Book: Innocent Erendira and Other Stories
I was highly impressed by this particular Nobel Laureate. His previous work I had read – No one writes to the Colonel, really struck a chord with me. However this particular foray into this piece fell a little short.
Firstly it’s a compilation of a number of his short stories. The very first is a terrifying morbid tale of a young girl being sold into prostitution by her grandmother. It’s very powerfully written but very unenjoyable. There is no redemption in this book, there is no sense of hope that pervades each story. Instead we are given a huge dose of melancholy and despair, out of body experiences and death everywhere. The content in this book is very hard to swallow, there are many abstract situations and experiences that Marquez describes, it was hard to understand at times, although one could probably get the gist of it.
It’s a difficult read, even thought the stories are in general quite short and the entire book can be read in an afternoon. However if you really want the full experience of what Marquez is writing, then one needs a certain amount of attention and concentration. This is not your casual read for enjoyment. There are very heavy themes of death being explored. All your senses will need to be used in this exploration and it requires some reading between the lines.
Still there are many amazing sentences constructed throughout the stories and each experience of death is new and different. I don’t feel like I’ve even grasped the tip of the iceberg with this book, but at the same time, I’m unsure if I want to delve back into the world these stories present. It’s not enjoyable on an intellectual level, but there is this morbid fascination to want to know more.
Well written, definitely. However it’s not really my cup of tea.
Living. Loving. Learning. 