Welcome to Litsy!

This was much better on the second read, and much easier to understand. There‘s a thing Márquez does with POV, where he constantly shifts who is narrating, and I found this difficult the first time through. I was obsessed with figuring out the rules for it. But on this second read I could relax and enjoy it without any issues. It‘s about understanding that the voice shifts, which works with the mood. Don‘t overthink it.

Anyway—a masterpiece.

…there he learned about the bitterness of the high command, the repressed intentions of those who prospered in his shadow and repudiated him behind his back, he felt master of all his power when he succeeded in penetrating an enigma of the human heart in the revealing mirror of the role of the rabblement….

both looked out through the haze of the window curtains at the hordes of needy who were finding relief from the heat-ridden afternoon in the dew-cool doorways where previously they had sold pamphlets describing atrocious crimes and luckless loves and and inconceivable fruit that compromised the will and where now one only heard the deafening racket of the stalls selling false relics of the clothes and the body of his mother Bendición Alvarado….

I‘m rereading this currently.

Anyone who‘s even remotely interested in it, or a fan of Márquez in general has got to check this out, because it‘s an unreal book. It‘s not the easiest novel, but it is phenomenal, and I‘m finding it so gratifying.

I‘m not quite sure what to think of this one. I was often lost as to who was supposed to be telling the story as well as being unsure of exactly what was real and what wasn‘t. Yet, I was caught up in the truly horrible events and fascinated by how they were described, so that I just kept listening. I couldn‘t easily find a print copy, but I want to see the incredibly long sentences to consider an aspect of the writing I mostly missed on audio.

By far the best Márquez novel I've read. I love the writing in this one; such a bold choice with no paragraph breaks. It's heady stuff though, and can get confusing, but I do plan on rereading it. The thing is beautifully pulled off, and I have to say I did GET it even when I didn't technically get it.

Bravo, Márquez, for this triumph of a novel.

I‘m about halfway through this, and it‘s by FAR the best Márquez novel I‘ve read (no I haven‘t read the super famous one).

I kind of…finally see what all the hype is about?

And I‘m thinking I‘m gonna read this one twice.

Had not read this Marquez! 40 pages in and I am captivated!

“Relentless immersion of the reader” - that‘s William Kennedy‘s phrase in the postscript. Also druggy surreal, of its time, a meditation on the march of sick dictators throughout of the 20th century and their trail of carnage, combined together into one general of universe, who sells the sea. It‘s an odd disturbing book of run-on sentences that go and go and had me disturbed and losing track of time

“...he felt the ship of the universe had reached some port while he was asleep, he was floating in a soup of steam, the animals of the earth and sky who had the faculty to glimpse death beyond the clumsy omens and best-founded science of men were mute with terror, there was no more air, time was changing direction...”

a taste of these confusing and somewhat hypnotic, conjoined fragments. Just reading this over lunch, so slow going.

“...and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur.”

One of my May goals. Although I hadn‘t realized the first paragraph was 40 pages, or that single sentences of somewhat disconnected eloquent phrases can extend over a page in length. (My other May goal is 2 Maccabees, but it has to wait a bit)

You're gonna work for this book. You're going to be confused. You're going to be put-off. You're going to love this and you're going to want to throw it. This feels like a stream-of-consciousness novel. The narrative voice changes with the wind. I'm going to tell you to pick this because the overall experience is worth it! 111/1,001 #1001Books

"...it's quite natural, he answered, a fear of death is the ember of happiness..."

"...he would say that thinking ahead about the world that's left after you've gone yourself was something made up of the same ashes as death itself..." (I found this image on Google, but I couldn't identify the source...?)

3⭐. I would recommend trying to read this in one go - I stopped and started this but often found myself going back to remind me what happened.
#LitsyAtoZ M ✅ @BookishMarginalia
#ReadHarder2017 Set in Central or South America, by a person from Central or South America ✅

Opening line:
"Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screen on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur."
#bookgnome #Dumbledwarf #gabrielgarciamarquez #theautumnofthepatriarch

Delightfully convoluted sentences that never seem to end, and suck you deeper and deeper into the story-vortex on dictatorship and power.

#peachbooks #augustphotochallenge Márquez is one of my all time favourite writers. One of those writers whose work permanently changes your reading paradigm. ✨?

#peachbooks #augustphotochallenge Márquez is one of my all time favourite writers. One of those writers whose work forever changes your reading expectations. ✨?

It took me several attempts to read it. It is super dense. GGM wrote it right after One hundred years of solitude and he said that it is his most elaborated book. He wanted to write something different. Still, it contains the same magic, but with a sarcastic, sometimes cynical, twist.