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Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel…
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Memories of My Melancholy Whores (original 2004; edition 2006)

by Gabriel García Márquez, Edith Grossman (Translator)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
5,6561191,803 (3.48)140
On the eve of his ninetieth birthday, a bachelor decides to give himself a wild night of love with a virgin. As is his habit, he has purchased hundreds of women, and asks a madam for her assistance. The fourteen-year-old girl who is procured for him is enchanting, but exhausted as she is from caring for siblings and her job sewing buttons, she can do little but sleep. Yet with this sleeping beauty at his side, it is he who awakens to a romance he has never known.… (more)
Member:zvs
Title:Memories of My Melancholy Whores
Authors:Gabriel García Márquez
Other authors:Edith Grossman (Translator)
Info:Vintage (2006), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 115 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:****
Tags:None

Work Information

Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel García Márquez (2004)

  1. 120
    Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (heidialice, browner56)
    heidialice: Possibly too obvious of a recommendation? Very different takes on this central theme....
    browner56: Two different views of obsession masquerading as love; both books are so well written that you almost forget the sordid nature of the theme they share.
  2. 30
    No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (caflores)
  3. 20
    House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories by Yasunari Kawabata (drnqs)
    drnqs: García Márquez's novella is directly inspired by Kawabata's House of the Sleeping Beauties.
  4. 00
    Længsel på bestilling : roman by Janina Katz (Henrik_Madsen)
    Henrik_Madsen: To vidt forskellige beskrivelser af alderdommens melankoli og søgen efter erotik og kærlighed.
  5. 00
    Hell Has No Limits by José Donoso (caflores)
  6. 00
    The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (olonec)
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» See also 140 mentions

English (94)  Spanish (10)  Dutch (5)  Portuguese (Portugal) (2)  Italian (1)  Hungarian (1)  Danish (1)  Catalan (1)  Norwegian (1)  All languages (116)
Showing 1-5 of 94 (next | show all)
The writing is beautiful but the story is odd and disturbing. I wonder...was the entire story a senior delusion? ( )
  Chrissylou62 | Apr 11, 2024 |
Review soon. ( )
  buddhawithan.n | Feb 29, 2024 |
This is a lovely book. The title is misleading, as the story is really about one particular whore, an untouched one, and the love of a 90 year old man who has previously never experienced it.
A must read, especially as we grow into our dotage, a reminder of the possibility of spring even in the depths of November. ( )
  Dabble58 | Nov 11, 2023 |
Perhaps Marquez meant this as an unreliable narrator homage to Nabokov, hoping that would overcome the rather unseemly subject matter regarding the sexualization of an underage girl. It does not succeed - no matter the author's gift for language and description, it is overall distasteful. not sure how other reviewers get to "love story" or "rich and poetic" or "redemption" but I can't. I will have to try another of his.

2 bones!! ( )
  blackdogbooks | Jul 30, 2023 |
In an unspecified Caribbean seaside town in an indefinite year around 1950, the unnamed narrator – a playboy who has just turned 90 – falls in love for the first time. The object of his affections is “Delgadina”, an underage prostitute procured for him as a birthday present by an old acquaintance who runs one of the town brothels. Over a number of nocturnal encounters during which he is happy to merely observe and sleep next to the young woman, the protagonist finds value in abstinence and concludes that “sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love”.

The story itself is unlikely and, frankly, not particularly remarkable. What makes it striking is the way it is told - the sensuous beauty of the language, the wry observations about love and getting old, the magically shimmering descriptions, the prose glowing with a Latinate passion which is retained in translation (by veteran Spanish-to-English translator Edith Grossman). Newcomers to Gabriel Garcia Marquez should start here before moving to his longer, more demanding novels. ( )
  JosephCamilleri | Feb 21, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 94 (next | show all)
The relationship between the narrator and his virgin is really a relationship that exists inside the narrator's head, and since Mr. García Márquez makes little effort to make this man remotely interesting - as either an individual or a representative figure - it's hard for the reader to care really about what happens. Moreover, the trajectory of this narrative turns out to be highly predictable, leading to a banal ending to a banal story that's quite unworthy of the great Gabriel García Márquez's prodigious talents.
 
