چند سال پیش خوندمش و واقعا قدرت آثار قبلی مارکز را نداره و گویا تاثیر آلزایمر داره خودش را نشون میده. نمیدونم چه چیز خاصی توی اثر وجود داره و باید دنبالش بگردیم؟ تقریبا هیچی. نهایتا همون قدرت قصه گویی که قلم مارکز داره.
ماجرای یک روزنامه نگار کهنه کار که در نود سالگی و در اوج تنهایی تصمیم میگیره باز یه رابطه را شروع کنه و نگاهش به ماجرا اول کاملا جنسی هست و تا اواخر کار کم کم یه کم عاطفی هم میشه.

Gabo não me conseguiu convencer com este livrinho... Com muita pena minha!

Talvez tenha sido por razões muito minhas, associadas a comportamentos que me dão asco, mesmo que estejam disfarçados de amor e ternura.

Opinião completa em breve.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores is a book that is as controversial as its title promises. This book opens with one of the most memorable (in a stomach revolting way) lines I've ever encountered. A ninety year old mass professing that he indents to bed an adolescent virgin as a treat for his birthday. If this book wasn't written my Marquez; I probably would have read another page. But knowing Marquez, I knew that this is book is not likely to be an ode to perverts or anything of the sort. First we learn a bit about the old guy. He is emotionally disabled, it seems. A journalist who has visited whores all of his life, preferring to buy women rather than to earn them.The title is not a click bate, as you can see. That brings us back to the opening lines. Sure enough, our narrator, the creepy old man in question, goes to a brothel and pays for a night with an adolescent virgin. However, things don't go as planned.

You see, she (i.e. the virgin) is asleep when he enters the room. The madam gave her some kind of tranquilizer and exhausted after a hard day work, the poor girl fell asleep. The girl is indeed 'poor' in more ways that one. Our creepy old man notices the marks of physical work on her body (she has to work for a living in more ways than one), and he feels sorry for this poor girl so he leaves her to her sleep. The young virgin in question is touched by the fact that the man 'spared' her, and thus sympathy is born. He buys more time with her, and she continues to sleep, that is, she pretends to be asleep. Some might call it erotic, but I found it disturbing more than anything.

It takes a talented writer to make you read on a story like this one. Your first impulse (as a reader) is to feel revolved and horrified. I'm the first one who hates when people try to make moralistic rules apply to the books. What is the purpose of literature if we are not going to allow the writer its creativity? There are so many people who actually connect every action of every character with the writer's personal views. The whole point of literature is to make us questions things, to offer different views and to make us see things from another perspective. The way I see it, if you're going to complain about some character doing something immoral, then you might as well give up on reading.

Still, this 'turn of events in the narrative' was something I needed some times to get over with. This idea of an emotional connection forming in such bizarre and cringing circumstances. Have you perhaps read Jazz by Toni Morrison? In that novel, the author makes you sympathize with a character who kills his teenage lover. Again, what the character does is horrible, but it is not the point. What is the point? Maybe the belief that human beings can change? Maybe this crazy belief we are not determined by our past mistakes? In Jazz, she gave this theme time and attention, Morrison didn't just pardon the character. Instead, Morrison made him pay off it, as everyone has to pay, every person who decides to confront the results of their action and past mistakes. Isn't there something comforting in the fact that people can find love again? That in life, as in a book, we can sometimes turn a new page. I don't see either Tony Morrison or Gabriel Garcia Marquez as writers who encourage immorality just because they are writing about flawed characters. In fact, I think it what makes them great writers. The fact they can deal with themes of such difficulty.

However, that is not saying that I didn't feel quite sick while reading this book. Maybe it is motherly instincts taking in (not having kids doesn't make you devoid of motherly emotions you know). 'Geez, what is with this writer and adolescent girls?', I kept asking myself. Marquez can write, I cannot dispute that but something seemed fishy to me and I didn't mean just that notorious opening line. There was something odd about " Of Love and Other Demons" as well. Hm, maybe an idea of a child falling madly in love with an older man? I remember thinking- If that is what magic realism is about, I don't think I like it. But you know, reading even more South American magic realism (and more weird stuff in general) made me reconsider my opinion. Books are not reality. Literature can never be moral or immoral, it can only be good or bad. There is no doubt in my mind that this book is good literature. Maybe not great as it could have been, maybe not up to everyone's taste. I totally understand why some people cringe at the mere thought of this book. It's definitely not for everyone.

Who likes an old creepy guy who wants to bed a virgin? But that's the thing. We have all had a terrible idea at some point of our lives (hopefully not that one, though). A monstrous thought doesn't make us monsters, not if we don't act on it. It is what we do with our thoughts that matter. We are not determined nor judged for every horrible thought or action. We are all human and more similar then we would like to admit. Life is often quite horrible, and we have all done some crazy things. Isn't that what literature is about? About being human. Figuring out our humanity.

