East of Eden is an epic novel of the oldest topic in the history of mankind, or “the only story we have” according to Steinbeck: good vs. evil. Set in early 1900s US, we follow the life of family threads for generations. It’s the era of settlement. People migrate, look for a place to stay, and cultivate the land. New towns and cities are built. Everybody tries to fit into a role: blacksmith, businessman, farmer, student, soldier, sheriff, seamstress, pimp, whore.

East of Eden has biblical undertone, with the story of Cain and Abel resonates throughout the book. The two major conflicts between brothers are the focus, along with conflict between Adam and his … not Eve, but Cathy. For me Cathy is easily the most interesting character in the book. It is made clear from the very beginning that there is something lacking in her. That she seems to be born with no conscience, doing one evil deed after another with no guilt nor regret, except when it endangers her situation. The other very interesting character is Lee, the Chinese-descent man who lives with Adam, first as his servant, later as his trusted friend. Clearly it was a time where racism was rampant, so even though Lee is all American born, everybody sees him as an outsider. To fit into the mold people expect him to be, he talks pidgin–broken English with heavy fake Chinese accent.

I would say East of Eden is a character centric novel, which I really enjoyed as I like my novel to have strong believable characters, while plot could be secondary. I do have a slight nagging feeling that the book is possibly enjoyed more by men than women. There is a myriad of major male characters, with only one major female character, who is the epitome of evil. I could be wrong. If you have read it, what do you think?

Steinbeck’s prose is straightforward and beautifully descriptive. I enjoyed the 600-page tome very much, though at times I wished it could be a little tighter. Will surely read more of his books in the future!

1952, 600pp

Memorable Quotes

“You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.” ~ p4

“When a child first catches adults out–when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just–his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.” ~ p19

“I’ll have you know that a soldier is the most holy of all humans because he is the most tested–most tested of all. I’ll try to tell you. Look now–in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst sin we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, ‘Use it well, use it wisely.’ We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can. Ad we will reward you for it because it is a violation of your early training.” ~ p24

“I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape. I suppose if that definition is strictly held to, then a writer of stories is a liar–if he is financially fortunate.” ~ p73

“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.” ~ p131

“”Do you have Chinese ghosts?” Samuel asked
“Millions,” said Lee. “We have more ghosts than anything else. I guess nothing in China ever dies. It’s very crowded.”" ~ p261

“It was not laziness if he was a rich man. Only the poor were lazy. Just as only the poor were ignorant. A rich man who didn’t know anything was spoiled or independent.” ~ p339

Project
Guardian’s 1000 novels everyone must read | Nobel Laureates in Literature

Also reviewed by
A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook | Rebecca Reads
(Did I miss yours? Let me know!)

East of Eden The Movie (1955)

The movie covers only the second part of the novel with Cal (Adam’s son) as the main character. Here’s what is off: Cal in the book is the unlikeable kid with the dark face while Aron is one with angelic face who everybody likes. Well, Cal in the movie is soooooo good-looking. Seriously, it is unlike me to gush over a movie star, but my gosh I could not take my eyes off him. WHO IS HE? WHO IS THIS PRETTY YOUNG MAN? I looked him up and apparently he’s James Dean! Whose name I had heard of before of course, but I never quite knew what he looked like or what movies he was in. Apparently East of Eden was one of only the three movies in which James Dean played a major part, and he died on a tragic car crash at the age of 24! What a loss! (It’s also so weird that I feel so much loss over someone who died more than 55 years ago because I just found out about him yesterday!) James Dean was nominated for Oscar for Best Actor in 2 different movies posthumously (East of Eden was one of them). It was the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. Imagine what he could achieve had he stayed alive!

Apart from James Dean’s nomination for Best Actor, East of Eden was also nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Jo Van Fleet won Best Actress in Supporting Role for her Kate role. It’s really a decent movie, just that again it’s a bit off in its portrayal of Cal and Aron. I felt so much for Cal (SO HURT AND PERFECT-LOOKING) and Aron was this insensitive prick who is really quite annoying (also not so good-looking). So uum.. yes I had stopped being objective and all, what with James Dean stealing my heart completely.

