Memories Of My Melancholy Whores
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Eithne Farry, Daily Mail, 21st October
‘Marquez describes this amorous, sometimes disturbing journey with the grace and vigour of a master storyteller.’
Michael Kerrigan, TLS, 25th Nov
‘..one of twentieth-century literature’s great figures pushes back the years and gives us fiction of the very highest order.’
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Marquez writes this book as if it were a dream that docked in reality from time to time. It wasn't his best work but still had his voice bearing a strong thread throught the text.
34 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Memoria de mis putas tristes is a gorgeous novella written in a way that makes life, despite its hardships, uncertainties and inherent unfairness, beautiful. Marquez's protagonist is a 90-year-old man who is rather ugly but has the "instrument" of a "burro" (to paraphrase a woman who knows), a man who has found his only love among prostitutes. He has a certain timeless eminence about him that inspires people to call him "Don Scholar." He is something of a miracle, still active and full of energy, still writing a weekly column for the local newspaper, cynical yet sentimental, a man who loves women and sees their beauty regardless of age or station in life.
Now suddenly as his tenth decade of life is upon him he is seized with the desire to know an adolescent virgin once before he dies. He contacts his old friend and madam Rosa Cabarcas and demands that she come up with exactly that bill of fare and--time being of the essence in more ways than one when you're ninety--that she do it today, now.
Amazingly enough, Rosa Cabarcas, being the excellent business woman that she is, finds just such a girl. She is illiterate, from the country. She is 14-years-old and works in a button factory all day long to help support her younger brothers and crippled mother. Naturally she is tired when the old man arrives at the bordello. In fact she is asleep. And perhaps that is for the best, all things considered.
The old man does not wake her. He barely touches her. He admires her, feels vitalized by her youth, the feel of her skin, her scent, and the soft rise and fall of her breath. Just this and this alone he experiences before he falls sweetly, languidly, hopelessly in love with her. He becomes a man refueled with the fire of life. His column in the newspaper becomes the love letters he would write to her that instead go out to all who read the newspaper, and, because they are true and deeply felt, they inspire.
Gabo got his inspiration for this little masterpiece from the Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, who wrote a novella entitled "House of the Sleeping Beauties." Marquez quotes the opening lines of that novella as a keynote for his own novella: "He was not to do anything in bad taste, the women of the inn warned old Eguchi. He was not to put his finger into the mouth of the sleeping girl, or try anything else of that sort."
As the story progresses we learn bit by bit more and more about the old man's life and loves. We meet eventually the woman he jilted on her wedding day; we meet his maid who still comes in once a week and learn that he has had some fleeting "knowledge" of her; and we learn of his mother who through a clever subterfuge got him his first writing gig with El Diario de La Paz. All the while the story progresses as the old Don becomes "mad with love" for the first time in his life.
Ah, to fall in love with a sleeping beauty for the first time at the age of 90! And to feel it with such passion! Only a gifted artist and virtuoso craftsman like Gabriel Garcia Marquez could make this so sweet, so filled with the zest of life and so real. His prose is like fresh rose petals still on the tree in the spring, delicate, gorgeous, overwhelming in their vibrant color and strong like the tree itself from which they come.
Part of the power of the novella's prose is no doubt in the translation by Edith Grossman. The words race across the pages, delighting the eye and the ear as they sing of life and love and a very distant death in a way that makes the living magical.
If you have never read Columbian-born, Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, this is an excellent place to begin.
Now suddenly as his tenth decade of life is upon him he is seized with the desire to know an adolescent virgin once before he dies. He contacts his old friend and madam Rosa Cabarcas and demands that she come up with exactly that bill of fare and--time being of the essence in more ways than one when you're ninety--that she do it today, now.
Amazingly enough, Rosa Cabarcas, being the excellent business woman that she is, finds just such a girl. She is illiterate, from the country. She is 14-years-old and works in a button factory all day long to help support her younger brothers and crippled mother. Naturally she is tired when the old man arrives at the bordello. In fact she is asleep. And perhaps that is for the best, all things considered.
The old man does not wake her. He barely touches her. He admires her, feels vitalized by her youth, the feel of her skin, her scent, and the soft rise and fall of her breath. Just this and this alone he experiences before he falls sweetly, languidly, hopelessly in love with her. He becomes a man refueled with the fire of life. His column in the newspaper becomes the love letters he would write to her that instead go out to all who read the newspaper, and, because they are true and deeply felt, they inspire.
