This beautifully written and provocatively-titled novella follows a lonely commitment-phobe who, on his 90th birthday, wants a night of mad passion with an adolescent virgin. But instead of the usual heartless, physical sex he has had 514 times in his life, he finally finds real love in the form a young hooker in the midst of a deep sleep.

n  n    "I was ignorant of the arts of seduction and had always chosen my brides for a night at random, more for their price than their charms, and we had made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and always in the dark so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were. That night I discovered the improbably pleasure of contemplating the body of a sleeping woman without the urgencies of desire or the obstacles of modesty."n  n

At first glance, this story could easily be seen just as the tale of a dirty old man infatuated with a little girl, but I was taken by the deeper exploration of the emotional and physical effects of aging, the celebration of the innocent and pure, and a man finding love so late in the game and finally being rejuvenated at the terminus of his years. This book would make an interesting companion piece with Walter Mosley's The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, with which it shares similar themes.

n  n    "“Blood circulated through her veins with the fluidity of a song that branched off into the most hidden areas of her body and returned to her heart, purified by love. Before I left at dawn I drew the lines of her hand on a piece of paper and gave it to Diva Sahibí for a reading so I could know her soul.”"n  n

This is a story about a nonagenarian—a journalist, a bachelor, a man who has n  notn known love. Sex, yes, but not love. On the eve of his 90th birthday he decides to give himself a present, a night with an adolescent virgin. Watch and see what happens.

This is n  notn a book of lascivious sex.

Written in 2004, when the author was seventy-seven, it is his last work. It is about love and aging.

If you start it, you must finish it. It is short. It grows on you. Its ending is cute!

There are lines of prose worth quoting. Here follow quotes I like:

“Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love.”

“Age isn’t how old you are but how old you feel.”

“The truth is I'm getting old, I said. We already are old, she said with a sigh. What happens is that you don't feel it on the inside, but from the outside everybody can see it.”

“One ages more in pictures than in reality.”

"There's no greater misfortune than dying alone."

“No matter what, nobody can take away the dances you've already had.”

The audiobook is narrated by Thom Rivera. I did not like his narration. I had to lean in to catch the words spoken. Why? Because he mimics the base guttural voice of an old man. In my view, first and foremost, a narrator must speak clearly so the author’s words are easily heard. Written originally in Spanish, the novella was translated into English by Edith Grossman a year after publication. Her translation is what is read in the audiobook.

Ever since I read Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas I have wanted to read something by Gabriel García Márquez. I was told Memories of My Melancholy Whores was good. It is.

I forgot to list the other books read by Gabriel García Márquez:
Love in the Time of Cholera 4 stars
Memories of My Melancholy Whores 3 stars
One Hundred Years of Solitude 1 star
Of Love and Other Demons TBR
Chronicle of a Death Foretold TBR

نقد کردن نویسنده بزرگی چون گابریل گارسیا مارکز کار بسیار سختی است. بعد از تمام شدن این رمان، که آخرین کار مارکز نیز بود...به فکر فرورفتم... به این که نوع روایت مارکز بی نظیر بود در این داستان ولی از نظر محتوایی شاید توقع بیشتری داشتم... داستان عشق پیرمردی نود ساله که در آستانه تولدش عاشق می شود... شاید بتوان نامش را عشق افلاطونی گذشت...اما نکته جالب از نظر من این بود که پیرمرد خوشحال از دنیا رفت حال شاید این داستان زندگی خود مارکز باشد...این داستان به گونه ای نمادین می باشد.

this novella shares a lot of the themes from Love in the Time of Cholera, with the main protagonist an old libertine reminiscing about his experiencens in the city's red quarter, who discovers that the heart is still capable of love regardless how old your bones are... and old fashioned romantic hidden in the skin of a cynic.