Another big change was the inexistent of Lee the Chinese man. What a shame. I would’ve loved to see how they would handle it. Most of his roles in the story is taken by Abra (Aron’s girlfriend). The love story here is also more emphasized than the book.

Would I recommend the movie? Yes yes yes. Two words. James. Dean.

Rating: 8/10

Look at that gorgeous face

ps: Some birds said that a new East of Eden movie is in the making. It’s a huge book so I’m curious to whether they’d take the same portion of the book to screen as the 1955 version. And who’s going to play Cal? (assuming his story is in) Who wants to be compared to James Dean?! Wouldn’t want to be him.

Reading this book is like entering a long dream. Though it didn’t cause me bursts of emotions, I was completely entranced from beginning to end. The language is absolutely glorious that I could probably randomly pick one passage from the 400+ pages and it would be great, greater than most books.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is probably my first venture into magical realism. I’m very familiar with fantasy and surrealism, but magical realism was new. The “problem” with it is, while in fantasy and surrealism you’re completely prepared for something “illogical” to happen since the physical setting is non-realistic since the beginning, magical realism is set in realistic world which is only peppered by the “magic” once in a while. The magical aspects are never explained, people don’t seem to think they’re magical, and it doesn’t bother them that they’re often inconsistent. The inconsistent part was actually what bothered me at first. For example some carpets can fly and one character ascends to heaven all of a sudden, but nobody questions why it’s not happening for the rest of the carpets and people. With magical realism you need to let your feet off the ground once in a while and be not bothered about it.

In this book there are about two dozens of main characters, with even greater number of minor characters, many with similar names. Apparently it’s a culture in South America to take your father’s first name. My Argentinian friend has the same first name as his father and his grandfather. Prior to reading Wuthering Heights many people have mentioned that they had troubles with a number of characters with similar names (I did not have such problem). If only they read One Hundred Years of Solitude. It brings the challenge to a completely new level! The genealogy tree on the first page, which I had to refer to quite often, is your survival tool, what with the additional complexities of adopted children, children out of marriage, and grandchildren adopted as own children.

With such a huge number of characters, you’d think that they would all start to mesh together, but they don’t. Here’s where the skill of Garcia Marquez as a storyteller shines. The story of each character is unique, so I never got bored. It was one amazing tale after another. Characters and events are exaggerated, at times to the point of comical, that adds to the magical touch to the book.

Though I completely loved the book, I don’t think this is a book for everybody (Confirmed when it came to my knowledge that the three people sitting next to me at work have all tried to read it but never finished. One is Argentinian–who reads all GGM’s in Spanish apart from One Hundred Years.) But fortunately for me, it’s exactly my kind of book! If there is ever a book that I think would show what kind of person you are, this book is probably it. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a book for a dreamer, who loves continuous magical tales, without needing to get the point or rushing to get to the end (Because, uum.. there’s nothing at the end. It’s the journey that matters.) Are you a dreamer? Then this book might be for you!

1967, 422 pp

I picked One Hundred Years of Solitude for my Best Books Project from Claire’s list of Best Books Ever. Are you in the love camp or hate camp? You know where I am now. Count me in for the GGM fan club!

First line
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Quotes

“A few months after his return, a process of aging had taken place in him that was so rapid and critical that soon he was treated as one of those useless great-grandfathers who wander about the bedrooms like shades, dragging their feet, remembering better times aloud, and whom no one bothers about or remembers really until the morning they find them dead in their bed.” ~ p72

“In the dream he remembered that he had dreamed the same thing the night before and on many nights over the past years and he knew that the image would be erased from his memory when he awakened because that recurrent dream had the quality of not being remembered except within the dream itself.” ~ p271

“It was a useless torture because even at that time he already had a terror of everything around him and he was prepared to be frightened at anything he met in life: women on the street, who would ruin his blood; the women in the house, who bore children with the tail of a pig; fighting cocks, who brought on the death of men and remorse for the rest of one’s life; firearms, which with a mere touch would bring down twenty years of war; uncertain ventures which led only to disillusionment and madness–everything in short, everything that God has created in His infinite goodness and that the devil had perverted.” ~ p375

Awards
1982 Nobel Prize (author for body of work)

Challenges/Projects
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die | Nobel Laureates in Literature

Also reviewed by

Love! — Sasha & The Silverfish | Nonsuch Book
Did not like! — Arukiyomi (comment thread is quite funny!)
Many covers of the book: Signature Illustration Blog

I’m actually surprised to find so few reviews on the book (though I didn’t look especially hard). Perhaps many people have read it pre-blogging time?

