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Product Description
Review
It asks to be read more than twice, and the rewards are dazzling (Observer )
Delights with its quirky humanity and black humour and impresses by its total originality (Vogue )
Captures perfectly the moral squalor and political paralysis that enshrouds a society awaiting the death of a long-term dictator (Guardian )
Delights with its quirky humanity and black humour and impresses by its total originality (Vogue )
Captures perfectly the moral squalor and political paralysis that enshrouds a society awaiting the death of a long-term dictator (Guardian )
Product Description
As the citizens of an unnamed Caribbean nation creep through the dusty corridors of the presidential palace in search of their tyrannical leader, they cannot comprehend that the frail and withered man laying dead on the floor can be the self-styled General of the Universe. Their egocentric, maniacally violent leader, known for serving up traitors to dinner guests and drowning young children at sea, can surely not die the humiliating death of a mere mortal?
Tracing the demands of a man whose egocentric excesses mask the loneliness of isolation and whose lies have become so ingrained that they are indistinguishable from truth, Márquez has created a fantastical portrait of despotism that rings with an air of reality.
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First Sentence
OVER THE WEEKEND the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
OVER THE WEEKEND the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez it was with determination that I explored this book, with its lack of full-stops and rambling narrative. I have read it many times, and it is only now that I fully appreciate it. The story weaves through time and needs the extra read throughs before you can put all events together in your head, to give an overall picture of the incredible life that is being unravelled by the book. Like all his books it has the air of a dream world that is closely connected to our reality but allows you to suspend disbelief and live somewhere else for a while. It is definately a demanding book to read, but well worth the effort when you finally get to grips with what the author wants to protray to you.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Autumn of the Patriarch is perhaps one of the greatest works of literary artistry of the twentieth century and certainly one of his most innovative works, but most likely it won't appeal to the general reader because of its unconventional structure. The main character, a tyrant of a small country, is the only 'real' character in this book, in that being the supreme leader and dictator of his world and all that surrounds him, he 'owns' all that the novel encompasses, yet his comprehension of life is riddled within a strange shroud of misguided purpose and a directionless ego. Marquez distorts the boundaries in many aspects of his writing structure so that it seems a blending of actions and thoughts that are being portrayed in order to show with full effect this dictators life through all characters and descriptions, sometimes switching between first and third person within the same sentence, giving a sense of the often displaced and cold objectivity of this man. There is an interesting contrast here, as his world is a concentricity of solitude and paranoia, yet a free and rich world grows around him that he seems to never really be able to touch. This book is confusing to many people upon their first reaction, because it is a work of multi-faceted characteristics, packed with symbolic despcription and living sentences, all coming together to create a very unique work. This novel should, perhaps, be absorbed more than studied, as you can spend a lot of time trying to figure out the structure of it in order to form a linear perspective of what you are reading, but it's probably a waste of time once you realize that everything presented here lends to the broader environment instead of single plot turns or actions. I have read comments upon the complexity of this novel, which is understandable if one is used to reading the standard serial novel that we come to expect, but if you can grasp the kind of picture Marquez is trying to paint, it makes the novel a much simpler and enjoyable piec! e of art.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've read and enjoyed many of Marquez's books, and would easily rate him as one of the best living writers. But if you want a place to start with Marquez, don't start here.
The Autumn of the Patriarch is an experiment in form. Here Marquez eschews the use of paragraphs (or, more accurately, each chapter consists of one paragraph which can last for aroud 30 pages), and can go for pages without a full stop.
What's more, the narrator seems to change even within the same sentence, moving from "I" to "he" to "we", while the information presented (you guess) comes from a soldier, a lover, a mother, the patriarch himself.
The result of these techniques is that as a reader, you relax into the book, worry less about what is being said and who is saying it, and instead let the imagery wash over you, resulting in an almost impressionistic experience of a life, rather than a story as such.
But there lies the weakness. There really isn't much of a story here, no beginning, middle and end. There are the usual fantastic elements of a Marquez novel - miracles and disasters included - but little sense to it all. That may be the very point, and in that it is successful, but as a reading experience this just isn't as enjoyable as his other books, and as a stylistic technique Jose Saramago does it better.
The Autumn of the Patriarch is an experiment in form. Here Marquez eschews the use of paragraphs (or, more accurately, each chapter consists of one paragraph which can last for aroud 30 pages), and can go for pages without a full stop.
What's more, the narrator seems to change even within the same sentence, moving from "I" to "he" to "we", while the information presented (you guess) comes from a soldier, a lover, a mother, the patriarch himself.
The result of these techniques is that as a reader, you relax into the book, worry less about what is being said and who is saying it, and instead let the imagery wash over you, resulting in an almost impressionistic experience of a life, rather than a story as such.
But there lies the weakness. There really isn't much of a story here, no beginning, middle and end. There are the usual fantastic elements of a Marquez novel - miracles and disasters included - but little sense to it all. That may be the very point, and in that it is successful, but as a reading experience this just isn't as enjoyable as his other books, and as a stylistic technique Jose Saramago does it better.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Interesting book
The Autumn Of The Patriarch is a very interesting little book. The writing style is a little eccentric (no paragraphs, just very large chapters, and can ramble on a bit (not sure... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Dickie Diver
The inclemency of death toward the majesty of power
G.G. Márquez's book is a written version of a polyptych by Hieronymus Bosch on the universal theme of `Evil' (on a moral, personal, political, social, economical or... Read more
Published on 15 Dec 2009 by Luc REYNAERT
tedious drab unbelievable
I tried really hard to like this book. But failed. Endless wearily surreal sentences as the crows flap in slow motion over a decaying and brutal world. Read more
Published on 3 Aug 2000 by brixtonite
Incredible.
If the aim of literature is to unmask the deepest workings of the mind, then this book is probably the furthest any writer has dared to go. Read more
Published on 1 Mar 2000 by Bloke
Not to be missed!
When I first began reading this book I must admit that I was confused by the stream of conciousness and one sentence chapters. But what a treat it was! Read more
Published on 10 May 1999
How to surf the tidal wave of this book's confusion
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel, The Autumn of the Patriarch, threw me into the sea to which he constantly referred to. Read more
Published on 3 Jan 1999
Challenging; Epitome of 'Description-Action'
Beware, those of you who have not read a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book yet! The style and literary techniques employed by the venerable author here are not, at first,... Read more
Published on 27 Aug 1998
Tough reading, but hypnotic and brilliant
Written during 1968-1975, Marquez has fashioned a grand narrative of a Caribbean tyrant caught in the prison of his own power, slowly losing it and dying (with shades of Lear and... Read more
Published on 28 Jun 1998
The Mother Of The Stream of Consciousness Novel
This dictator combines within himself, the best and the worst, of the human being when invested with absolute power: from charity to corruption, benevolence to rape, fear of God to... Read more
Published on 25 Jun 1998
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