Don't be fooled by the opening phrase: yes, this leecher is craving a nubile virgin as a gift for his ninetieth birthday, but the story is not a voyeuristic lust fest. Carnal love is treated with reverence and discretion, and the focus of the narrative is introspective, dealing with the capacity for honesty in self analysis, how the image we have of our interior selves is a lot different from the one the outside world is seeing.

I would be wary to call the novella autobiographic - the main character shares a journalistic career with the author, but the imaginary and the real blend in a typical Marques fashion to create a familiar landscape of a hot, sleepy city by the Carribbean shore, where cultural events mix with passionate love affairs:

When the cathedral bells struck seven, there was a single, limpid start in the rose-colored sky, a ship called out a disconsolate farewell, and in my throat I felt the Gordian knot of all the loves that might have been and weren't.

or:

Why were you so old when we met? I answered with the truth: Age isn't how old you are but how hold you feel.

The young girl is probably real in the story, but I looked at her mostly as a symbol of the eternal yearning for love in the heart of even the most cynical and debauched of men, who confesses that he has always chosen the company of ladies of the night over marriage and kids prospects. I think it was more than selfishness or fear of commitment that made him (I don't think his name is in the text) a lonely man in an big empty house at the beginning of the novella, so much as a passion for the feminine form in its many incarnations that made it impossible for him to settle for one flower in field of daisies. What I found significant is his discovery that it is never too late to discover new feelings and new passions.

This is why I would contradict such reviewers that called this the most depressing read they have encountered. I see hope here for flowering in the driest, most unlikely places, and I would end my impressions with a possible alternate title, extracted from the test:

"How to Be Happy on a Bicycle at the Age of Ninety"

سبک آقای مارکز رو دوس دارم. توصیفات عالی ولی متاسفانه از نظر محتوا صفر بود :/

İçerdiği cinsel unsurlar, kadın okuyucuları belki rahatsız edebilir ama bir erkek olarak bana itici gelmedi. Diğer Gabo kitaplarına göre çok basit ve sıradandı. Biraz hayal kırıklığına uğradım açıkçası.

If anyone else had written this book it would have been a masterpiece. Unfortunately, it was written by the man who wrote 100 Years of Solitude and therefore is looked upon as a lesser work.
There is no denying that Gabriel Garcia Marquez was one of the most influential storytellers of the 20th century. His contribution in taking magical realism out of the small towns of Latin America and bringing it to the world will be talked about for hundreds of years to come. No list of great 20th century novels would be complete without one of his books attached.
Back in 2006 when I first picked up this book I had the highest of expectations that this would be an unforgettable literary experience. I was 28 or 29. I was working at a boutique gelato stand on the Las Vegas Strip and remember running between the Luxor and the Mandalay Bay to a small bookshop called The Reading Room during my 15 minute break to buy this book the day it came out.
I could not wait to get off work and the moment I clocked out I cracked it open and began to read as I walked to the bus stop. 20 minutes later on the bus I began to realize when the magically real things were going to happen.
When I closed the back cover, after nothing out of the ordinary did, I thought "Well, they can't all be winners."
For some reason, this book has stayed in my library (probably because it is small and tus easily portable). I moved halfway around the world from Las Vegas to Moscow and this book moved with me.
The other day, now on the wrongside of 40, I picked it up again for a reread. What a difference age makes.
This book is a treasure to anyone wondering where the bygone days of youth have fled and how to get them back or even if they could.
Other reviewers have mentioned the pedophilia aspect of this book but it just isn't there. Sure it is about a 90 year old man who decides to sleep with a 14 year old virgin but he never does. He was never going to. She is just a symbol and what better symbol for the idea of youth and innocence?
Everytime he begins to feel old in the book he returns to his quest for this girl. She has her life ahead of her and the possibilites of who she is and what she can be are fascinating to him. She is the promise of a future of possibilities that he has squandered away. He wants her to remain fluid and so refuses to even speak to her. He doesn't want to know her name or anything else about her. He wants her to remain as he imagines her and all the things that she could be.
I loved this book this time around. I understood where Garcia Marquez was coming from and I was more than happy to accompany him while he mused on what it means to grow old.