“In had come out of the earth, this silver, out of his earth that he ploughed and turned and spent himself upon. He took his life from this earth; drop by drop by his sweat he wrung fruit from it and from the fruit, silver.” ~ p31

In The Good Earth we follow the story of Wang Lung, a mere farmer at first, who strives to become more successful with wisdom and hard work. The book starts on his marriage day. Far from being extravagant, he has to pick up the bride himself who is a slave in a rich man’s house. His wife O-Lan is a plain quiet woman.

“Words were to her things to be caught one by one and released with difficulty.” ~ p44

O-Lan knows how to utilize everything that comes her way in any situation. She was sold to the big house when she was small and therefore learns all important things she needs to survive. I don’t think it was mentioned enough, but Wang Lung is incredibly lucky to have O-Lan as his wife. Behind every successful man there’s a strong woman, according to a saying, and this couldn’t be more true for Wang Lung and O-Lan.

The language is very simple. It reminds me of language that people use for folktales. Hence The Good Earth read like a very long folktale to me. But I don’t think this is caused only by the language. Wang Lung’s story is like a story of Every Chinese-man so to speak. You start poor, you work hard, you take wife, you have sons and daughters, you take care of your elders, building better life along the way, then you die. The story of Wang Lung and his grown-up sons rang very true to me. My father said, it’s all about cycle. One generation works so hard to be rich, the second generation does everything they can to spend the fortune, and the third generation must again work very hard to pay the debts and clean the mess. I have not read the sequels to The Good Earth, but my guts tell me it is going in that direction.

I love how everything comes down to the earth. The title of the book can’t be more fitting. It was a simple and humble life. Your life depends on the mercy of the gods, who bring rain or drought according to their fancy. What you can control is the land. The land you can work on, you can cultivate. The land gives you life. I think this notion of the importance of land is ingrained so much in the Chinese blood that even for the current day generation, land is still the most precious of them all. Wang Lung says, buy land, people can’t take land away from you. Did I just hear my elders talking? Invest only in land.

The part when Wang Lung buys more and more land reminded me of my dad. My dad started poor as well. We lived in 2 bedrooms house in which my parents, my two brothers and I stayed in the same room until I started high school. By then with my parents’ business started to get a lot better. The debt of the house was paid off. When he got more money, he bought a house next to us. More money, then the house behind us. Then the house next to the one behind us. Our house became this mishmash of different style of short buildings on a huge chunk of land, with holes on the walls to get through from one house to another. My friends got all excited everytime they came by. It’s like walking in a house of maze, they said. People could literally get lost.

For my dad, it was all about the land. Building could be burnt down. Gold could be stolen. Value of money could diminish into nothing. But land stays.

Overall I found The Good Earth to be enjoyable and easy to read. Considering time of writing, it has one hell of historical value. Pearl S. Buck presented China and its people with a broad stroke that has succeeded in its intention to reach a wide audience–the world.

1931,  316 pp

Interesting Facts about The Good Earth

• The Good Earth is Buck’s second published novel, first being East Wind: West Wind, which was the one that had been rejected by many American publishers, on the old ground that people did not want to read about China.
• After The John Day Company has decided to publish East Wind: West Wind, Pearl S. Buck returned to Nanking and wrote The Good Earth in 3 months, typing it herself twice.
• When the film was made, The John Day Company did not permit the usual movie tie-in edition with photographs from the film. (Is that why until now we’ve never seen the motion-picture edition?)
• The reason for the decision above was particularly because the main actors were not Chinese nor had Chinese features.

First line
It was Wang Lung’s marriage day.

Awards
1932 Pulitzer Prize
1938 Nobel Prize for Literature (the author for body of work)

Challenges
China Challenge (book #4), Book Awards IV (book #5), Read the Book See the Movie (pair #3)

For the Book Group

The rest of this post is for us who have read the book, so there might be spoilers ahead. Beware!