Gabo got his inspiration for this little masterpiece from the Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, who wrote a novella entitled "House of the Sleeping Beauties." Marquez quotes the opening lines of that novella as a keynote for his own novella: "He was not to do anything in bad taste, the women of the inn warned old Eguchi. He was not to put his finger into the mouth of the sleeping girl, or try anything else of that sort."
As the story progresses we learn bit by bit more and more about the old man's life and loves. We meet eventually the woman he jilted on her wedding day; we meet his maid who still comes in once a week and learn that he has had some fleeting "knowledge" of her; and we learn of his mother who through a clever subterfuge got him his first writing gig with El Diario de La Paz. All the while the story progresses as the old Don becomes "mad with love" for the first time in his life.
Ah, to fall in love with a sleeping beauty for the first time at the age of 90! And to feel it with such passion! Only a gifted artist and virtuoso craftsman like Gabriel Garcia Marquez could make this so sweet, so filled with the zest of life and so real. His prose is like fresh rose petals still on the tree in the spring, delicate, gorgeous, overwhelming in their vibrant color and strong like the tree itself from which they come.
Part of the power of the novella's prose is no doubt in the translation by Edith Grossman. The words race across the pages, delighting the eye and the ear as they sing of life and love and a very distant death in a way that makes the living magical.
If you have never read Columbian-born, Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, this is an excellent place to begin.
16 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A reviewer mentions that sex is a consolation for not having love, which could be applied to the conclusion of this book, if weren't for the fact that the protagonist never receives love from his muse, as she is never awake and consequently never has sex with her either. There is always a possibility when one reads a book that has been translated, that some of the subtlety of the writing is lost in translation, however, in the light of Love in a Time of Cholera, News of a Kidnapping, One Hundred Years of Solitude et al, this is undoubtedly second rate Garcia Marquez. As with Love in a Time of Cholera, it focusses on a man whose life appears to have been wasted by virtue of the fact that it has been spent paying for 'love' as opposed to having a fulfilling relationship. Perversely, when he finds love, he still has to pay for it, and it remains unconsummated. I suppose this is part of the irony, that a man who has been satisfied to whatever degree, by paying for sex, is now paying for emotion - and in the process his relationship with the girl is completely in his mind. Surely what it shows is that in old age, one attempts to correct the mistakes in ones life and make up for lost time, and in this instance appears rather depressingly to be missing the point. Ultimately, like sleeping with prostitutes, the supposed innocence of the situation is fractured by the fact that it is still all about him and all in his mind. The books feels like a rather contrived attempt to be shocking, but ultimately is neither romantic nor interesting and doesn't really shock either.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Way Into The World of Garcia Marquez
I couldn't initially decide if I was going to find `Memories of My Melancholy Whores' a mildly titillating read from its title (if I am being totally honest, especially after my... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Simon Savidge Reads
Thought provoking
This book is quite different from one hundred years of solitude and love in the time of cholera. However like them it deals with love as a concept and questions our common... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Chrissie
romantic and sexy but not the best of marquez
Very short story compared to other Marquez work but veryy romantic. The story starts with 90 years old man wants to give himself a wild night with a virgin young girl on his 90th... Read more
Published 21 months ago by napparawy
In love, at last
In this short novel, G.G. Màrquez turns to one of his favorite places: the brothel.
His main character `slept in the red-light district two or three times a week, and... Read more
His main character `slept in the red-light district two or three times a week, and... Read more
Published on 19 Aug 2009 by Luc REYNAERT
a lyrical, magical love story
a joyous read as are most from gabriel garcia marquez.
a very different romanticism indeed.
a very different romanticism indeed.
Published on 16 July 2009 by K. Spyridaki
A magical tale hewn out of a preposterous story line
The latest fare from the master story-teller is a magical tale hewn out of a preposterous and unsavoury story line. Read more
Published on 9 Dec 2008 by Trevor Coote
yuk
Ug. What a nasty little book. This was my first experience of GGM and it has hardly left me gasping for more. Read more
Published on 26 Sep 2008 by daisyrock
A short review
I was expecting a little more from Marquez, after ten years of no books from him and then this, he may be a little rusty but it is still a brilliant read.
Published on 16 Sep 2008 by OK
Beautiful and poingnent tale of an old man's rebirth.
This little jewel of a novel has been my introduction to the famous South American author and, due to its brevity, will no doubt serve that purpose for others. Read more
Published on 24 Dec 2007 by Bruno
Tales of a dirty old man
Finding beauty and romance in child prostitution is unforgivable, no matter how deceptively a writer might frame it. Read more
Published on 28 Jun 2007 by Teapot
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