لا تموت من دون أن تجرب جمال حمل عبء الحب

لم أحب الرواية كفكرة ولا كسرد بإستثناء بعض الاقتباسات القليلة والتي كانت جيدة
فكرة الحب بعد التسعين من رجل شارف على الموت لصبية في الرابعة عشر من عمرها فكرة شاذة لم أستسيغها

"Escrevo esta memória no pouco que resta da biblioteca que foi dos meus pais e cujas prateleiras estão quase a cair graças à paciência do caruncho."

"Desde então comecei a medir a vida não por anos mas por décadas. A dos cinquenta tinha sido decisiva porque tomei consciência de que quase toda a gente era mais nova do que eu. A dos sessenta foi a mais intensa pela suspeita de que já não tinha tempo para me equivocar. A dos setenta foi terrível por uma certa possibilidade de que fosse a última. Não obstante, quando acordei vivo na primeira manhã dos meus noventa anos na cama feliz de Delgadina, atravessou-me a ideia complacente de que a vida não fosse algo que corre como o rio revolto de Heraclito, mas sim uma ocasião única de dar a volta na grelha e continuar a assar do outro lado durante mais noventa anos."

I love literature, and in particular I do love Spanish literature. Even translated the language is so rich and poetic.

I have read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work before. I have enjoyed Chronicles of A Death Foretold, and A Hundred Years of Solitude. Therefore, when I saw Memories of My Melancholy Whores I was looking forward to rich characters with elements of nostalgia and romanticism.

However quickly I was confronted with a sad and darker theme wrapped up in beautiful language and masquerading as the narration of a hopeless romantic.

The premise of the book is this: a 90 year old man, who had never been in love, decides he wants to gift himself sex with a prepubescent virgin for his 90th birthday. So he calls his favorite brothel, and gets the madame to arrange a meeting with a girl who meets his specifications.

Eventually, the madame finds a girl and he gets a call to go over to have sex with this girl. But upon getting there he is told that she was so nervous and afraid that she essentially had to be sedated and he goes into the room with a naked 14 year old girl.

He cannot wake the girl, and so he decides to not have sex with her, and just sleeps next to her, still paying her.

So even though the sex does not happen, I find this book is filled with the sickening idolization and fetishization of this girl by this man for a year. He continues to see her, recreating their first meeting, she is asleep and he touches and fantasizes about her, but no sex. He builds up this ideal perfect image of her, he controls what she looks (to a certain extent), and he interprets anything from her as an admission of love/fondness/intimacy, despite the fact that she is asleep for all of their meetings.

He imagines he has conversations with her through her body language as she sleeps. That when she wears his gifts that she is doing it to please him rather than to fill a request for a client. He writes messages to her on the mirror and the irony is that she can't even read or write. He doesn't know her voice or even her name, he makes up a name for her deciding that is who she is and refuses to even learn her real name less it ruins what he believes is the "real" her.

Throughout this whole book, the man is convinced as well as everyone around him is convinced that he is in real love, and in a real relationship. The consent of the girl is completely implied from the perspective of everyone, who interacts and speaks with him. "Why don't you marry?" "She is crazy about you." Everyone who speaks, implies that there is a real connection except the one person who never speaks, the girl herself.

Her voice is disturbingly absent from this novella, and sadly I feel like this reflects the society that we live in. The fetishization of youth and virginity, does not empower young girls, but silences them. It silences and paints over who these girls really are and prevents them from being who they can be. It teaches this girls what to expect and what to do to receive this sickening adoration that is glorified by our culture. What to do for a man to dedicate all of his time and thoughts to you, for a man to write letters upon letters filled with his love and idolization for you. To give into the image that is placed upon you, is what one should do to receive what you are told is the greatest position you can achieve.