"Memories of My Melancholy Whores" is García Márquez's first book of fiction in a decade - since "Of Love and Other Demons," which was also a short novel about an unlikely romance. He has filled that time with memoir-writing: the first, large volume of his autobiography, "Living to Tell the Tale," was published here in 2003. So perhaps it's natural, after 10 years of looking back, that he has now treated himself, and his readers, to this sprightly, perverse little fable about looking forward
 
Het is niet de kleine omvang van Herinnering aan mijn droeve hoeren die verhinderd heeft dat het boek de hoogte van de beste romans van García Márquez bereikte. (...) Het is alsof de moralist de romanschrijver hier in de weg gezeten heeft. Het thema van de liefde, dat tot in de titels toe in zoveel van zijn romans terugkeert, moest één keer van alle picareske lust en sensuele ondeugd worden ontdaan, om zuiver te verschijnen.
Het resultaat werd, tragisch genoeg, het omgekeerde. Liefde blijft in deze roman grotendeels een woord, terwijl de woorden die tot nu toe bij García Márquez garant stonden voor een bedwelmend vitalisme te vaak ontbreken. (...) Het boek eindigt krachteloos, alsof het de neergang van de ouderdom waartegen het zich verzet onwillekeurig moet erkennen.
added by sneuper | editNRC Handelsblad, Ger Groot (Dec 3, 2004)
 
Gabriel García Márquez werd beroemd met Honderd jaar eenzaamheid, de exuberante roman die hem voorgoed het stempel magisch-realisme opdrukte. Herinnering aan mijn droeve hoeren hoort bij het deel van zijn oeuvre dat bestaat uit korte, zeer ingehouden geschreven romans.
Gabriel García Márquez laat zich in zijn eerste fictiewerk in ruim tien jaar van zijn vertrouwde goede kant zien. De liefde, en vooral de liefde waarvan de vervulling een mensenleven op zich laat wachten, is een vast thema in het oeuvre van de Colombiaanse grootmeester. Het lijkt geen toeval dat hij het thema van 'de oude man en de maagd' opnieuw heeft willen vertellen nu hij zelf op de leeftijd van 77 is aanbeland.
added by sneuper | editde Volkskrant, Cees Zoon (Dec 3, 2004)
 

» Add other authors (7 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
García Márquez, Gabrielprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Artmann, KülliTÕlkija.secondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Emmus, ÜloKujundaja.secondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Grossman, EdithTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
ΣΩΤΗΡΙΑΔΟΥ… ΚΛΑΙΤΗTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Marrodán Casas, CarlosTł.secondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Meksi, MiraTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Morino, AngeloTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Morvan, AnnieTraductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Nepomuceno, EricTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Nurmik, KaiToimetaja.secondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ploetz, DagmarTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Risvik, KariOvers.secondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Risvik, KjellOvers.secondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sabarte Belacortu, MarioleinTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Yulzari, EmiliyaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Zischler, HannsSprechersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
榮一, 木村翻訳secondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
"He was not to do anything in bad taste, the woman
of the inn warned old Eguchi. He was not to put his
finger into the mouth of the sleeping girl, or try
anything else of that sort."

      - Yasunari Kawabata,
     House of the Sleeping Beauties
Dedication
First words
The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.
El año de mis noventa años quise regalarme una noche de amor loco con una adolescente virgen.
(Slovene)
Tisto leto, ko sem dopolnil devetdeset let, sem si zaželel podariti noč strastne ljubezni z deviškim dekletom.
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Wikipedia in English (1)

On the eve of his ninetieth birthday, a bachelor decides to give himself a wild night of love with a virgin. As is his habit, he has purchased hundreds of women, and asks a madam for her assistance. The fourteen-year-old girl who is procured for him is enchanting, but exhausted as she is from caring for siblings and her job sewing buttons, she can do little but sleep. Yet with this sleeping beauty at his side, it is he who awakens to a romance he has never known.

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Book description
Spanish
blurb: On the eve of his ninetieth birthday, our unnamed protagonist - an undistinguished journalist and lifelong bachelor - decided to give himself ‘the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.”
The virgin, whom an old madam procures for him, is splendidly young, with the silent power of a sleeping beauty. The night of love blossoms into a transforming year. It is a year in which he relives, in a rush of memories, his lifetime of paid for sexual adventures and experiences a revelation that brings him to the edge of dying - not of old age, but at long last of uncorrupted love.
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