I am reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's new short story Memories of My Melancholy Whores. I love Marquez (I know you do too Christy) so I thought I would keep a little journal while I read it. When I told Dr. Torres that I planned to read it over the break, she said, "In Spanish, the title is very shocking. When I saw it I gasped." Initially, I was attracted to the word "Whores," but I knew it would not be about lascivious sex, but a love story of some kind. Sex is usually secondary to love in Marquez's work. So far, I love it. Here is one of my favorite lines: "I don't have to say so because people can see it from leagues away: I'm ugly, shy and anachronistic. But by dint of not wanting to be those things I have pretended to be just the opposite. Until today, when I resolved to tell of my own free will just what I'm like, if only to ease my conscience."
I'm not very far into it, but my heart already aches for the narrator, who is a ninety year old man preparing for his death. That is how Marquez always makes me feel and why I keep on reading his beautiful prose.
2 comments:
I think I've finally found his voice in this one. I'm only in the beginning as weel, but I love the way the narrator briefly describes his mother. Beautiful.
I read it in Spanish last year when it came out. I picked it up again the other day and realized how much Spanish I've actually learned. I was really able to get into the prose and lose myself. I hope it pulls you in as well..... 2 days left.. AHHH!! I still haven't even thought about packing!
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