thx Rose. Old men dying in a dead town are cool. Leaf Storm: i wish i knew Spanish better cuz there's a few slang words in the translation. Plus the POV shifts were over used and not really needed/effective. No One Writes to the Colonel: excellent read with a realistic story line and characters, beautifully morose. Chronicle of a Death Foretold: I couldn't believe the whole town including the killers felt murder was an acceptable form of justice for a young boy AND girl doin' it when they were even younger. Reminded me of the self righteousness and ignorance of so many Christians.

Leaf Storm - Three Stars
Nobody Writes to the Colonel - Five Stars
The Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Fives Stars

I could not have imagined a writer dare put so much sadness in one collection! It could only have been GGM.
This selection of novellas will not make you go bawl your eyes out but will clutch at and wrench your heart out. You'll not be able to escape that subtle pain which increases as each story continues.

'Leaf storm' had a very unique style of prose where the person whose presenting the dialogue and thoughts changes within the same chapter in continuation. It was difficult to figure out oh now its the daughter talking, oh so its the kid speaking now...but once you get used to it, its very interesting to see the flow of events from all 3 perspectives at the same time. The mind map it was building was spectacular. I hope I am able to find more of this writing style.

'No one writes to the colonel' as you can imagine from the title, is one of THE most heartbreaking stories ever. The worst part? Its very close to reality. I wish I could get addresses of all such ppl in the world and I'm sure I'll make it a project to write to them. Thinking about this on a serious note.

'...Death foretold' was the only one with at least one happy part to the saga; Angela falls in love and was able to meet Bayardo after 17yrs! Reinforces the belief of destiny and karma....when something is destined to happen, it'll happen and we'll loose all control over and sense of our actions.

All three had a sense of mystery to them which kept up a tolerable level of curiosity without giving a feeling that something was left open-ended. I also loved how the following story had at least one connecting character with the previous one so as to give a kind of continuity to the end and subsequent beginning.

While at times it was a bit challenging for me to keep track of who's who, there are so many Marquez gems in these stories. "We are the orphans of our son", a woman says to her husband, mourning the death of their son who was killed as a political revolutionary.

Gabriel Gaarcia Marquez is one of my favorites. Everything he writes is beautiful.

Timeless....

I like the style of this author. He puts you in the middle of a story and then slowly fleshes out the details. However, I often want more when he has ended the story!
The first story "The Leaf Storm" involves a family (mother, son and her father) at the death of a neighbor. The town would like to let the dead man rot in his home; the family wants a proper burial. As another reviewer says, the point of view does change and muddle the story.
"Nobody Writes to the Colonel," tells the story of a very poor man and his wife. They are attempting to survive on very little while keeping hope in a fighting rooster that their son left when he died. The struggle to get food becomes greater and greater. This was my least favorite ending in the set.
"Chronicle of a Death Foretold," is the best story of the set and why I picked up the book. A bride is returned to her family on her wedding night because she is not a virgin. Her brothers set out to kill the man they believe took her purity. The whole town seems to know what they are doing and they kill the man anyway. The narrator tries to discover why no one stopped them.

Having read 100 years of Solitude early this year, I was keen to read more by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and found this collection at the Last Bookstore in LA. The three stories all involve a death, however present them in different lights.

Leaf Storm: (3*)
The death of a hated but mysterious doctor in Maconda is told through three generations of a family, also featuring the change in a town after the banana trade comes and goes. It was difficult to track the change of narrative especially to begin with as the change seemed random. Untold secrets are revealed throughout but rarely shared with the other characters.

No One Writes to the Colonel: (4*)
The Colonel is living in poverty with his wife, struggling to feed themselves as well as a rooster that they inherited from their murdered son. Waiting for fifteen years for his war pension to arrive with no indication that his wait will ever end, the Colonel is delaying any proactive changes. This novella is a study in passiveness and survival. The elderly couple go through the motions to portray a dignified life, while they privately struggle to survive. Having sold everything of value in their home, the rooster is the embodiment of their hope in a future, keeping the rooster alive in the hopes that it'll win a cockfight in the future.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold (4*)
An investigation of a murder some years later by which the whole town was witness and knew of the crime in the hours before yet failed to prevent it. The most gruesome of the short stories by far with lots of intestines and stabbings featured. I felt this story conveyed the various points of view better than the Leaf Storm, and was therefore easier to follow.

Nothing I can say that hasn't been said; loved the way he describes ordinary life and, in some of the stories, the multiple perspectives on the same scene (told one after the other), amongst other non-traditional narrative structures (to this Western eye).

I finished a short story in a collection of 3 in this book. Although it's interesting, "Collected Novellas" is hard to keep up with, because the suspense keeps being cut short. Character development is extraordinary, but it's a difficult book nonetheless. Maybe I will come back to this later when it becomes more suitable.

Shmeh. I think his novels are a lot better which makes sense. Also my personal taste doesn’t match well with these books. Leaf Storm definitely makes sense as his first novela. Kinda gross which is what he’s going for, but I forgot how gross Macondo is after not reading a book set there for a while. His storytelling is also too advanced for my reading abilities… No One Write to the Colonel was nice but I don’t get the point of the plot. I like the characters at least and the storytelling is more digestible. Chronicle of a Death Foretold is good. The gross setting and circular storytelling work really well for the plot.

a wonderful collection of 3 stories, they are interesting and well paced and funny and gorgeous
check it