the Time of Cholera was the first book I ever had to give up on halfway through. I enjoyed Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Strange Pilgrims lies somewhere in between. I like the elevated literary sensibility, and his stories are intriguing and (mostly) well-constructed. I was definitely engaged throughout each story, but some personal dislike in plots and characterization accounts for my rating of 2.5 overall.
I’d say “Maria dos Prazeres” and “Light is Like Water” are the stories that I enjoyed the most overall. Interesting portrayals of characters and plots that end in compelling ways that make you think. Other stories like “The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow” and “Seventeen Poisoned Englishman” are compelling through the end and then fizzle out with less satisfaction.
My biggest complaint is that there’s just something about the way he handles his subjects that is really unappealing to me. I think overall his characters tend to be not-so-enjoyable. One thing I can concretely identity is the way he writes women. He sometimes writes his female characters as these sort of passive objects that have little to no control over their lives. Things happen to them, men look at them as objects of desire. This is an issue for me with “Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane” and “‘I Only Came to Use the Phone’”. To a smaller extent I see this also in “The Saint” and even “The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow”. I wouldn’t say this is a failure of writing, it’s just a matter of perspective; for me, it does inevitably lead to my lower rating.
I’d say “Maria dos Prazeres” and “Light is Like Water” are the stories that I enjoyed the most overall. Interesting portrayals of characters and plots that end in compelling ways that make you think. Other stories like “The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow” and “Seventeen Poisoned Englishman” are compelling through the end and then fizzle out with less satisfaction.
My biggest complaint is that there’s just something about the way he handles his subjects that is really unappealing to me. I think overall his characters tend to be not-so-enjoyable. One thing I can concretely identity is the way he writes women. He sometimes writes his female characters as these sort of passive objects that have little to no control over their lives. Things happen to them, men look at them as objects of desire. This is an issue for me with “Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane” and “‘I Only Came to Use the Phone’”. To a smaller extent I see this also in “The Saint” and even “The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow”. I wouldn’t say this is a failure of writing, it’s just a matter of perspective; for me, it does inevitably lead to my lower rating.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Blood, Sexual content, Child death, Death, and Sexism
Minor: Rape and Alcohol
pawprintedpages's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Death and Blood
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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