I posted an invite to you all to read The Good Earth together with our Asian Book Group. It is my pick for the first quarter of the year. I was delighted to find that four of us in the group had not read the book and would love to as it is one pivotal book that showed China to the foreign world. I’d like to thank you if you decided to participate. Please drop by and let me know if you wrote up something. I’m going to list and update the links to all your reviews so you can visit each other.

Rather than taking some book group questions off somewhere else, I’m going to just throw a few Q&As up in the air. Feel free to throw your own back!

What do you think about the characters? Do you have strong feelings for them?

My non-blogger friend Eeleng re-read the book when I told her about the book group reading. She mentioned that she hated Wang Lung. I can understand why, seeing it from modern eyes. But I think Wang Lung is just a byproduct of his time. The most appalling thing he’d done in the book I thought was when he got all obsessed about Lotus and took her as his mistress. I felt so much for O-Lan and the unfairness of it all. I was so mad at him for taking O-Lan’s pearls. He got so much money already. Why does he bother to take what little precious things that O-Lan has?!

Which scene was the most memorable for you?

Before this time around, I actually read the book about a couple of years ago, but didn’t finish it because it got too depressing. I stopped at the point when O-Lan gives birth for the third time and she has to eat a few beans to survive. I came into the book this time with the right mindset so I didn’t have much problem with all the hardness in the book. That scene though is still probably the one that will stay with me the longest.

How do you feel about the white American woman writing about China?

I normally do have a bit of skepticism and disapproval about author writing of a country or culture that is not her own. But reading Buck’s background about how she spent most of her lifetime in China, I think she should be as good as any Chinese writers to write about the people and the country. However my opinion is that the book is obviously targeted for foreigners. Would Chinese people appreciate the “mundane” life story of a Chinese farmer, whose life is probably not too dramatic in their eyes?

What do you think about the role of women in The Good Earth?

The absolute preference for daughters is quite maddening (though not surprising, since it’s one common topic for many old Chinese stories), but there seems to be a rather practical reason for it. These people had very hard life. Extreme poverty and starvation seem to be the norm. In their reality, girls would marry out and belong to another family. So the family must feed the girl until she’s of age for nothing, so to speak, while boys would stay with the family forever, supporting the elders until they die.

The Movie

The Good Earth the film was released in 1937, with non-Chinese casts for the main characters. I was utterly surprised when I found out about that fact. The movie won 2 Oscars in 1938 for Best Actress (Luise Rainer as O-Lan) and Best Cinematography. As always, awards pique my interest.

Fortunately The Good Earth is a black and white movie, and that sort of disguised the ethnicity of the main characters. But I couldn’t help to be very conscious that they were Caucasians and wished there would be a remake of the movie someday, with proper Chinese casts.

I paid attention to Luise Rainer because she won Best Actress. I’m not sure though if I liked her acting. She often showed this faraway look that made her look rather dumb. It’s a bit weird to say this, but I wish the actress playing O-Lan were uglier. Rainer was far from being ugly and that took away a lot of  the sadness of O-Lan depicted in the book.

Overall the movie made a good effort for what they had at the time, though again it was obviously targeted for foreigners. One awesome scene was when the locusts attacked the village people’s fields and they showed what looked like millions of crickets. Some characters’ roles were gone or diminished, like Wang-Lung last twin (non-existent), his uncle’s wife and son, and Cuckoo.

I’m not sure if you mind about spoilers for the movie. So I’ll keep it in white. Highlight the below paragraph to read.

Of course they just had to change the ending! Because that’s what Hollywood does. They change any story to become romantic and have a happy ending. The movie ends with O-Lan at her deathbed (probably a good decision since I too thought the book became less exciting after O-Lan died). Wang-Lung returns the two pearls that he took from O-Lan for Lotus the other day and claimed that he finally realized that she is the one. What the?

That’s one very crucial scene in the book where O-Lan moans with so much sadness for being born ugly and therefore is incapable for winning Wang Lung’s love. And at the very end Wang Lung cannot love O-Lan like he does Lotus even if he feels guilty about it. They just had to change that to lovey dovey ending, did they? *grumble*

Rating: 7/10

Gosh that was one long post. I’m not sure if you’re still here, but for me I can talk about this book for a long time. I hope you enjoyed the book and the read-along!