This book couldn't help but to take me back to when I was working in retail when I was a teen, and the sad fact that I received the most offensive sexual comments from men over 70. Men who thought that I should fall head over heels, or be reduced to a blushes and giggles when they confessed what they thought about my body. What they wanted to do to me "if only they were a few decades younger". Things said from the standpoint that I should be grateful for their "admiration". Even giving me tips on how I could be just a little bit more attractive, as if that obviously was my goal, to be as attractive as possible.

Just like this man just assumes that everything this girl does, is for due to her love for him, and not for the fact that she is the sole breadwinner of her family and needs the money, it seems like there is a portion of men in our society that just assume that everything women do is for them, for their affection, attention, and admiration.

I don't know whether to recommend this book as a means to analyze the sick fascination with virginity, youth, and the role of women from the perspective of the patriarchy or to tell everyone to run, run as far as you can from this book. It has a disturbing rosy image of themes that ultimately support rape culture, and the submissive role of women, by making it seem "worth it" if it enables a man to experience what he believes love feels like. That dragging and subjugating a young girl into prostitution was some how worth it since she was able to give a man a feeling of love and she got a few gifts in the mean time.

I personally have never felt more disgusted and appalled with a book. And if Gabriel Garcia Marquez's intention was to make me feel disgusted then this man is a genius, but if his goal was to sympathize with a old but flawed man who learned to be a hopeless romantic through fetishizing a fourteen year old girl, I don't know what to think about him anymore. If there was an ounce of conflict or regret in this man for feeling this way about a fourteen year old girl, then this book can be redeemed, however the narrator shows absolutely no remorse for not only what he is imposing on this girl, he also shows no real remorse for any of his other actions of violence against women he admits to.

A 90-year old man falls in love for the first time. He has been single all his life and pays whore to have sex with him. He is a writer and his boss does not want him to stop writing because people would like to know how it feels to be a ninety-year old man.

It is a novella (short novel) that you can finish in 2 hours. However, it took me 6 days to finish it because I read it along with somebody in our book club here in Goodreads. She is a lot younger than me and she also liked this book. It was kind of a surprise because the first-person narrator of the story is the 90-year old man and a young girl reader would normally not be interested to know the point of view of a very old man. When I proposed that we read this, I did not have any doubt that I would like this. I liked all the earlier books that I read by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude (5 stars); No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories (4 stars); Love in the Time of Cholera (4 stars) and The Autumn of the Patriarch (4 stars). I did not like this as much as I really enjoyed the last one because I thought that it was quite hard for a 90-y/o man to ride a bicycle. My father-in-law is 93-y/o and if I remember it right, 3 years ago he could still go all by himself to Marikina by riding the jeepney. He cannot do that now, although he can still walk and go out but only if there is a driver to bring him around.

On the subject of whether a man as old as this can fall in love for the first time and the girl is a minor, I think it is possible. As the poem Desiderata says: "Don't be cynical about love." So what if the man cannot function sexually anymore. Love is not all about sex. If it makes him happy to just touch, kiss and embrace his girlfriend or wife, let's leave him at what makes him happy.

So, I liked this book. It is well-written (as usual). My 5th book by GGM and he is still to disappoint. One thing I notice is that his main characters are mostly old people. So what. We will all grow old someday and Garcia Marquez' books can serve as reference materials to us all.

I am praying for your speedy recovery, Senor Marquez!

العظيم : ماركيز
فى عمل انسانى معقد (رغم صغر حجمه) يرصد حال رجل فى التسعين بعد حياة زاخرة بالعمل والمتعه

عرف مئات النساء وعمل لعقود طويله
يرصد حاله عندما بلغ التسعين
من قرأ (الحب فى زمن الكوليرا) ويذكر فلورنتينو اريثا ومغامراته سيلاحظ شبه ببطل هذا العمل
فى المجمل روايه لن تأخذ من وقتك ساعه وستترك انطباع جيد
هذا لا ينفى كونها اقل اعمل ماركيز مما قرات له