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Kelly's Reviews > Memories of My Melancholy Whores
Memories of My Melancholy Whores
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Kelly's review
bookshelves: fiction, 20th-century-postwar-to-late, partialprejudicedandignorantopinion
Jun 05, 2007
bookshelves: fiction, 20th-century-postwar-to-late, partialprejudicedandignorantopinion
This is it everyone- The most depressing book I have read. Ever. Yes. This book. Not the ones about the holocaust, brutal wars, awful diseases... this book. About an old man who has only ever slept with whores. I don't know why it got to me like it did, but I would read a few pages and feel physically sick to my stomach. It's not the subject matter (it's interesting), it's not the writing (he's Marquez)... it's just this sense of awfulness. This awful awful life he's lead, and what he has never known. What his little, vulgar life consists of.
Maybe Marquez is just too on his game here. He's just too good at creating this sense of emptiness, and this wasteland of a life. That isn't really all /that/ tragic. It's just so unutterably sad, I can't describe it.
I don't know what to rate it. I never finished it. And I haven't been brave enough to pick it up again since.
Maybe Marquez is just too on his game here. He's just too good at creating this sense of emptiness, and this wasteland of a life. That isn't really all /that/ tragic. It's just so unutterably sad, I can't describe it.
I don't know what to rate it. I never finished it. And I haven't been brave enough to pick it up again since.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
May 1, 2006
–
Finished Reading
June 5, 2007
– Shelved
June 5, 2007
– Shelved as:
fiction
March 2, 2010
– Shelved as:
20th-century-postwar-to-late
September 17, 2010
– Shelved as:
partialprejudicedandignorantopinion
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Konstantina
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May 02, 2014 04:00AM
I agree, this is a disturbing book. Pictures formed in my mind of winkled hands of a 90yr old man caressing a 14yr old girl made me cringe throughout. However, what is most disturbing is the implication that the girl is initially hurt by the old man not having "de-flowered" her in their first naked meeting!! Rather than relieved!! And it goes on with this narcissistic illusion of this old man by the woman-pimp informing him that the girl is madly in love with him. Errr, did I miss an irony intended here by Marquez?? If you can stomach the repulsive erotic scenes this book offers a lot of life wisdom about old age and life.
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Oh you should definitely finish it, the last two chapters are just wonderful!
The movies may be easier for you, it's on YouTube
You have to really understand small-town Colombian culture, where "whores" are part of every aspect of life, especially coming of age stories (and I guess aging, as in this case). Unless you put it in context, you will find it disturbing. Perhaps the book is too much for the narrow-minded North American culture.
Ah this review utterly misunderstands the book.
Konstantina wrote: "Pictures formed in my mind of winkled hands of a 90yr old man caressing a 14yr old girl made me cringe throughout. However, what is most disturbing is the implication that the girl is initially hurt by the old man not having "de-flowered" her in their first naked meeting!! ..."In the book the girl is never awake, she never even sees the old man who just sits there. There is no caressing and she never says anything throughout the whole book. There are no erotic scenes, images or discussions with the girl at all. All the disturbing images and girl being hurt are not in the book but in your mind.
It's like you read a completely different book.
if I live to be 90, I hope I'm like this guy
I don't understand how anyone can read this book and feel anything but disgust.(*SPOILERS*) This guy rapes his housekeeper, forces women who willingly sleep with him to take money as though they are prostitutes, jilts a woman that was for some indiscernible reason willing to marry him, and makes a living sex-doll (even if there's no sex in this case) out of a child young enough to be his great-granddaughter. Worst of all are the delusions of the author about women - this doesn't read like the work of a person who has ever met a woman in their life. And the most obvious, is no one f**king creeped out that he literally states he prefers this girl asleep than awake yet claims to be in love with her? How? You've never exchanged words, except when she once sleep-talked, you know nothing real about her, you don't care about getting to know her. This girl is literally just a doll to him, all he cares about is projecting his ideas of who she is on her - to the point he even refuses a chance to learn her name and instead calls her a name of his choosing - that choosing being, also disturbingly of this princess in a folk song whose father tries to rape her. That alone sums up the whole book. (*SPOILERS END*) This book is creepy at best no matter how you justify it and if you can't see that, then you are either really deluded or worse, lying to to yourself.
I agree in everything!!!
This is a book about the human heart, not current PC.As much as I resolutely support equality in 2019 America, I do not expect my values to be championed by every book I read.
Long, long ago in a land far, far away, there lived a man of 90 years who had never found love. This is a story of his life.
Sandra me know that you
OMG, I don't think I've ever read a review that's made me so damn curious to read the book in question. Call me morbid, or just in a really happy place at the moment, to the point where I can take this review as an invitation instead of a warning.
Hahaha�. I guess I don’t know how to respond to that but I would be very very curious what you end up getting out of this if you do read it!
Will be sure to drop my response here when I get around to it, probably in 2022 ;)
