I got a little lost in the detailed plot, especially since I fell in love with the writing style (thank you, awesome translator). Way too much sex in the novel, but it's about love so I suppose I can understand that (I don't, really, considering the situations, but whatever). Beautifully written; I enjoyed it, but need a second read, I think.
Oh! And while I was looking for the name of the author online, I found out there's a film adaptation set to come out towards the end of November. So go read the book first :)
Snippets I enjoyed (mostly from the first half of the book; the latter half I finished in a night or so):
In summer an invisible dust as harsh as red-hot chalk was blown into even the best protected corners of the imagination by mad winds that took the roofs off the houses and carried away children through the air.
They had just celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, and they were not capable of living for even an instant without the other, or without thinking about the other, and that capacity diminished as their age increased. Neither could have said if their mutual dependence was based on love or convenience, but they had never asked the question with their hands on their hearts because both had always preferred not to know the answer.
In reality, they were distracted letters, intended to keep the coals alive without putting her hand in the fire, while Florentino Ariza burned himself alive in every line.
One rainy afternoon, the two of them were in the office his father kept in the house; he was drawing larks and sunflowers with colored chalk on the tiled floor, and his father was reading by the light shining through the window, his vest unbuttoned and elastic armbands on his shirt sleeves. Suddenly he stopped reading to scratch his back with a long-handled back scratcher that had a silver hand on the end. Since he could not reach the spot that itched, he asked his son to scratch him with his nails, and as the boy did so, he had a strange sensation of now feeling his own body. At last his father looked ta him over his shoulder with a sad smile.
“If I died now,” he said, “you would hardly remember me when you are my age.”
He had said it for no apparent reason, and the angel of death hovered for a moment in the cool shadows of the office and flew out again through the window, leaving a trail of feathers fluttering in his wake, but the boy did not see them.
She herself had not realized that every step she took from her house to school, every spot in the city, every moment of her recent past, did not seem to exist except by the grace of Florentino Ariza. Hildebranda pointed this out to her, but she did not admit it because she never would have admitted the Florentino Ariza, for better or for worse, was the only thing that had ever happened to her in her life.
2 comments:
Someone who updates their blog regularly with a variety of content... blasphemy.
I actually have a copy of this book sitting on my desk, reading the post reminded of this, and I'm looking for my next book, so maybe its time to give Márquez a try.
I always feel weird commenting on blogs, since its with people I don't really talk to on a regular basis, but here we are. Keep on updating.
oh wow, someone reads my blog! haha truth be told, i think a lot of times i just post things on here so that when i think about them later or feel the urge to quote, i have it all in this handy dandy searchable format.
but i'm glad you read it! and are at least somewhat entertained :) i enjoyed the Marquez book mostly for the writing... i'd give it a another reading cuz i feel like there must've been a lot i've missed. but that probably won't happen. alas. let me know what you think of it!
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