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Brilliantly moving. A tour de force (A.S. Byatt )
Product Description
‘An ash-gray dog with a white blaze on its forehead burst onto the rough terrain of the market on the first Sunday of December…’
When a witch doctor appears on the Marquis de Casalduero's doorstep prophesizing a plague of rabies in their Colombian seaport, he dismisses her claims – until he hears that his young daughter, Sierva María, was one of four people bitten by a rabid dog, and the only one to survive.
Sierva María appears completely unscathed – but as rumours of the plague spread, the Marquis and his wife wonder at her continuing good health. In a town consumed by superstition, it’s not long before they, and everyone else, put her survival down to a demonic possession and begin to see her supernatural powers as the cause of the town’s woes. Only the young priest charged with exorcising the evil spirit recognizes the girl’s sanity, but can he convince the town that it’s not her that needs healing?
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
40 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I can never get used to Márquez. More than anyone else he is the master storyteller, the voice of a melancholy raconteur whose aphorisms reverberate in your head and deny you sleep; but you never begrudge him this. He manages to condense the substance of entire novels into a single understated sentence. His words are alive and wriggle under your skin.
Of Love and Other Demons is one of the twentieth century’s great works. A relation of the events surrounding Sierva María de Todos los Angeles, the daughter of a Marquis raised by black slaves, it captures the miasmatic superstition of the eighteenth-century perfectly, as rabies becomes confused with satanic possession, love with sinful temptation, and rationality with madness. Much like Romeo and Juliet, you quickly forget the age of the lovers at the centre of the novel – Sierva María is twelve; Cayetano Delaura thirty-six. Like Shakespeare’s play there is nothing immoral about this relationship, but it retains the same tragic potential: the virgin daughter of a Marquis possessed by demons in a mutual infatuation with the Bishop’s favourite, an erudite priest soon to take a position in the Vatican. It is doomed from the start, as almost everything in the story is – but much like he did in Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Márquez proceeds to build excitement from inevitability, never needing to throw in a twist to keep the reader entranced, as lesser authors might. In particular he is exceptional at describing a world tinted through the vision of love, making everything richer, more sensuous. He is, for me, the greatest author alive today. Read him.
Of Love and Other Demons is one of the twentieth century’s great works. A relation of the events surrounding Sierva María de Todos los Angeles, the daughter of a Marquis raised by black slaves, it captures the miasmatic superstition of the eighteenth-century perfectly, as rabies becomes confused with satanic possession, love with sinful temptation, and rationality with madness. Much like Romeo and Juliet, you quickly forget the age of the lovers at the centre of the novel – Sierva María is twelve; Cayetano Delaura thirty-six. Like Shakespeare’s play there is nothing immoral about this relationship, but it retains the same tragic potential: the virgin daughter of a Marquis possessed by demons in a mutual infatuation with the Bishop’s favourite, an erudite priest soon to take a position in the Vatican. It is doomed from the start, as almost everything in the story is – but much like he did in Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Márquez proceeds to build excitement from inevitability, never needing to throw in a twist to keep the reader entranced, as lesser authors might. In particular he is exceptional at describing a world tinted through the vision of love, making everything richer, more sensuous. He is, for me, the greatest author alive today. Read him.
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'Of Love...' is only the second of Marquez's book I have read (1st was '100 Years..') and I continue to be impressed and completely engrossed by his work. To illustrate how engrossed I was --THIS BOOK TOOK ME TWO HOURS TO READ. I felt like I was reading a fairytale at bedtime to my daughter, the magic and wonder of Sierva's existence stands second only to Marquez's style of prose. I fell in love with Marquez after '100 years...' and the second visit I've paid him, will only serve to keep me coming back for more. ASTONISHING!
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As ever Marques gives his reader a wonderful story but this time it seems to me that it transends his other novels. This book is so perfectly crafted, so moving in its portrayal of the main protagonists and so vivid in its desciption, that if books were to be chosen rather than music for a Desert Island, this would have to be one of the eight! I believe it to be an unforgettable read!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Hauntingly Beautiful
This is one of my favourite books of all time. The master storyteller, Marquez conjures up such a strange, imaginative world that is at once both beautiful and brutal. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Fleur Pillager
Incredibly sad, but very well written!
Garcia Marquez is one of my favourite writers and he doesn't disappoint with this book. The decriptions of people and their feelings are so detailed that you can easily relate to... Read more
Published 18 months ago by U. Madsen
Beautifully written book
Beautiful writing, strong themes and a great story. A fairly short book that is quick to read too. Delivery was fast and it was in good condition too.
Published 19 months ago by blue3
Love, the greatest demon of all
In the days when Colombia, Venezuela and Panama formed the Spanish colony of New Granada, twelve year old Servia María is banished by her father to Santa Clara convent in... Read more
Published on 15 Dec 2008 by Trevor Coote
The oppression of religion
In this bitter and emotional tale, G.G. Márquez exposes the `narrowness of mind' and the concomitant fanatical oppression by the Christian authorities, who put a... Read more
Published on 8 May 2008 by Luc REYNAERT
Step back and weep
What has amazed me most about Of Love and Other Demons is that Garcia Marquez is such a good storyteller that he has made so many other readers wax lyrical about the love between a... Read more
Published on 28 May 2007 by Teapot
Tragedy of love, obsession and religious ignorance
This novel reads like a fairytale, exposing the primitive customs of religion and medicine in a time when lives were frequently lost to both. Read more
Published on 9 Nov 2000
Of love and other demons was one of his best, supposedly
The book by Marquez was the most ironic tragic novel I had ever read. I hadn't read anything by Marquez before and when we were given an assignment in English to read a book by a... Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2000
Marquez's gem is a passionate tale of love and destruction
Examining the spectrum between science and faith, Marquez' masterful characterization depicts the desperate relationship between Cayetano DeLaura and Sierva Maria. Read more
Published on 25 Oct 1999
Garcia has lost his power to grasp
This book was interesting, in that the author turned a cliched myth into a magical story. But he has lost his power to grasp his readers, like in the Chronicle of a Death... Read more
Published on 22 May 1998
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