What are you reading right now?

rostasi · 07-03-2021, 07:29 PM

Lisnaholic · 07-04-2021, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Kind of like getting a fat sack of weed that looks, smells, and feels beautiful to the touch but when you tear it up and smoke it, it's just some mids that wear off too quickly. You've had much better stuff before in smaller quantities that you preferred for their intensity and while you don't mind the fat sack, it's a bit of a slog to finish it off and you can't wait until your next one. I feel sorry for the women in Gabriel's life since most of the romance in the book is sparked by molestation. On the upside, it's still ambitious, entertaining, and pretty funny.

That sounds like an analogy that you have really lived through!
I read that book way back when "magic realism" was a new term, and I also didn't really get the reason for the book's reputation. I think I was affronted because there was too much magic and almost no realism.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rostasi

That's a book I'd enjoy reading myself! In fact, I have a Beefheart biog by the same author

jadis · 07-04-2021, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

I read that book way back when "magic realism" was a new term

In the mid-20th century then?

**Frownland** · 07-04-2021, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

That sounds like an analogy that you have really lived through!

Unfortunately lol

Quote:

I read that book way back when "magic realism" was a new term, and I also didn't really get the reason for the book's reputation. I think I was affronted because there was too much magic and almost no realism.

It's definitely enjoyable and is easy to read when you enter it without expectation, which is probably the reason for its popularity. The structure being somewhat recursive was very well done, so I think if he fleshed out the details of the events in the book more, it'd be the masterpiece I expected. There's a lot of opportunity for powerful imagery that he largely leaves to the reader to imagine. The famous Remedios ascension only being about two paragraphs long is a good example of it, that easily could have been a few pages long. I guess that's a factor in the realism aspect, since it's addressed as dryly as someone entering a room. I much prefer his influences that I've mentioned in this thread already: Borges, Rulfo, Cortazar, and Casares.

**Marie Monday** · 07-04-2021, 11:50 AM

I read it long ago so my recollections are vague, but I actually kind of liked that aspect of the book. Mainly from an absurd humorous point of view though, in that it's a way of baffling expectations. But I get your point, and I just realised East of Eden (which I love a lot too) has the same shortcoming to a lesser extent: it's a bit tell, don't show sometimes.

**Frownland** · 07-04-2021, 12:20 PM

Marquez could've shown a bit less of Jose Arcadio's massive dong imo. At the very least he could have gone into more detail on what the other dicks in the village were like.

**Marie Monday** · 07-04-2021, 12:27 PM

I had erased that from my memory

Lisnaholic · 07-04-2021, 03:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jadis

In the mid-20th century then?

Aha! Please consider my post edited like this, jadis:-

Quote:

"I read that book way back when "magic realism" was first becoming a popular term to apply to various works of Latin American literature. In England, that began with the paperback translation of "100 years", (1970). I probably read the book in about 1975."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frownland

Marquez could've shown a bit less of Jose Arcadio's massive dong imo. At the very least he could have gone into more detail on what the other dicks in the village were like.

I think Kurt Vonnegut did this in Breakfast of Champions, didn't he? At first characters are introduced with quite conventional descriptions, "a tall dark-haired man", but little by little the descriptions become more random, " a woman with an undiagnosed heart condition and a vestigal extra toe" before settling on penis size as the go-to detail to describe the male characters. Very neatly done by KV.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marie Monday

I had erased that from my memory

Me too, I'm happy to say.

**Marie Monday** · 07-04-2021, 03:36 PM

I think vonnegut pretty much immediately goes to dick size lol. He also mentions comments on the dick size of the main character in slaughterhouse five

BloodFoxTK · 07-04-2021, 04:48 PM

just started reading the biography of a fellow countryman.

07-04-2021, 12:20 PM	#7146 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	Marquez could've shown a bit less of Jose Arcadio's massive dong imo. At the very least he could have gone into more detail on what the other dicks in the village were like. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

07-04-2021, 04:48 PM	#7150 (permalink)
BloodFoxTK the only fox you need! Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: South Island, Mobius Posts: 249	just started reading the biography of a fellow countryman. __________________ https://card.psnprofiles.com/2/BloodFoxTK.png

07-03-2021, 07:29 PM	#7141 (permalink)
rostasi . Join Date: Aug 2012 Posts: 4,008