Participants’ Reviews

su[shu]
things mean a lot
eeleng chang
kiss a cloud
Absorbed in Words

For the next book we will read Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (1920-1995), which is a collection of short stories. I heard of Eileen Chang when Lust, Caution made a huge hit in Asian cinemas in 2007. Love in a Fallen City itself was made into a movie in 1984, played by Chow Yun-Fat (remember Anna and the King? Or the Captain Sao Feng in Pirates of the Caribbean…) The book was picked by Claire and we’re going to post our thoughts in the last week of June. Hope to see you then!

Contrary to my thoughts before reading the book, it is hardly about the outcast professor and his student than him and his daughter. In fact the daughter fills at least half the book, because the farm where she lives is where the problem of racism occurs, which I think is the major topic of the book: racial tension in South Africa– the problem between them who are “of this earth” and them the others–ones with Western heritage or the Whites.

As most racism, it usually occurs in more ‘uneducated’ places by ‘uneducated’ people. Not in the city where everybody is supposed to be smart and sophisticated, no. It happens in the corners of the town, in back suburbs, behind bushes and shadows. I should know. I experienced extreme racism for many years of my teenage life — the problem that is unconsciously stuck with you to the bone, the matter of ‘my people’ against ‘your people’ — all too familiar elements that made me queasy.

I can’t remember when I first associated award winner with ‘hard to read’, but Coetzee wrote in straightforward style that is easy to read, though not necessarily easy to digest. I particularly don’t care much about Byron and Teresa, the 18th century British poet and his lover, who are featured often in the book. Coetzee is also fond of symbolism. Stray dogs are used throughout (including the cover), though I sometimes failed to understand the meaning, especially at the very end.

David and his daughter Lucy have many arguments that present most of the opposing ideas in the book: old and new generation, male and female, rural and city, the conflicting races.

“I can’t run my life according to whether or not you like what I do. Not any more. You behave as if everything I do is part of the story of your life. You are the main character, I am a minor character who doesn’t make an appearance until halfway through. Well, contrary to what you think, people are not divided into major and minor. I am not minor. I have a life of my own, just as important to me as yours is to you, and in my life I am the one who makes the decisions.” ~ Lucy, p198

Disgrace is the theme of the book. I think at the end acceptance is the solution.

I would recommend it for people who would like to read thought-provoking book that touches uncomfortable issues. It’s also a pretty short book so it won’t take a lot of your time if you’d like to try Coetzee.

1999, 220 pp

Note: Apparently Coetzee emigrated to Adelaide, Australia in 2002. [source] No wonder he made appearances during previous Writers’ Festival here.

First line
For a man of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well.

Last line
‘Yes, I am giving him up.’

Quote
“That is what whores are for, after all: to put up with the ecstasies of the unlovely.” ~ David Lurie, p44

Awards
1999 The Man Booker Prize
2000 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize – Best Book
2003 Nobel Prize for Literature (the author)

Also reviewed by

Everyday I Write the Book | The Critical Lass | Incurable Logophilia | caribousmom | Out of the Blue | Ink and Vellum | Books for Breakfast

“It was, with no attempt at covering itself, the naked heart of a woman calling out to her man.” ~p34

Snow Country is a literal translation of the Japanese title Yukiguni (雪国, read　ゆきぐに). The name comes from where the story takes place, rural Japan that receives a huge amount of snow in the winter. Snow Country tells a love affair between a dilettante and a country geisha in a Japanese hot-springs resort (onsen), as seen through the eyes of the wealthy man. I’m always intrigued by geisha, so this book was no exception when I found out about it.

It is said the Introduction by the translator Edward G. Seidensticker,

The hot springs, one of which is the locale of Snow Country, also have a peculiarly Japanese significance. The Japanese seldom goes to a hot spring for his health, and he never goes for “the season”, as people once went to Bath or Saratoga. Hey may ski or view maple leaves or cherry blossoms, but his wife is usually not with him. The special delights of the hot spring are for the unacompanied gentleman. No properous hot spring is without its geisha and its compliant hotel maids.