Someone might like the old creepy guy. In some circumstances. As uncomfortable as it might be to read his story, the narrator of this book does seem like a real person. So does the girl. That means that the author has done a great job of bringing them to life. I forgot their names btw, but I don't want to look them up for the sake of being more authentic. There aren't that many characters in this book (as far as I remember): the old guy, the madam and the girl are the most important ones and they are good characters. I had some issues with this book, but I can't dispute that. I felt like Marquez has crossed some lines he shouldn't have. Nevertheless, he writes so well. You cannot dispute that, as uncomfortable (or sickened) you might fee about an idea of an adolescent girl falling in love with an old guy.

I spoke a lot about the theme of love, because it is central for this novella. However, this is not only a book about falling in love, it's also about life. I quite appreciated Marguez's very detailed and often quite humorous account of what growing (really old) feels like. The story is told by protagonist of the novel, so the narrative often wonders into past and draws on experiencing of his (long) life. There is something quite sad and honest about this novel that I liked. On overall, I really don't know what to think about it. I suppose I both love and hate it at the same time. It is not the easiest of books to read, but it is quite possibly worth the torment, a bit like love itself.


...“I always had understood that dying of love was mere poetic license. That afternoon, back home again without the cat and without her, I proved that it was not only possible but that I myself, an old man without anyone, was dying of love. But I also realized that the contrary was true as well: I would not have traded the delights of my suffering for anything in the world. I had spent more than fifteen years trying to translate the poems of Leopardi, and only on that afternoon did I have a profound sense of them: Ah, me, if this is love, then how it torments.”

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

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.

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

¿Criticada y prohibida en algunos países por hacer apología de la prostitución infantil? ¿En serio?
La última novela publicada por Gabo me ha parecido espectacular. No sólo me ha hecho plantearme muchas cosas acerca de la edad, del amor y del paso del tiempo, sino que además ha logrado sacarme alguna que otra lagrimita.
Nunca es tarde para enamorarse; lo sabe muy bien el protagonista, un hombre de 90 años que cae preso del amor.
Una historia fabulosa, muy bien hilada y que no defrauda.
Da gusto leer las obras de este pedazo de ser humano.

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"

Questa è una storia da leggere! Normalmente, sebbene tormente, m'innamoro della biografia o delle storie delle donne. Tuttavia dal motivo di questo libro ho adorato il personaggio. Probabilmente ho ringraziato per la prima volta lo stesso scrittore e romanziere colombiano Gabriel García Márquez.
È evidente che la storia è fantasiosa, ma mi sono reso conto che voglio essere uguale al personaggio narrato: dobbiamo seguire l'esempio di tale Don Juan, dico con un tocco di innocente invidia. Come anche il titolo del libro allude, la storia racconta l'anzianità di un signore: una persona che nel suo libro o agenda conserva tutte le date che ha passato con le puttane facendo del sesso. [...] Ovviamente ne conta a centinaia, ed è un peccato che di tale varietà di donne sia fissato con una vergine.

ناصر تقوايي معتقد بود موضوع خوب و بد وجود نداره. موضوع ها همه خوبند، نويسنده ي بد زياد است.
اين كتاب ممكنه به عظمت صد سال تنهايي و به صلابت گزارش يك مرگ نباشه. ولي به هرحال نوشته ي ماركزيه كه نميشه داستان گوي خوب بودنش رو زير سوال برد. ماركز حواسش هست مرز عشق و اروتيك رو رد نكنه و به عاشقانه بودن داستان پايبنده. داستان نه پيچيدگي خاصي داره و نه كشش زياد، ولي چه ميشه كرد كه ناقل داستان گابريل گارسيا ماركزه!

How do I rate this, when I don't even know what to make of it?

It's Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose writing I'm terribly fond of, his 'One Hundred Years Of Solitude' being one of my favourite books of all time. Now, I'll be honest and admit that knowing it was written by Garcia Marquez influenced me. It's hard to say how much.

The writing is phenomenal, it has a great flow, beautiful descriptions and great characterisations.

The subject, well, that one was a bit disconcerting. I suspect Garcia Marquez intended it to be so.
So our unreliable narrator is a ninety (90!) year old man, who's never been married, never been in love and only had sexual encounters with prostitutes. He lived a petty, ordinary, boring life. He's been nowhere, has no relatives or friends.

On his ninetieth birthday, he gives himself the gift of a virgin girl. Because, why the hell not? Right? I told myself to get over it, it's Marquez, be open minded, Bianca etc. So, honestly, I really tried. I tried to believe that he could do all the things he was doing in the book, chasing a girl, being on a bike and many other things very unlikely for a ninety-year-old. I also managed not to visualise him getting naked next to a drugged up teenager. Grrrr... I sound so square and unsophisticated, but that's how I felt.

I've read some reviews, some people saying that it's a quest for finding love, no matter how late in life. I so wish I saw that. All I saw was just an old, creepy man's carnal infatuation with somebody so young.

