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0 of 1 members found this review helpful.i love GABO
“i love it ... i love GABO ... & i think i should read it again ”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-09-13. -
In love, at last
“In this short novel, G.G. Màrquez turns to one of his favorite places: the brothel.
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-08-19.
His main character `slept in the red-light district two or three times a week, and with such a variety of companions that (he) was twice crowned client of the year. Whores left him no time to be married and sex was the consolation you have when you can't have love.'
To celebrate his 90th birthday he pays himself the luxury of a libertine night with a nymphet, an adolescent virgin girl. But, as in Y. Kawabata's novel `The House of the Sleeping Beauties' (an excerpt serves as motto for this novel), the relationship remains platonic.
One of the main characters in his book `Love in the time of cholera' states that `nothing in the world is more difficult than love.'
But here, the miracle happens, `the first love of my life at the age of ninety.' And even more miraculously, the adolescent girl is `head on heels in love with him.' (!)
At long last, one of G.G. Màrquez's heroes is `condemned to die of happy love' and not in love's torments.
In his characteristic ironic style, G.G. Màrquez's turns one of his obsessions into a spiritual relationship which leaves his hero `radiant'.
Not to be missed.
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How to make the reader whore melancholic
“Disappointing. Apparently not Marquez' masterpiece. Not enough about [...], too much about music, aging, bicycle, and a lugubrious pimp. And apparently not enough melancholy either. Contrary to other readers, the subject matter does not disturb me, albeit difficult. In fact, the novella would be a hazardously illuminating literary feat if the narrator follows through with the protagonist's unflinching sexual appetite (in other words, failure to consummate) from the very beginning...rather twisting his pillars of yearning into some rambling barren sentimental crap.”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-08-01. -
How does he do so much with so little?
“This is the fourth book i have read by Marquez. I was a little weary of this one at first, bc frankly, the book is not that thick, and I didn't know what to expect. Truly interesting book. ”
An amazon user wrote this on 2009-03-18. -
"It is a triumph of life that old people lose their memories of inessential things"
“Philip Roth's Everyman came to mind as I started Memories of My Melancholy Whores. However, this 90 year old protagonist never dwells on his past like Roth's Everyman did; astonishingly, despite his age, he moves forward chasing that elusive love he never had, but in the arms of an adolescent virgin.
An amazon user wrote this on 2008-09-24.
The book has some very keen observations on old age and we're privy to the mind of an archetype we see daily but never pay too much attention to. The book dabbles in profundity and sentimentalism and oddly enough, we feel no contempt for the old man who lusts after a young girl. We almost feel sorry for him.
Some of Marquez's observations are sure to stir controversies but not once does he cheapen the proceedings. Brilliance it seems, does not diminish with age.”