If the hot-spring geisha is not a social outcast, she is perilously near being one. The city geisha may become a celebrated musician or dancer, a political intriguer, even a dispenser of patronage. The hot-spring geisha must go on entertaining week-end guests, and the pretense that she is an artist and not a prostitute is often a thin one indeed. It is true that she sometimes marries an old guest, or persuades him to open a restaurant for her; but the possibility that she will drift from one hot spring to another, more unwanted with each change, makes her a particularly poignant symbol of wasted, decaying beauty.

That is a very important information, because more than half the time, I totally felt like an outsider, didn’t understand a lot of the situations these characters were thrown into. Things are never really explained in the story. It is assumed that you already know about the culture of the rural hot-springs, the country geisha, and their relationship with the guests. Things are implied and suggested, but never told. This is where it lost me. The subtlety is too much. I was never sure what was really going on.

The story is about Shimamura the guest and Komako the country geisha, and there’s another country geisha names Yoko. Shimamura somehow likes Komako and therefore visits the resort a few times. Komako really likes Shimamura, so in my opinion, she’s done a lot of things like a crazy person in love. Never letting him out of sight at the resort, stumbling into his room all the time drunk and mumbling non stop, to name a few. On the side, Shimamura is interested in Yoko too, though never goes far beyond distant observation and occassional conversations. I think there’s a bit of (healthy?) rivalry going on between Komako and Yoko. That’s the summary of the story.

There are a lot of details that I’m confused about. For example, is Komako a prostitute? (I know she’s a geisha, but does she also sleep with people as a service?) Do Komako and Shimamura sleep together? (They sure spend a lot of time in Shimamura’s room, but Komako is always worried about people’s perception of her.) How does a country geisha get hired? In the story, Komako is hired by a family of farmers for 4 years. So she sleeps in their house and works at the hot-spring resort. I’m assuming then that Komako must pay a percentage of her earnings to the family in return for accomodation and food. Does a geisha always have to get hired by somebody? Can’t she just stay at the resort or rent a unit to stay by herself?

Calling this book a love story is a bit far-fetched for me. The male character is the most distant male character ever. He just never shows and tells anything about his feelings. And he has small, if any, reaction to everything that happens around him. In the blurb of the book, it’s said that he’s incapable of love. How frustrating! Having said that, it’s really an interesting situation. The narrator tells a situation in which a geisha falls for him, who he doesn’t have any feelings for but is oddly attracted to. At the end, the book feels like a collection of cold observations. It is somewhat informative, but it probably wouldn’t take you high. There are too many things lost in translation.

Rating: 3 out of 5
Pages: 175
Publication year: 1957

Award
1968 Nobel Prize for Literature (for the author, the first Japanese to have won the prize)

First line
The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country.

Last line
As he caught his footing, his head fell back, and the Milky Way flowed down inside him with a roar.

Also reviewed by

Incurable Logophilia | Trish’s Reading Nook | My Years of Reading Seriously | A Striped Armchair | In Spring it is the Dawn

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is an author from Colombia, so the book is originally in Spanish. Both my friends from Colombia and Spain recommended his other book (most famous), One Hundred Years of Solitude. Although I already have it on my shelf, I was kinda terrified of its ‘classic’ label and thickness, so I decided to start with his other (thinner) book.

This book easily attracted my attention just from the title. Bold, was my first impression. The story is.. unique, I would say. It is about a man who had lived all his life going from one woman’s bed to another, without love, until his 90th birthday, as the book starts, “The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.” Strong opening sentence is key! :)

It’s a thin book, but at times I struggled to continue. I’m guessing it’s because the author’s somehow odd style of laying out dialogs between the characters. You’ll know what I mean when you read it. I haven’t read that many books, but I never came across this kind of writing style. It could be common as classic, I’m not sure.

After a few of the other books on my to-read list, I would definitely move on to his best work, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a so-so start for Garcia Marquez, but I’m not giving him up just yet.

~Finished on 23 July 2007

Rating: 3 out of 5

Quotes

“Just as real events are forgotten, some that never were can be in our memories as if they had happened.”