Other than that, I liked the exploration of old age, although I've read better.

So I think it's fair to conclude that my personal prejudices, views might have caused me not to gush over this little book. On the other hand, knowing that it was written by Garcia Marquez, may have caused me to be more lenient. This time, it's more difficult to gauge. So I'll give it 3 stars. But it could have been less or more. Huge conondrum.

Kısa romanları genelde tatmin edici bulmam. O kadarcık sayfada çoğunlukla tıkış tıkış olaylar anlatılır ve haliyle bunlardan hiçbiri de derinlemesine işlenemez. Marquez bu konudaki önyargımı yıkan yazarlardan. İlk eseri Yaprak Fırtınası sık sık düşündüğüm, adını andığım bir eser örneğin. Albaya Mektup Yazan Yok için de uzun hikâye kategorisinde okuduklarımın en iyisi diyebilirim. Buraya yazarın Hanım Ana'nın Cenaze Töreni adlı hikâye kitabındaki görece uzun hikâyeleri de dahil edebilirim.

Marquez'in yukarıda saydığım kısa anlatılarını etkileyici yapan şey ne diye düşününce, belki bir roman okurunun alışkanlığıyla, ilk olarak aklıma oluşturduğu dünyayı yüzeysel bırakmaması, atmosferi sabırla oluşturması geliyor. Marquez bunu bilen, bunu başarabilen bir yazar. Ama bunu her kitabında görmüyoruz ilginç bir şekilde.

Henüz tüm kitaplarını okumamış olmama rağmen sanırım şunu söyleyebilirim: Eserlerinde iki farklı anlatım biçimi tespit ettim. Birincisi yukarıda saydığım tarzda sabrın ön planda olduğu biçim, ikincisi ise en meşhur eseri Yüzyıllık Yalnızlık'ta kullandığı temposu çok yüksel, bana fazla sabırsız gelen, hikâyeci anlatım biçimi. Yaprak Fırtınası'na hayran olan ben, ne yazık ki Yüzyıllık Yalnızlık'ta o beklentiyle hayal kırıklığına uğramıştım. Orhan Pamuk Saf ve Düşünceli Romancı'da atmosferin hikâyedeki öneminden bahsederken, iki büyük romancı Tolstoy ve Dostoyevski'den örnek veriyordu ve "Sanki Tolstoy'un evleri, odaları tıklım tıklım doludur da Dostoyevski'nin odaları bomboştur," minvalinde bir cümle kuruyordu. Benim yaptığım kategorileştirmeyi bu güzel tespit üzerinden yaparsak da sonuç aynı olacaktır.

Benim Hüzünlü Orospularım'ı da ikinci kategoriye ekleyebileceğimizi düşünüyorum. Marquez'in en büyük becerisi olarak gördüğüm atmosferi oluşturma işini yapmaya pek de yeltenmediği bir roman. Fazla derine inmeden olayları anlatıyor.

Kitabın iki teması var, yaşlılık ve yaşlılıkta cinsellik. Bu noktada aklıma aynı iki temayı işleyen, bu kitapla kıyaslayabileceğimiz -hacim olarak da aynı sınıfta diyebileceğimiz, iki eser geliyor, biri -kaçınılmaz olarak, Cuniçiro Tanizaki'nin Çılgın İhtiyar'ı: Orada da geline âşık olan 77 yaşında bir ihtiyar anlatılıyordu. Ben Tanizaki'nin hem "yapılmaması gereken" şeyi yapma hissini, o gizli ve suçlu erotizmi, hem de yaşlılık hissini daha iyi verdiğini düşünüyorum. Diğeri ise Philip Roth'un Sokaktaki Adam'ı. Sokaktaki Adam'ı -bilhassa yaşlılığı ele alması bakımından, bu eserden kat kat üstte görüyorum.

Son olarak, sosyal medyayla birlikte yükselen ahlakçılığa -yahut daha açık yazmak gerekirse otu boku linç etme alışkanlığına- rağmen 14 yaşındaki kızın bekaretinin peşine düşen 90 yaşındaki bir adamı anlatan bu romanın bu kadar çok satması, bana yine ünlü yazarın kısa kitabını okuyarak tatmin olma yönteminin yaygınlığını düşündürttü.

Açıkçası ben bu tarz netameli konuları işleyen romanlara bir ahlakçılık önyargısıyla yaklaşmıyorum. Hatta cesaretinden dolayı takdirle yaklaşıyorum. Yazar istediğini yazmakta özgür olmalı. Ben okurken rahatsız olmadım. Yarın bir romanda beyaz sakallı insanları öldürmeliyiz diye yazsa nasıl gidip beyaz sakallı insanları öldürmeyeceksem, bir kitapta adamın biri 14 yaşında bir kıza âşık oluyor diye pedofil olmayacağım.