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paocampo_21's review against another edition
2.0
“El Coronel No Tiene Quien le Escriba” brinda una experiencia literaria que, si bien se reconoce por su excelente prosa, tiende hacia lo tedioso. La narrativa, aunque comprendo su aclamación, carece de la emoción que impulsa una historia hacia adelante. A pesar de reconocer la profundidad de sus temas y la conmovedora representación del protagonista, el encanto que cautiva a muchos lectores de alguna manera me eludió. Es una sólida obra literaria, pero la falta de una chispa envolvente me llevó a apreciar sus méritos en lugar de abrazar completamente su magia.
nashmtb's review against another edition
5.0
4.5, un placer haber leído al Gabo en esta obra.
Una joya.
Una joya.
jon288's review against another edition
4.0
Sad and poor, but dignified. A decent novella, and the town is well captured
alanffm's review against another edition
3.0
Dignity. That is the central theme running through this collection of short stories. Nobody Writes to the Colonel stands out as a complex and emotionally taxing narrative, but it is the exception. The other stories feel a bit out of place. This is the perfect introduction to Marquez's works, and (despite not having read anything else by him) I am now ready for One Hundred Years of Solitude or Love in the Time of Cholera .
ernestoneto's review against another edition
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
sallyreads_'s review against another edition
4.0
I wish I had the dedication to hold onto the hope of something good coming my way.
bennought's review against another edition
4.0
Although not my favorite of Marquez's works, still a fantastic set of stories. About half of the book is the title story, 'No one Writes to the Colonel,' which is a very interesting sort of almost novella. Kind of like with 'Love in the Time of Cholera,' I found that these stories could drag a little. So while they were always beautiful and generally intriguing (and, of course, just a little bit odd), especially towards the end I was definitely pushing through just to finish.
outruncaf's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
karoldgg24's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
psheehy's review against another edition
2.0
It's not exactly fair to compare No One Writes to the Colonel to Gabriel García Márquez's other works—after all, at the time of its publication in 1961, Colonel was only his second major work—but it's not exactly avoidable, either. That's what a Nobel Prize will do for a writer's oeuvre. The problem is that García Márquez, like most career writers, obsessed over much of the same thematic material time and time again: South American loneliness and political unrest. Colonel fits right into that back pocket. So there's not a lot of ground covered here that wasn't first covered in Leaf Storm (1955), or later in the masterful One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). In fact, García Márquez dances around the same fictional town of Macondo, and there's more than one mention of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, who would figure to be a main character in One Hundred Years.
What's missing, however, is García Márquez's flair for magical realism, and the effect is a little flattening. At its best, No One Writes to the Colonel creates a very real and cohesive universe, where it's 104 degrees in the shade and everyone in town knows everyone else. Structurally, the collection is divided in two, with the title story, "No One Writes to the Colonel," stretching out over the first sixty pages, and the subsequent eight shorter stories grouped under the heading "Big Mama's Funeral." All these stories inhabit the same space, a plus for any short story collection, yet the stories themselves are mostly forgettable. While the title story succeeds with its sluggish pace—the protagonist waits week after week for fifteen years, with Waiting for Godot-like determination, for a letter containing his military pension that never comes—the same cannot be said for the rest of the stories, which tend to stagnate. What the reader is left with, then, is a good example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. These are stories that work best together, and they work to create a universe that the author will revisit with great success. So at the end of the day, the reader will remember what it was like to walk around that town. But what happened there will have long since melted in the sun.
What's missing, however, is García Márquez's flair for magical realism, and the effect is a little flattening. At its best, No One Writes to the Colonel creates a very real and cohesive universe, where it's 104 degrees in the shade and everyone in town knows everyone else. Structurally, the collection is divided in two, with the title story, "No One Writes to the Colonel," stretching out over the first sixty pages, and the subsequent eight shorter stories grouped under the heading "Big Mama's Funeral." All these stories inhabit the same space, a plus for any short story collection, yet the stories themselves are mostly forgettable. While the title story succeeds with its sluggish pace—the protagonist waits week after week for fifteen years, with Waiting for Godot-like determination, for a letter containing his military pension that never comes—the same cannot be said for the rest of the stories, which tend to stagnate. What the reader is left with, then, is a good example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. These are stories that work best together, and they work to create a universe that the author will revisit with great success. So at the end of the day, the reader will remember what it was like to walk around that town. But what happened there will have long since melted in the sun.